One of the great things about this time of year is the fact that you can light candles to add mood to your home. If you are uncomfortable about buying those blocks of cheap tea-lights from major retailers, you might like to think about ethical ones.
How about hand-made soy wax tea lights which are non-toxic, GM-Free and don’t use materials from deforested rainforests?
Most ‘normal’ candles are made using paraffin, a by-product of crude oil, and many people are concerned about the environmental impact of oil based processes and products. Soy wax, on the other hand, is made from soy beans - a renewable resource.
HapiBean, based in Watford, is offering a selection of ethical tea-lights which you can order online. Have a look at
http://www.hapibean.co.uk/ where you will also find an interesting section of the comparison between paraffin and soy wax.
Might be just the thing for your ethical seasonal decorations.
Ethical Candles
Lighting up your Spending
Simple but stunning, this lamp, by French designer Elise Fouin is made from a reused cash register receipt roll.
Using recycled paper is not new, artists and designers are using it as a material for many projects, but this lamp has a simplicity which works and is just one example of Fouin’s innovative use for paper.
Perhaps the next model will use low energy light bulbs.
More details on Elise Fouin’s website: www.elisefouin.com
[Via; Dvice]
Do it Yourself Light Shade
As the world switches over to low energy light bulbs (a little), there are masses of the old style bulbs being left on the shelf. See the item below.
Rather than bin them why not collect them (if you don’t have enough bulbs yourself rope in your local friends), and make your own recycled light shade?
‘Bulbs Unlimited’ is a German based company which supplies a kit to help you ‘stick’ your light bulbs together in a variety of shapes and forms. The result – a sculptural light shade made from all those old bulbs.
You can attach bulbs together in a variety of shapes and build ‘light objects’ in almost any size you feel fits into your room. What is really nice is that you can also unclip them and make them into a new shape!
Bulbs Unlimited’s web site has a slide show to give you an idea of how it all works (very simple) and you can order a starter pack online. The ‘Rookie-Pack’ contains all the pieces you need to make one light ‘object’ (supply your own light bulbs!) and costs 39.95 Euros + post and packing. Once you get good at this you can add to your ‘construction kit’ and make larger light shades. So, light up your home and recycle your old light bulbs at the same time.
www.bulbs-unlimited.com
Change your Light Bulb
This probably isn’t going to save the planet but it might make you think about saving it a little.
Artist Scott Amron has a series of works related to domestic energy usage. His Die Electric pieces use familiar ‘American’ plug based ‘sculptures’ which help draw your attention to ‘that thing in the wall’ which we take very much for granted.
‘Candull’, illustrated here, takes a familiar candle and installs a screw base on the bottom. Take your bulb out of your light fitting and replace it with the ‘screw’ candle. Visitors to your home will ask what it is – and you might start to notice how many light fittings you have around you.
Simple, conceptual, almost practical and the sort of gentle ‘irritant’ artists are good at.
Mind you, at $65.00 you probably don’t want to set fire to it – think ‘sculptural installation’ rather than ‘wax candle’.
No news of a UK (bayonet) fitted version (and probably not so elegant) but if you have light fittings from shops like IKEA, most of them use the more familiar European screw fittings so you won’t feel left out.
http://www.dieelectric.org/
Celebrate Green Weeks in West Bridgford
On Saturday 9th June the West Bridgford Summer Gathering will take place between 10am - 2pm
Join us (behind the farmers' market in Bridgford Park), to help celebrating Green Weeks and visit the variety of people taking part: Freecycle, Ecoteams, Teddy Bear's Picnic, Craft, Plants, Cakes, Clipper Tea, The Green Box Shop, River Nene Organic Deliveries, Money saving Eco tips, the Vendablenda, Jo Jingles, U3A.
Carry your Juice Box
It seems we drink a lot of juice. Healthy and good for you but we then throw all the packaging away – tonnes of the stuff.
A women’s cooperative in the Philippines is doing something about it and making a range of bags, purses and accessories from recycled juice packs - non-biodegradable foil and plastic packaging that would otherwise go into landfill sites and incinerators.
The Cooperative began as an environmental project with the aim of 'cleaning and greening' the local neighbourhood. It has since become increasingly successful and now employs over 200 women and distributes its innovative products world-wide.
They have a huge range and orders are processed in London for UK delivery.
More details at www.doybags.com
Lighting up
There is a lot of art out there made from recycled objects and materials.
A new exhibition at the Lincart Gallery in San Francisco, USA, just opened with elegant light sculptures and digital prints by Bill Culbert. Recycling isn’t mentioned – and it isn’t an issue in his work (on an eco level), but the results are worth a look and they do use found and reclaimed objects. The piece illustrated here uses Ecover bottles - stunning!
Biodegradable Furniture
US based, British designer Julian Lwin produces objects using Eco or recycled elements. His Bio Tube Bench is constructed using cardboard tubes with embedded seeds. This can be grasses, herbs or wildflowers. You water it, the bench sprouts and, eventually, biodegrades so you can have a place to sit in the garden and allow it to become part of the garden once it has degraded. Visit Lwin Design for more details.
Recycled Light Shade
In December we featured a chandelier made using Bic pens and now, something even more eco friendly in the shape of an elegant light shade/sculpture made from recycled rubbish.
Berlin based, British designer, Stewart Haygarth has produced this “Tide” chandelier as part of a larger body of work using ‘man made’ debris washed up on the Kent coastline. This large lamp measures 150 cm in diameter and is illuminated using a 100w incandescent light bulb. There are ten in the edition and price is on request.
Haygarth has also made light shades using discarded party poppers and disposable plastic wine glasses. His site is well worth a look. www.stuarthaygarth.com
Now, where’s that pen?
People, all over the world, just can’t find a pen when they want one. Millions are missing and one design studio aims to recycle them.
The Madrid based studio enPieza has produced the Volivik chandelier, replacing all those cut glass prisms with Bic ball point pens. The edition is limited to 30 and will set you back a substantial $1,000. You might be inspired to make your own? Normally objects made from recycled products tend to disguise the original – here you can marvel as the light twinkles through your Bic.
