Vele “Christopher” Neluvhalani believes that on a fundamental level that people have always been connected to the earth, visible by the traces they leave behind, like the ancient rock art on the sandstone outcrops in Mapungubwe

Neluvhalani feels a deep connection to this ancient place, because his ancestors lived there thousands of years before him. He is bound to the area not only by tradition, but when he visits there and climbs to the top of Mapungubwe hill, he feels he has returned home

Mapungubwe is one of South Africa’s most sacred places. It is a World Heritage Site, the site of the earliest Southern African kingdom, a National Park and a Transfrontier Conservation Area. But by July 2011 the South African Government had granted Australian-owned mining company Limpopo Coal a series of permits to construct a large opencast coal mine in this ancient cultural landscape.

Many people, including Neluvhalani, do not agree with this;

This is because the recent announcement that authorisation has been given to Australian-owned company Limpopo Coal to construct an open-cast mine just outside of the boundaries of the park will irreparably alter the landscape. It is for this reason that Neluvhalani believes that “it would be an offence to our ancestors to start mining in the area.”

Neluvhalani was involved in the reburying of his ancestors’ remains at Mapungubwe, after they were recently reclaimed back from a museum collection and restored to their rightful place- a place that will be disturbed if mining is to go ahead

“Once we tamper with Mapungubwe we will be tampering with the past,” says Neluvhalani, who feels that the ties we have to our ancient places like Mapungubwe compel us to prevent them from being compromised, and that “everyone in South Africa should be united to help preserve Mapungubwe”

Submitted and written by: Green Renaissance

You can install a Geyser Blanket yourself which is relatively quick and easy, or hire someone to do it for you. Costs range from about R60 – R500 depending on whether you are buying one yourself or not. That’s very cheap considering you’ll be saving between 10-20% of your electricity bill every month!

If you want to install it yourself you can buy a kit from any major Hardware store around the country

Why should you buy a geyser blanket?

• A geyser blanket is proven to save up to 1 800kw/h per year! (depending on the size of your geyser)
• Reducing your homes electricity requirements, reduces your carbon footprint and therefore directly benefits the environment
• It is a once off installation with no maintenance or ‘’check ups’’ required for the rest of your geysers life!
• Geyser blankets are endorsed by Eskom

Have a look at our Shop to buy one today and sign up for the Challenge below:

This blanket can cut this energy use by half. It is not fiberglass, so is easily installed without mess. It is the equivalent insulation of 50mm fiberglass and has a long life span

Sizes and Costs:

Small 100L (1.8 x 1.2m)                   R120.00
Medium 150 – 200L (2.2 x 1.8m)    R150.00
Large 250-300L (2.6 x 1.2m)          R200.00

Prices exclude postage and are inclusive of VAT

Article By: Carlton Krumpfes

Many water industry experts, including Carlton Krumpfes, have exposed misconceptions held by consumers regarding bottled water. Many customers are misinformed by perceiving bottled water to be safer or healthier for people than ordinary tap water. Fact, bottled water batches have been recalled numerous times. The truth is neither tap-water nor bottled water is favorable for human consumption. At the Food and Drug Administration, only one person oversees the entire department responsible for bottled water. The FDA classifies water as a food and uses the same nutritional metrics which tell the consumer no relevant information regarding the water as the label consists of all zeroes. Pertinent information regarding the water we drink does exist such as: Total Dissolved Solids, PH Level, Minerals Present, Source and Date of Production.

Multi-national corporations like Nestle (the world’s largest owning ice mountain and perrier) have become known as “water hunters” as they dig holes all over the Earth like oil companies to exploit the Earth in the name of profit. Like oil the good is an inferior option, an unwise choice for consumers, and detrimental to the planet. Water bottles are made from (you guessed it) oil! If you really want to go green, give up bottled water today and do not buy a bottle again until our voices are heard.

The plastic water bottles are made from PETE also known as polyethylene terephthalate a thermoplastic polymer resin of the polyester family. Acetylhyde is a colorless volatile substance that can diffuse from the plastic water bottle at high temperatures and absorbed into the water. When bottled water leaves the factory acetylhyde is usually not present which the bottled water industry loves to tout. However, by the time consumers receive the bottled water, acetylhyde can be present due to high temperatures as semi-trucks travel through the desert to destinations.

In addition to the scary compound acetylhyde, antimony is also a catalyst in the production of plastic water bottles. The FDA recognizes antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) to be hazardous in levels exceeding six parts per billion. Trace amounts of the antimony toxic substance are present on all water bottles prior to being filled. Commentary published in Environmental Health Perspectives in April 2010 suggested that PETE might yield endocrine disruptors under conditions of common use. Mechanisms include leaching of phthalates as well as leaching of antimony.

