Friday, December 08, 2006
Confessions of a Polkadot Pt. 2
Continuing my series on going polka dot* I'm tackling recycling today.It's pretty easy to recycle these days - 9 out of 10 of us have easy access to recycling facilities.
However, the biggest contributor to global warming is carbon - ie., what we buy or make produces carbon dioxide or monoxide as a major pollutant, and is a by-product of pretty much every form of manufacturing, which sends global warming through the roof.
In short, we can recycle all we want, but unless we reduce the amount of stuff we consume in the first place, it won't make a great deal of difference (apart from less stuff going into a landfill site round the corner).
I'm not particularly interested in whether or not a hotel in Norfolk has got their waste down to half a wheelie bin a week (although they have, apparently), but I needed a new sweater the other day. So I decided on the polka-dot option: Now, I could revisit my student days and go to Oxfam, but I didn't really fancy that idea, as I don't do hippy.
However, it turns out that there's a wing of Oxfam called TRAID, who get designers to hand sort, redesign and reconstruct old stuff and re-assemble it. The proceeds go to various projects around the world. There's one in Brixton (a TRAID shop, not a project), which I went to a year or so ago - maybe I wasn't looking too hard, but it all seemed a bit crap. So I took advantage of the fact that I was doing a job in Notting Hill recently to visit the one over there. After all, Notting Hill's cast offs are probably going to be a bit nicer than Brixton's.
Sure enough, £25 later I was the proud owner of a hoodie that I'm not be embarrassed to wear.
It also turns out that there's a company in Bermondsey that do the same with trainers (the Worn-Again range). Now THESE look good. Wish I'd known before I bought the chav-white affairs that I'm currently wearing. Nevermind.
Clean up fashion
Labour Behind the Label
*For those of you who don't know what I mean by "going polka-dot", you'll have to scroll down and read my previous post dated Wednesday 29th November 2006.
