Urban Deceit

Urban Outfitters: a haven of the "alternative." Known especially for their artistic t-shirts, this international company flaunts the style that almost all teens and twenty-somethings long for. Even I have gazed longingly through the window at the new and interesting styles that I can only dream of creating myself.

Last night I was at the reunion concert of an awesome local band, Uncommon Knowledge. After the show, my friend went up and complimented the singer/guitarist's shirt. After thanking her, he mentioned that it was from Urban Outfitters.

This reminded me of a few months ago, when I was glancing at an article online and was scandalized by what I read. Not only does the owner of Urban Outfitters contribute to some politicians I find personally objectionable, he holds the classic defeatist attitude toward where he gets his products. The complete article can be found at The Philadelphia Weekly, but here's some pertinent information:

"Yes, says Hayne, nearly all of Urban Outfitters' apparel is manufactured in Third World sewing shops--just like nearly all of the clothing sold in this country. If Urban Outfitters relied on domestic union labor, says Hayne, most of his customers could not afford the price he would have to charge to turn a profit. All things being relative, he says, Urban Outfitters does not contract with any sewing shops that are overtly inhumane or exploitive.

'Years ago I visited one of the factories we work with in India, and there was 500 people standing in a line three people deep stretching around the building,' he recalls. 'I said to the foreman, "What's going on?" He told me they were all applicants for the four positions they had open. I toured that facility and it was reasonably clean--for India. And it was reasonably well-lit--again, for India. And yes, it was mostly young women working there. But it is my understanding that the only other option those women had to feed their families was selling their bodies. So I don't want to hear people from the suburbs with their fat American stomachs telling people in other countries how to run their societies.' "

While I find this funnily ironic, I am also slightly disturbed. Many people I know, including friends and relatives, shop at this store. Do they know where those products are coming from, and do they know how the company spends its profits?

Let this serve as a reminder for us all. When we buy new, we are perpetuating a cycle that we may not want to actually be a part of. Purchase with intention!

Happy Holidays from ABQ, NM.
Kate, loved the photo of the ultimate in recycled holiday cards. I will make it a point to save cardboard and Sharpies for next year, just in case. As for traditional cards, I was wondering if the city would recycle all this shinny cardstock when I noticed a blurb in the newspaper that St. Jude Ranch for Children will turn old holiday cards into new ones. Send card fronts to the organization at 100 St. Jude's St., Boulder City, NV 89006. The program ends February 28. I am all over this idea. I will be keeping some of my cards to create a different card for another occasion. For example, Kate, I am taking your family card and turning it into a thank you card for Dave (your father-in-law and my brother-in-law) and Jim-- I am excited to see how it turns out. I will try to insert a picture in my next post.

Also, I have been searching the web to learn more about the Compact Project. I am not sure what it says about me but I enjoy, usually with eyebrows raised, the ironies of life. On the Freecycle site, there is a tab labeled as "store". Turns out, you can buy *new* stuff on that site displaying the freecycle logo. Well, I guess they have to get revenue somehow, as in the end, nothing is really "free".
Happy New Year. LynnA

a recession yuletide

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'd like to celebrate this day on the Compact Project by sharing 2 wonderful gifts, one from this year, and one from many years ago.

First off is the BEST homemade Christmas card I have ever received, hands down. And I've made a lot of them...but this one wins the show due to the brilliant simplicity in using corrugated cardboard and a Sharpie marker. The back is done postcard style.

Next up is my very favorite winter hat, made by my sister Beth (who is also a member of Larkin's experiment). The hat is a simple, fun design made from fleece, and she added a rock on the front that she'd had for many years just floating around. The great thing is that Beth made this hat for me maybe 10 years ago now...and it continues to look fabulous and warm my head. Yay for homemade! Ho ho ho!

Compact: Compost

Thanks Mom for that last post, and the question you raised: "I'm wondering how common this is becoming...does your city provide composting services? Seattle composts, so if you pay for yard waste removal with your garbage service, they'll also take & use your food waste." And thank you to Clark for that comment. For those who missed it, he said that in Evanston, IL (outside of Chicago) there is no "kitchen waste" composting and even the composting of yard waste has been discontinued due to "funding, odor, and rodent issues." So, I was wondering how Seattle handles our compost in a way to avoid these issues as much as possible.