Bottled water does not disclose the total dissolved solids or the PH level regarding the product we consume. Water with a PH level below seven is classified as acidic and above seven is alkaline. A number of water experts, including Carlton Krumpfes, recommend drinking water that is alkaline and has a PH level higher than seven. Alkaline water also known as kangen water will boost the immune system, benefit the body’s ability to maintain homeostasis, and can even help with weight loss.

Some water enthusiasts even claim that alkaline water slows the aging process. Almost all bottled water from Crystal Geyser to Ice Mountain and even Evian is acidic and potentially may be adversely impacting the health of their customers. Purchasing an alkalinizing reverse osmosis water purifier is a means of empowering one’s self to save money, help the environment, and drink the best water in the world.

http://www.bottledwaterboycott.com

Some of the popular choices being:

• Wild Olive
• White Stinkwood
• Yellowwood
• Fever Tree
• Acacia to name but a few…

The tubes are made from paper (recycled content) therefore being fully biodegradable. The tube consists of 2 parts, the inner and the outer (as shown above), each component fulfilling a specific function. The tubes have been designed in such a way to allow you to post the tree to any recipient in South Africa. The instructions are simple, once received you simply take the tree from the packaging and plant it in a suitable place in your garden

• The tube can be printed with your personalized message
• Our minimum order quantity is 100 units

This product can tie into any greening activity of a company. If you were to incorporate the mailer with a follow up call, to check if the tree was plant, you would be able use that green credit towards your overall Carbon Emission reduction

For ordering, prices or more information please click here or to send a mail click here

This locally produced starter packs is fully equipped with all that need to grow an Indigenous Tree. Beautifully packaged in a jute bag, perfect size for the beginning stages of growth to take place on your window sill, with all the basic instructions

Everything you’ll need:

• Biodegradable Bag (Inner & Outer)
• Growing Medium
• Seeds (±5)
• There is a wide range of indigenous tree species to choose from
• There are 3 different sizes available: Small, Medium and Large
• The steps are very easy to follow and are perfect for any desktop promotion or personal gift

Other Living Gifts that we offer:

• Baby Tree Tube Packs** (already germinated & ready for you to plant)
• Grow a Garden for window sill growing of herbs and flowers
• Tree in a Bag (high end version of the My Tree Starter Pack)
• Baby Pet Plants are perfect for keyring & desktop Eco awareness campaigns

(All the gifts are brandable to your specifications)

Our minimum quantity is 50 units (standard option turnaround ± 5 working days or sooner, depending on quantity and stock)

For more information about this Living Gift, please send us an email

Miacup is a modern, liberating way to deal with menstrual hygiene and one that solves many of the problems associated with traditional, antiquated methods. We are a 100% privately owned organisation and one that is committed to the belief that business without profiteering or exploitation is possible.

FEATURES:

• Can be worn for up to 12 hours at a time. Can be worn overnight
• Easy to clean. Nothing to throw away. Easy to sterilise
• Easy to use. Comfortable. No strings
• More reliable. Perfect for swimming & other sports
• Perfect for travelling. Requires less space to store/pack
• Can be worn before start of period
• Contains no harmful substances. Leaves no fibres behind
• Hypoallergenic
• Does not interfere with the body’s natural processes. Does not irritate or dry
• Environmentally friendly. Lasts for years. Cost effective
• Can be worn by more women. Can be used with an IUD
• Ethical

To illustrate our confidence in the product, we are offering a generous return/exchange policy with every Miacup purchased directly from our website. For hygiene reasons, no returned units will ever be resold. Every Miacup is shipped hygienically sealed in tamper-proof packaging. Click here for details

TO ORDER TODAY:

Simply order online with us (with free shipping) by clicking here

Why do we throw our kitchen waste into the garbage bin that ends up in landfills?

Why do we pay garden services to haul away loads of garden-waste?

Why do we spend so much on buying compost?

