TALK WECOMEONE

Imagine not regular snow, but thick black snow.  Not clean rivers, but toxic dirty rivers. Air, added with a blend of sulphur dioxide. These aren’t ordinary towns, these are the top toxic towns.

Yes these are some areas that are deemed to be some of the polluted places in the World. There was a tear in my eye when 8 of the 10 were from eastern countries.

Sumgayit, Azerbaijan is the worst. The Soviet era saw some of its highest mortality rates, with many newly born babies suffering from genetical defects.

Linfen, Shanxi, China is next. As pictured, it has the worst quality air in China. Clearly  no surprises. Children in the province have high rates of lead poisoning. However, Linfen is adopting new measures. Its gradual shift from coal to gas for central heating, as well as other initiatives have resulted in 15 more days of clean and breathable air.

Russia, China and India each have 2 cities compiling to the list of 10.

Sukinda, India (4) has 12 mines which continue to operate without any environmental management plans. Shocking to here from an economical booming country. Its mine workers are consistently exposed to contaminated dust and water. Birth defects have also resulted to due the poor conditions.

A more famous area is Chernobyl, Ukraine (9). Away from the east, two further areas are La Oroya, Peru (6) and Kabwe, Zambia (10).

This ‘picturesque’ scene, around the Andes, doesn’t seem to spark a problem but toxic emissions and waste has led to high lead levels in the blood of local children.

It has been a similar occurance in Kabwe.

However, there is still light on these issues. $1bn can be spent on digging up toxic materials and having them sent to safer places. Just a case of pursuading the capitalists.

There is a pattern with these areas. Yes the majority are all eastern. Not too sure why other large western countries are not on the list. But most of the situations are linked to toxins.

Check out the link below for more info and what we can do.

http://www.blacksmithinstitute.org/

August and september are all about Wecomeone celebrating freedom. One key aspect to our Freedom Campaign is environmental freedom - Wecomeone supports this in the following ways -

We use Organic cotton from India and Organic dyes in the production of all our collections.We believe in protecting and saving our biodiversity of our planet and ensuring farms in 3^rd world get an opportunity to sell and compete in the market.

Fair Trade Standards -we pay our farmers equivalent to International Fair Trade Standards and ensure there is no use of child labour, we use local NGO’s to examine working conditions and child welfare. This gives these children the opportunity to educate themselves.

We know its early days as this is the first year we’re launching this campaign but with your support we can celebrate and promote Freedom. So Wear Freedom, break the mould and become a part of our campaign.

Hope you enjoy the Freedom sale, we’ve even given you complete outfit choices below - all fair-trade and organic of course.

Wecomeone: Make Unique Hoodie - royal

Terra Plana shoes: Root

The Green Apple: Chipps Shorts

Wecomeone: Day Dream T-shirt

Terra Plana shoes: Grass

The Green Apple: Lois Shorts - Khaki

Two of Britain’s leading retail chains are selling clothing made by child slaves, an Observer investigation reveals today. The exposé raises serious questions about this country’s soaring demand for low-cost clothing and has triggered angry calls for retailers to take far greater care in sourcing garments.In a network of mud-bricked sweatshops in the lawless Haryana area of New Delhi, India, this newspaper found dozens of children cramped together producing clothes for the UK high street.

For the rest of the article follow this link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/retail/story/0,,2063009,00.html#article_continue 

It’s day 6 on my trip to Holland, Den Haag, its political centre.

Today is Friday and the sun is shining.  About 100 yards from the flat in which i have isolated myself to write my book, I can see a central square.  The square is filled with people meeting one another, sharing a drink and catching up with what life has shown them the previous week.

The point worth noting is that one half of the square is full of people sitting outside drinking coffee or a glass of red wine, while the other half is full of bikes that people have rode to get there!  To ride a bike here is liking using your phone back home.  Its just normal to cycle every where.

Another point worth noting is that people aren’t just meeting their friends or colleagues, far from it, people are here with their families.  The kids cycle after school, the parents leave their work and cycle down at the designated cafe to meet them.  I saw tables where kids, their parents and grand parents were catching up.

It got me thinking…in England, we’d probably have been with mates, having an early p**s up! I wouldn’t have seen grandparents with their grand children in a fancy cafe drinking coffee or sharing a glass of wine.  It occured to me that here family is important, it is more central in everyones lives - as it should be! 

It got me thinking, when was the last time, i said to my granny, “hey come on, cycle down to town, and we’ll have coffee after I finish work”? 

Maybe I should.  Sure, people will look at me funny, but who cares!!  

Ethical fashion means fashion which takes into consideration the people behind the clothes we wear, as well as the environment. Photo credit: Kuyichi organic fair trade jeans.

When you buy a piece of clothing, you may not think twice about where it was originally made, by whom and under what conditions.

The clothing industry is a complex one - and all the clothes we wear have a story behind them. It is quite common for one piece of clothing - say a pair of jeans - to be made up of components from five or more countries, often thousands of miles away, before they end up in our high street store.

All the steps in the production of this pair of jeans affect the people working to grow cotton, to weave the denim and to make the jeans. These steps also affect the environment we live in.

Interested? To read rest of the article follow this link.

It’s a Monday. But we like Monday’s at Wecomeone. Why, you might be asking? Because we actually like what we do, in fact we really like what we do!

And to cheer up your Monday, here is video you must see on u-tube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpiI9fHWUpI

Nothing is made from nothing!

There has to be something first in order to create something else. Most things we need in order to survive come from scarce resources, whether it is coal, wood, fertile land, oil… These things determine whether you have a Porsche, or a dog with a saddle. Natural resources will not last forever, but there is one specific resource which is more valuable than the rest – wood. Wood comes from trees, trees and plants are the umbilical cord of all life on earth, because they exchange oxygen for carbon dioxide.
 

