Truly Unique Bags

Wandering around the Internet recently I came across a fantastic bag shop, www.eco-handbags.ca. Their philosophy is “offering the conscientious consumer, chic, unique and fashionable handbags created from recycled and eco-friendly materials.” And the designers, from all over the world, really do make bags from anything and everything recycled – from 35mm slides to truck tyre inners to skateboards – you wouldn’t believe it was possible! Prices range from $12 (approximately £6) to $250 (approximately £125). Having spent literally hours on this site (I do love handbags!) I thought I would share some of my favourites:

Carpet Bags
These bags are handmade in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire from "Silkie" carpet that is apparently made from cotton and viscose (fibre from plant cellulose and therefore biodegradable in time). The bag pictured is $230 (£115) but they also do handbags for as little as £25! And the bonus of these bags is that because they are made from hardwearing carpet they will last for years and still look as good as new.

35mm Slides
The company that makes these bags, RedCamper describes itself as ‘a celebration of family, travel, summer vacations, road trips, tourist traps and countless games of I Spy.’ Maura Gramzinski founded the company after she inherited thousands of travel slides from her Grampa. To celebrate her grandparents’ sense of adventure she wired together some of the slides to make a unique bag, and as they say – the rest is history.

The bag in the image, 7 Wonders, has slides from tourist traps worldwide throughout the years. Also there is apparently only one slide that is duplicated to place in every bag – the naked lady slide, according to the designer her Grampa used to slip this into every slide show just to check everyone was paying attention!
Skateboards
I think these are amazing and still can’t quite work out how they do it! Although according the designer they involve a ‘very time-consuming, labor-intensive process’. I can’t say I’m surprised I mean really how do you make a skateboard into a bag!? Although I have only picked a few examples this site is truly amazing to look around and I could have gone on and on picking out bags to share with you. And not only does eco-handbags.ca have stunning one off bags but it also has interesting information on the designers and some of the good causes they are working for. I would definitely recommend whiling away a rainy afternoon browsing.

Friendly Festivals!

The festival season is now officially upon us, with Glastonbury taking place the other weekend, and this year they, and other festivals, have become more environmentally friendly than ever before.

Agreenerfestival.com, an advice website to help both festival organisers and revellers be as eco-friendly as possible, have this year awarded more of their Greener Festival Awards than ever. Here is a list of the most planet friendly festivals and what they are doing to help:

Latitude Festival, 17th-20th July – Latitude is held on the Suffolk coast and describes itself as ‘more than a music festival’, with music, comedy, theatre, cabaret, literature, art, film, poetry, dance and even a children’s area. Latitude boasts the world’s first fuel cell powered festival stage. They are also handing out camper’s kits as people arrive, containing recycling bags, using only biodegradable food packaging, plates, cups and cutlery, and supplying re-usable beer cups.

The Glade, 17th-21st July – The Glade is the UK’s largest festival with no sponsors, claiming to give you a break from the ‘real world’. Although it doesn’t give you details of its eco efforts all festivals awarded the Greener Festival Award have to meet certain criterions.

Summer Sundae Weekender, 8th-10th July – sister event to The Big Session Festival, Summer Sundae Weekender is now in its 7th year. This year they will be making every effort to be as eco-friendly as possible; recycling plastic bottles, cardboard, paper and glass with a company called the Complete Wasters. They will also be serving all pints in compostable glasses and camera film canisters will be given out for fag butts. Summer Sundae Weekender is also doing their bit to help after the festival by giving away 1000 energy saving light bulbs to festival goers. According to their website if only 50 of these bulbs are used for their full lifetime it will offset the festival’s 25 tons of carbon emissions.

Big Chill, 1st-3rd August – The Big Chill have teamed up with Sunrise Celebration (after Sunrise was washed out by flash floods in Somerset) and is doing its bit using 100% renewable energy, compost toilets and solar showers.

Croissant Neuf Summer Party, 15th-17th August – This festival bills itself as ‘Britain’s premier solar-powered music event’, using a 10KW PA system that runs on the sun’s energy.