I found the answer at www.worldchanging.com:

"City staffers deliver residential compostable material to the Cedar Grove plant north of Everett (Cedar Grove staff manages the collection for commercial operations). After initially collecting in the tipping room (where truckloads are unloaded), materials travel along a conveyor belt, where metal and plastics are removed. The waste is then formed into piles and covered.

Cedar Grove uses GoreTM Cover Membrane Laminate Technology, a system of specialized covers, and regularly monitors temperature and moisture in the compost heaps. The high heat achieved in Cedar Grove's large-scale processing kills any weeds and pathogens, and also meets the standards for organic certification. After the two-stage heat aging process (approximately 21 and 30-45 days respectively), bagged compost is aged for an additional 18 months to ensure quality. Bulk compost is aged 6 to 12 months.

Finally, the bags of organic compost are delivered to stores around Seattle, where residents can purchase the natural fertilizer for use in their own yards. For homeowners, landscapers, gardeners, organizations like Seattle Tilth, and others, this would-be waste has become a wonderful resource!"

And from an article in The Seattle Times, I learned something very interesting. In San Fransisco, the birthplace of the Compact, they had composting nearly perfected as far back as 2003. "...food waste travels a 150-mile loop from restaurant to composting facility to vineyard and back. 'We're closing the nutrient loop and keeping food from just wasting in a landfill,' said Jack Macy, who runs San Francisco's food-recycling program."

I encourage Compacters and Compact followers alike to look into their city's compost program and find out how they can help to reduce in this fundamental way. If your city does not offer composting, starting your own program is easy. Many ways of composting can be found at www.seattletilth.org.

Christmas Creativity

I love that post about touring a paper factory in China, especially hearing that they were busy making our Independence Day party supplies...oh, the irony!

His colleague's comment about the napkins being so unsanitary made me think about how there are still so many people who will, without a thought, grab for the paper napkins & towels all day long. Dab the side of the mouth, toss the paper. Wipe up a slight drip, toss the paper. And this is paper that can't be recycled. Cloth napkins are SO easy to come by & way more effective for nearly any job. Thrift stores are always full of colorful napkins and kitchen towels. And napkins are about the easiest thing to sew out of any absorbent fabric.

Question. I'm wondering how common this is becoming...does your city provide composting services? Seattle composts, so if you pay for yard waste removal with your garbage service, they'll also take & use your food waste. I love that. It also gives you something more productive to do with those dirty paper napkins & towels...they may not be recyclable, but they are compostable (depending on what you cleaned up).

On a related paper-saving note, we took our Christmas cards to a new level this year. We usually make our own, so this time, in honor of Larkin's Compact Project we set a rule: make them with only supplies we already have around the house--buy nothing. Luckily, we're a crafty family, so we had plenty of supplies to work with. I have the remainder of a box of 500 recycled #10 envelopes, so we started with the assumption that this would be our card size & worked out from there. It also had to be a simple design, as we send over 50 cards to family & friends scattered around the world. I think they turned out nice. If you haven't received yours yet, act surprised when you get it! -k8-

Paper, Paper everwhere...not a scrap to note!

Greetings all,

What can I say? The headline is a lie. If anything, there was more paper and scraps to note down War & Peace...about a hundred million times. You see, I had an opportunity to visit two giant paper, stationary and playing card presses in central China. It is hard to describe the scale here, folks. To say "huge" would be to compare the pulp plant to a skyscraper...but it is bigger by far. More like a half-mile city block. To say "big" would be to compare the presses to a bus...but they were bigger too. More like a convoy. To say "lengthy" would be to compare the cutting, assembly and packaging lines to a walk in the park. But it took over two hours for each fast-paced tour.

And here is what I kept thinking through the whole thing: What a lot of waste! Take the legal pads being spun off at several thousand an hour. Imagine them going to all those stationary stores, and into people's briefcases and meetings. They get whipped out and a thought or two is scribbled on them, likely transferred to an email and...tragedy of tragedies...thrown away. I can't escape this image of a giant beast who gobbles up and later excretes giant loads of yellow...yellow...yellow...gunk.

As interesting was the "party" division that was part of the tour. They were spinning off napkins for July 4th. Beyond the irony of communist China supplying the mountain of Independence Day cups, napkins, hats, etc. was the delicious comment of my Chinese colleague, "I'll never use another paper napkin!" "Why?" I puzzled. "This is just so unsanitary!" I could see his point...an operating room it ain't.