We all know that resources are consumed very quickly, especially with today’s philosophy of consumption. The way that trees are cut leave no fertile land for re-forestation, and since trees are mostly made from carbon, the more trees that are burnt, the more carbon dioxide there is in the air. This contributes to global warming; I find it quite frightening that the amount of polar ice caps melting per year is equivalent to the land mass of Texas. That much water and carbon dioxide is sure to cause a significant imbalance in the atmosphere. With the changing weather, who knows where and when the snow will fall next?

I already miss snow on Christmas, my kids probably won’t see snow, and if they do, it will be that smart-price snow we get now. I worry about the future for our children because even a Christmas sack full of Prozac won’t be enough to run away from the problem.
 

After discussing this issue with some friends, we reached a conclusion. I predict that the last tree will be made into a handle of an axe! It’s just the way we humans are sometimes! Until, that is, we realise that there’s no trees left, but by then it’ll be too late.
 

Many people are now ’thinking’ and making a change; more people are becoming aware, companies are becoming ethical and products are now becoming more environmentally friendly. We have to play a part in all this, because if we don’t, no one else will. We can help spread awareness, be more eco-friendly in what we buy and recycle. It’s never too late!
 

What do you think? To find out more visit: www.mongabay.com / www.wrm.org.uy / www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation#Deforestation_today     

Life is good, lets keep it that way!

Researchers have laid out a set of proposals outlining how consumers could satisfy their needs for clothes and textiles with significantly reduced impact on the environment, while also offering new business opportunities to UK companies.

(Media-Newswire.com) - The new study, produced by academics at the University of Cambridge, sets out a vision of a sustainable clothes industry which at the same time would offer new opportunities to retailers and manufacturers.

Consumers in the UK are increasingly aware of concerns about the environmental impact of the products they buy and the social conditions of the people working to make them. Specific environmental impacts associated with clothing and textiles can include the use of toxic chemicals in cotton production and in manufacturing; carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels to create the energy needed to run agricultural machinery and for heating air and water in laundry; the amount of clothing and textiles sent to landfill each year ( an average of 30kg per UK consumer ).

The new report is written by researchers at the University’s Institute for Manufacturing and was funded by Biffaward as part of its Mass Balance Programme, as well as Marks & Spencer. Entitled ‘Well Dressed?’, it considers what could be done differently to make the industry more sustainable.

Among other things, it recommends the use of more organic cotton, washing clothes at lower temperatures and encouraging consumers to buy fewer, high quality, longer-lasting clothes as well as more second-hand garments.

Some retailers have begun to address these issues but industry-wide change would require the evolution of new business models. Suggestions such as a focus on durability in the fashion world, and business models that would focus on extra services like repair and maintenance show that profit and growth can be decoupled from increasing material flow.

“The aim is to help answer the question of what we should do to create significant change at the sector level,” Dr Julian Allwood, from the Institute for Manufacturing, said. “We have focused on what might happen if we could make major structural changes to the way our clothes are made and used.

“For example, what would happen if we used different fibres or farming practices? What would be the consequence of washing our clothes in a different way, or keeping our carpets for longer?

If you want to read rest of the article, follow the link: http://media-newswire.com/release_1039536.html  

‘Fast clothes’ versus ‘green clothes’ — a face-off with environmental impact

WOKING, England: Josephine Copeland and her 20-year-old daughter, Jo Jo, visited Primark at the Woking Peacock Centre Mall to buy presents for friends, but ended up loaded with clothes for themselves: boots, a cardigan, a festive blouse and a long silver coat with faux fur trim, which cost £12 but looks like a million bucks. “If it falls apart, you just toss it away,” said Jo Jo Copeland, proudly wearing her purchase. Environmentally, that is more and more of a problem.

With rainbow piles of sweaters and T-shirts that often cost less than a sandwich, stores like Primark are leaders in the quick-growing “fast clothes” industry, selling low-cost garments that can be used and discarded without a second thought. Consumers, especially teenagers, love the concept, pioneered also by stores like Old Navy and Target in the United States, since it allows them to shift styles with speed on a low budget.

But clothes — and fast clothes in particular — are large and worsening sources of the carbon emissions that contribute to global warming, both because of how they are produced and how they are cared for, concludes a thought-provoking report from researchers at Cambridge University entitled, “Well Dressed?”

The $1 trillion global textile industry must become eco-conscious, the report concludes. It explores how to develop more “sustainable clothing” — a seeming oxymoron in a world where fashions change every few months.

Interested? You can read rest of the article on http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/24/business/clothing.php

Rich man’s dream
To eat organic food, live in the country surrounded by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other, own a horse & cart, wear expensive clothes that look worn, preferably with holes in them.

Poor man’s dream
To eat expensive food, no matter how bad, live in the urban jungle, in a flat on the 30th floor of an apartment block, overlooking a car park where his expensive car rests at night, to wear expensive clothes that don’t have a single fibre out of place and definitely without any holes.

Rich man’s reality
Works long hours, is forced to eat fast food most of the time, lives on the 30th floor of an apartment block overlooking a car park where rests his expensive car that he rarely drives because of the traffic he would have to sit through, is forced to wear expensive designer suits (with a tie) all day long, everyday.

Poor man’s reality
Has no work, eats from the farm, lives in a shack surrounded by mountains on one side and the ocean on the other and wears clothes that are worn with lots of holes in them.

Written by Kaycee, founder of Ek Maya and Turban Monkey