Creamfields, 23rd-24th – In its 10th year, dance festival, Creamfields are working with Liftshare.com to encourage more environmentally friendly travel to and from the festival. They will also have a bar run on wind turbines and have a ‘tent donation station’, which will be put to good use, with any tents left behind from the event sent to parts of the world where they are needed most to provide shelter.

The Waveform Project, 12th-14th September – Waveform claims to be Britain’s first green dance festival. It will have composting toilets, eco talks and workshops and all the energy used will be from a renewable source.

Earthdance, 13th September – Earthdance is the largest synchronised dance event in the world. It is a ‘global dance festival for peace’ taking place in 300 locations in 60 countries, with half of all money raised going to good causes.

Biome Lifestyle fully supports these festivals and their efforts to ensure that they are as eco-friendly as they can be.

Get on your cardboard bike

A student at Sheffield Hallam University has created a unique cardboard bicycle, which aims to reduce thefts and encourage people to get out of their cars and 'on their bikes'.

Phil Bridge, who graduates this year from BA (Hons) Product Design, created the bike to support the principle of cheap and ecological transport. The prototype is made almost entirely from recyclable and recycled materials, using interchangeable mechanical parts.

Research shows that a bicycle is stolen every 71 seconds in England which made cycling enthusiast Phil realise that theft was one of the main barriers to bicycle use. The 21-year-old hopes that his work will be taken on by a company who can see the bike's potential as a green marketing gimmick.

Phil said, 'The lightweight quality of the cardboard, combined with its low cost, means it is possible to create a bargain-bike that is also less susceptible to thieves. At the moment low-cost bikes are usually very heavy, which can also put people off.'

Biome thinks what a great way to get on your bike and pedal!

Greenpeace and Green Futures

My husband and I spent quite a lot of time walking around the Greenpeace and Green Futures fields, which were really interesting. The Greenpeace fields had ‘Hot Eco Showers’ and also information on recycling, composting, making your homes more energy efficient and a fantastic skating ramp made from FSC wood for kids.
These areas also had many amazing organic food stalls, which we were sure to keep sampling!

Another area of interest was between the Greenpeace and Green Futures walkway. They had some very interesting signs regarding waste and recycling – see below

I am sure I will include some of these facts and images on the Biome Lifestyle website as they really did make the people we were with stop and think.

Glastonbury Festival 2008

Well, we’re back and we’re pleased to say we successfully survived our first ever trip to Glastonbury Festival! We had a great time and it was nice to have a weekend off work, for once!

The line-up although definitely not as strong as previous years, was still extremely entertaining.

Most of all, we were very lucky with the weather. However, arriving Friday morning in heavy rain wasn’t the best start! We were thankfully prepared for the elements in waterproofs and wellies. The same can’t be said for everyone though… Take a look at my photo from outside Millets by the Pyramid Stage!

I thought this was pretty iconic of the day – the fields soon became muddy and those who were wearing shoes were really struggling to walk around! It also seemed quite sad to see so many abandoned shoes, just dumped and left in the mud – I really hope they were recycled or given to a charity shop (after they had been cleaned that is!).

It was shocking to see how much waste there was at Glastonbury though. I suppose with 300,000 people (or more?) there will be some litter but the fields were covered. Thankfully, the festival had hundreds of charity volunteers who picked litter everyday.

The sun shone for the rest of the weekend though, hurray, which hopefully meant no more abandoned shoes!

All in all, we had a great time and will be sure to be going back again!

New Designers 2008

I have been so busy with work recently, that I haven’t had a chance to make it to the New Designers Show at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

I am determined to take a couple hours out of my day though to see the show, as it really is one of my favourites.

The event showcases design talent from around the country. Categories range from architecture to furniture to fashion. The event brings together over 4,000 graduates from a vast range of universities and design colleges such as The University of Leeds to Central St Martins College in London. New Designers 2008 will take place in two stages, from 3-6 July and the 10-13 July.
Biome Lifestyle has in fact worked with a few designers, after noticing their talent at the New Designers Show. I wonder who we will find this year…