Throw it into a wormbox! Make it work for you and not only save time and money but you can be certain that your compost is organic! Put back into your garden exactly what it needs. Earthworms make gold from garbage – in every sense! These neat and sturdy units are filled with earthworms and they work very hard to convert your household waste to compost

4-TRAY WORMBOX CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING:

• Base stand
• Collection tray
• Tap and other necessary hardware
• 4 more working trays – not the normal 3
• Initial bedding (2 bags or 1 brick of coconut coir or peat moss)
• A unique USA patent pending ventilation lid
• A step-by-step instruction manual
• Available in green or black

PRICING:

• 1 all-inclusive WormBox (excl.worms)       R 800 each
• 3 or more WormBoxes (excl.worms)         R 725 each
• 10 or more WormBoxes (excl.worms)       R 650 each
• Worms                                                       R1 per 1g (100-200g recommended)
• Extra Tray                                                  R100 each
• 1 liter FRESH vermitea (1 weeks notice required)                  R30
• Vermicompost made from plants – no animal waste (5 litre)   R50
• Educational Package for schools (incl a 2 hr programme in which we explain the benefits of earthworms, recycling, etc. We can also help with the set-up and advice on their vegetable gardens)            R2,000

POSTAGE:

• To Pretoria or Johannesburg (24hr door-to-door)        R50
• To outer areas (using South African Post Office):
  • Wormbox AND worms                                          R50
  • Worms only                                                           R20
  • Wormbox only                                                       R40

• In South Africa an average of 13 million printer cartridges are used each year, with at least 80% of these going straight to landfill once empty
• Empty printer cartridges are a hazardous waste and in addition the plastic casing takes years to decompose

OUR CHALLENGE: get your school, office or community involved in aiming to prevent 30% of the cartridges South Africa uses from going to landfill by December 2012

__________________________________________________________________________

SIGN UP TO GREEN OFFICE NOW – FREE Nationwide collection

Written by Loren Phillips

Given that entire industries are in the process of re-evaluating their business models to figure out whether they can carry on doing business in the same way as they did post-2008, this is a question the fashion industry warrants asking. What the recession certainly showed us was that if your business is not sustainable, it will have to shut its doors. Even the famous Lehman Brothers were not immune to the fatal Wall Street crash. So what practices within the fashion industry are not likely to survive the next fifty years?

According to Wikipedia1 , “Sustainable fashion, also called eco fashion, is a part of the growing design philosophy and trend of sustainability the goal of which is to create a system which can be supported indefinitely in terms of environmentalism and social responsibility. Sustainable fashion is part of the larger trend of sustainable design where a product is created and produced with consideration to the environmental and social impact it may have throughout its total life span.”

The new mantra of the business world is “triple bottom line”. Companies need to start taking a triple bottom line approach when it comes to re-evaluating their business models. Profit, of course, is inseparable from business, but what this new model includes are both people and planet. Important questions that need to be asked at this stage are:

• “What is the impact of my business on the lives of others?”
• “What is the impact of my business on the planet?”

Asking these two questions above and beyond the “How am I going to make money?” you should get a good idea of whether your business will live to see the 21st Century.

Fashion is an industry that is guilty, through its messaging and its non-stop turnover, of portraying itself as cheap, readily available and “must-have”. “The collective result is a homogeneous look that is far less interesting and much more disposable”2.

The fashion industry is responsible for the use of sweatshops and child labour. As the world becomes more connected, these types of business practices are simply unsustainable (not to mention unethical). The price tag usually lays testament to this fact, the cheaper the garment, the more likely it is to have come from unsound sources. An important question has become: “What is the true cost of this garment?”

The true cost underlines the environmental and social damage that it has caused making its way through the value chain and to you, the end user. Shoppers also need to take responsibility for their part, realising by making that purchase, they are creating the demand that feeds the supply.

Then there are fashion shows. Gorgeous, glamorous affairs no doubt, but at what cost? Fashion editors fly from all around the world to attend these soirees and no cost is spared moving textiles, trims and any other accoutrement from point A to point B. The carbon cost of these events is staggering, and more importantly, unsustainable in a world that is increasingly counting carbon dollars. It’s also worth a mention at this point that models starving to death is hardly a sustainable state of affairs.

And all of this for what? So that the world can watch the show on FTV as it happens, and the photographs can be spread digitally just minutes later. Fashion editors are just not the be-all and end-all of the fashion industry like they once were. The digital age is here, and rising to prominence are street style sites and fashion blogs. So what is all the fuss about? Savvy designers like Victor and Rolf have noticed the shift and are gearing up for the new world, presenting digital fashion shows online for all to see. The democratisation of fashion is already in full swing.

Sustainable fashion, a contradiction in terms?

The recent PSFK Salon held in Soho, panelists discussed various key issues related to sustainability in fashion. An important point that emerged was that: “Given that aesthetics and style concerns drive the industry both from a brand and consumer perspective, it became clear from the get-go that in any conversation around fashion, the fashion itself has to come first, meaning that sustainability has to naturally co-exist alongside these expectations.”3 It was also noted that brands play a central role in the education of consumers around issues of sustainability. Although there is a trend, mostly within mature consumer markets, towards slower, more considered consumption, people on the whole need to learn how to purchase with a different set of values in mind, for example:

• Will it last?
• Does it really suit me?
• Can I wear this in five years time?