What was just as interesting was when I got back from my trip, it turns out my daughter was learning about the paper process too. For homework she cut up a bunch of paper and soaked it in water for three days, then took that cellulose soup to school. Everyone then turned their mushy mess into another sheet of rough paper. It got me thinking...it may be easier to re-use that scrap than I thought and I'm going to give it a try. Stay tuned!

Anyway, perhaps noting the scale of the production will help you scale your consumption. For me, around my house and even in our office, we re-use paper a lot. We take envelopes and cut them for notes. We turn paper over and re-print on it for internal purposes, or at least cut it up for scratch paper. I hope that you are considering something similar! For beyond the "no buying" objectives...I try to use the "no waste" rule. After all, who wants to get that yellow stream all over them? (Oh, how I love puns...sorry to gross anyone out!)

on the hunt!

hi guys! what a busy time of the year! does anyone have any ideas about where a girl could get some used/recycled curtain rods or perhaps some advice about how to make some that will actually stay up with the curtains on them? my attempts have all failed!

i am fighting the vast temptation of getting a ride to ace hardware (who by the way are cooperatively owned!) and whipping out the visa, but it is so cold and the curtains need to go up soon!

muchas gracias in advance for any and all advice! happy homemade holidays everybody!

Hey Y'all!

I'm sorry it's been so long. I have been very busy in the last couple weeks, with school, work, school, musical auditions, school, college applications, and reading Hamlet.... for school. Yes, this is the life.

While reading the food article posted by Chris a thought struck me. Organic food is tasty, more so perhaps than .... other food with the sense of well being it gives you being even better, knowing you are both helping the environment and avoiding those nasty chemicals. And local organic food is even better, as Chris said: reducing the "giant carbon footprint"... and how more local can you get than your own back yard? (Or front yard, side yard, patio... etc.)

Of course, you say, it is nearly Winter and what silly person tries to grow anything in the snow/wet/cold? It is much easier to drive down to the national chain superstore a few miles away. Of course it is! But we are not doing this for easy: We are doing this for change.

That being said, feel free to check out this website devoted to gardening in the fall and winter.

And for those of you who are still unwilling to get down on your knees in the snow and freeze your hands off for the sake of a few carrots (and believe me, I understand!), check out this introduction to planter gardening in winter.

Happy Gardening! ~Larkin

Clippings!

Greetings all,

I thought these articles on local food were interesting, and thought you might like them too. (click headline for full story)

Organic restaurants where only diners come from afar, by Henry Skukman

Thoreau observed that humans are happily designed in such a way that the distance they can cover in a day's walking means that were they to spend every day hiking in a different direction from their homestead, it would take a lifetime to get to know every corner of their surround

Any region can use a patron saint, and in England's West Country, that saint is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (aka Hugh Fearlessly Eats-It-All). One of Britain's top TV chefs, Fearnley-Whittingstall is on a near-holy mission to return to the land. He had his first success with a show called "A Cook on the Wild Side," in which he traveled around cooking up game and wild plants on his camping stove.

A truly organic restaurant today needs a field of local suppliers. What good is an organic carrot or blueberry with a giant carbon footprint? Just as farmers' markets are spreading, so too is local-mindedness in restaurants. It's not just about carbon, but a deeper connectedness between people and land.

The kind of self-reliance a household would have known before the advent of processed and packaged foods, when good husbandry included knowledge of how to process food oneself, is precisely what Fearnley-Whittingstall is trying to revive.

From Hoof to Table, by Elisabeth Rosenthal

The cows and pigs dotting these flat green plains in the southern Netherlands create a bucolic landscape. But looked at through the lens of greenhouse gas accounting, they are living smokestacks, spewing methane emissions into the air.

That is why a group of farmers-turned-environmentalists here at a smelly but impeccably clean research farm have a new take on making a silk purse from a sow's ear: They cook manure from their 3,000 pigs to capture the methane trapped within it, and then use the gas to make electricity for the local power grid.

Rising in the fields of the environmentally conscious Netherlands, the Sterksel project is a rare example of fledgling efforts to mitigate the heavy emissions from livestock. But much more needs to be done, scientists say, as more and more people are eating more meat around the world.