The onus is also shifting onto big brands in terms of education. Brands leading in the sustainability discourse are integrating sustainable thinking into their core value system, allowing these messages to role out through the various media channels they have available to them. Of course, one of the positive benefits of this is an upswing in positive brand sentiment, especially amongst the younger generation who see “doing good” as one an essential tenet of being a big brand with a massive reach and influence. Big brands need to consider themselves more responsible in the race towards a sustainable future, as the have global reach and are in the financial position put do the research and development necessary in the creation of greener alternatives.

Moving through this transitionary period, we are seeing a large instance of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing refers to “the deceptive use of green Public Relations (PR) or green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company’s policies or products (such as good or services) are environmentally friendly. The term ‘green sheen’ has similarly been used to describe organisations that attempt to show that they are adopting practices beneficial to the environment.”4

Greenwashing is dangerous to the entire sustainability effort as it erodes consumer trust, something which is very difficult to rebuild (note how much damage Nike has suffered with their sweatshop scandal). The difficulty lies in the fact that the terrain is largely unchartered, without the proper legislation to guide best practices. Time will see this rectified as sustainability auditing comes into place5, but in the meantime, savvy consumers have already woken up to false claims and are taking companies to task. Companies need to recognise the importance of authenticity in their messaging, and need to be honest about what has been accomplished and what challenges lie ahead.

Sadly, sustainability thinking is featured more in the posts of green blogs like Treehugger, than on the pages of fashion magazines, where the “green” trend made an appearance but then passed like another waning fashion fad. Digital activists are at the forefront of this debate with websites like Care2 and locally, I Am Changing the World , providing useful information to consumers about the environmental and health benefits of “conscious consumerism”. Some of the trends in sustainability viewed through the lens of fashion include seasonless fashion, the return to craft, localisation, vintage shopping and the move towards organic fibres.

What are designers doing locally?

Local designers largely have their hands tied as far as sourcing is concerned. We do not have a fully functional textile sector of which to speak, thus rely on imports of finished fabrics and have very little say over the process involved in manufacture.

If you are a designer, try source as much as you can locally. Design you own fabric. Start your own factory run on principles of fair trade, which maintain fair practices throughout the fashion value chain

What are retailers doing locally?

Perception of vintage shopping is changing in South Africa. In the last year or so we are seeing the mushrooming of vintage sales, from downtown to Jeppestown, with designers with an eye for a great vintage find selling their goods on to a market that is ready to start shopping in this way. Vintage styling marks the epitomy of individuality, as you can be almost sure that what you find, certainly only comes in one of a kind. Furthermore, it marks a huge backlash against mass produced, cheap, disposable goods.

What can you do as a consumer?

Realise that every single purchase you make, you are casting a vote. By creating a demand for whatever that item may be, you are requesting that more of it be supplied. Take a moment. Consider your next purchase. Mend your clothing. Buy vintage. Accessorise more. When you have the option, buy organic, even if it is only 5% at this stage. What you are telling the retailer is that that is what you want,and that is what you will pay for. Companies understand the language of money, and this is the way we should speak to them.

Fast Facts

• Cotton receives as much as 7 kg per hectare of herbicide and 5 kgs per hectare of insecticide (Source: US Geological Survey)
• Cotton uses more than twenty-five percent of all the insecticides in the world and 12% of all the pesticides (Source: Organic consumers)
• Global retail sales of organic cotton apparel and home textile goods have been soaring 40% per annum since 2001, according to the Organic Exchange
• The world’s top 10 organic cotton using brands last year, according to the OE, include Nike, Walmart, H&M, Levi Strauss & Co and Adidas
• Organic cotton production grew 20% in 2008/09 over 2007/08, across India, Turkey, Pakistan and 19 other countries, with growth forecast to set to continue at 20-40% through 2011
• Dozens of brands and retailers – who together consume 15 percent of the world’s cotton – have signed up to a global scheme called the Better Cotton Initiative, which aims to cut water and soil pollution while battling child and bonded labour. It involves 100,000 cotton farmers in China, Central Asia, Brazil and West and Central Africa. Retail giants Ikea and Levi Strauss sit on the council of the scheme (Source: Business Daily Africa)

References

1. wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_fashion
2. www.psfk.com/2010/09/innovation-and-sustainability-in-fashion.html
3. www.psfk.com/2010/09/video-psfk-salon-ny-how-sustainability-is-driving-the-fashion-business.html
4. wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
5. retail.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/457/52551.html