Hello Larkin and fellow bloggers:

By way of introduction, my name is Lynn and I am married to John (Larkin's grandfather's younger :-) brother). We live in Albuquerque, NM. I have intrepidly joined the group and I anticipate and look forward to many challenges in the endeavor to reduce clutter, recycle, and learn to live more sustainably. Just today, I was at Office Max buying envelopes (for 15% off) & I thought, how would you not buy envelopes for a year? I shop some at thrift stores and I have never seen envelopes. However, John found this wonderful, old lamp at Thrift Town once and he rewired it and I use it on my desk. Having said that, we are "good consumers," if you know what I mean, and I will be challenged by the road ahead. I have already started to think differently in terms of purchases. This holiday season we will be giving some homemade treats, but alas, they will be in new Tupperware (did you guys know they still make Tupperware!); what can I say, I got to start somewhere. Also, we will be sending out hand made cards (a project I started last summer). In summary, I must say, that I am all for buying new underwear, as Larkin mentioned we could do in one of her posts. Larkin, I admire your “Senior Project” and I will acquire inspiration from you in the months ahead. Mas tarde. lynna

What an occaision...my first post!

Greetings all,

Thanks to Larkin for allowing me to post my thoughts here. I hope they are interesting to her readers, and that they spark good and fruitful discussion.

First, a bit about why I'm interested in blogging here. Second, a bit of background. Third, some thoughts on "me + Compacting."

First, I'm interested in blogging in the hopes that I'll get some helpful advice! Yep, my family and I need it. When reading about how the Compact Movement got started, I saw something of us. Hopefully you all have too, and we can learn from each other. The thing that rang true for us was that we too are fed up with recycling and other fixes that seem to fall way short. While we've tried our best, we'd still really would like some support and advice from others in changing "The Way It Is."

Second, as you read the posts, you should know a few things about me and us. We're a family of five, and we live in Hong Kong. We already feel "on the path" with The Movement...even if we do give ourselves certain slack. For example, we have never owned a new car. We mostly take public transport, even though we do have a car. I can count the number of pieces of new furniture we've bought in 15+ years of marriage on two hands and still have fingers left. We go clothes shopping about every two years. We pretty much eat at home and cook our own. We do our best to go local and organic. I wish I could say all of this was because we're so dedicated. Honestly, a lot of it is simple necessity. For example, we eat organic and local because eating food from China is just plain scary. For example, who wants to risk melmine poisoning? As for buying clothes, there aren't always the right sizes around here. (Being Caucasian, I'm a bit larger than you're average Asian, you see.)

Finally, we've been saving quite diligently for a house and for the kids' educations. So, in the end, I guess we're what's being called "frugalistas*." Considering our location - Central Command for The World's Factory - it is also interesting to compare and contrast the attitudes we run up against all the time. Some of our friends are equally frugal and concerned. Others are still dropping litter from their car windows. Its also interesting to be working with the world's factory workers and see how they live, hear their aspirations and what they think about the products they are making. I hope to share insights and information here! Finally, some initial thoughts on compacting: Its hard. Especially knowing what to do! For example, we have birthday parties for the kids. This year, after getting piles of junk that A) we knew was made of bad materials B) wouldn't really be played with and C) don't have space for, we thought about saying "no presents, please." However, that raised all sorts of questions and problems. "How will the kids feel when they don't get any gifts?" "What will the other parents do anyway?" (i.e. Will they listen?) "If we accept the gifts, can we give them away somehow? And how will the kids feel if they have to give them up?"

Also, I should admit my weaknesses. I said we allow ourselves some slack! For me... I love games. Video games. I do my best to wring every penny from them, but I often buy them somewhat impulsively. I also love coffee. Starbucks coffee. I don't know what I'd do without a little walk and Starbucks break. I am on the quest for the perfect hat. I have more than one (meaning...more than I have heads for), but still wind up getting them from time to time anyway. I am also on a quest for the perfect messenger bag. (And no...it doesn't ruin the clothes shopping assertion above!) Seriously, these are among the tougher challenges I'll be facing in order to further decrease consumption!

Thanks and happy reading.
Chris

*("frugalista, defined as “a person who lives a frugal lifestyle but stays fashionable and healthy by swapping clothes, buying secondhand, growing own produce, etc." On Language, by William Safire)