swyyne: live from japan!

hi everyone, and greetings from the land of the rising sun! i wish i could say that i have been taking detailed notes about the efforts of my second motherland to reduce waste and conserve energy, but i have been too busy scarfing things and battling the wicked bout of allergies that i always do as soon as i arrive here (how sad is it that i am allergic to my own land??!)

i promise that as soon as i gain back my strength, i will check in with some observations (there is a whole slew of rare emoticons here that will blow you away). until then, happy new year, one love and word to the mother(land).

last minute no effort green gifts

if you’re in a jam today with no stores open and relatives on the way, here are a couple suggestions for no waste, no (or very little) effort presents on the fly:

1. rebate completer: if you’ve ever had to fill out a rebate form, make copies of receipts, and mail them in, you know how appreciative someone would be if you present them with a homemade (a piece of paper folded in half) card offering your rebate completion services. this gift is great for your older relatives who you’ve spent hours trying to differentiate the “x, the square and the line” on your browser’s window to.
2. pre-mixed bottle of their favorite booze: you have booze and you have a bottle. i know you do. if you don’t, there are plenty of liquor stores open on x-mas day in my hood. check out your nabe’s regulations here. gin & tonic, vodka cranberry and bailey’s irish cream are always crowd-pleasers. please drive responsibly.
3. labeling services: this is a great one if you have a labelmaker. i relish the time that i spend with mine, so making labels for my friends who desperately need them, but either do not own a p-touch or just don’t like making labels is easy and rewarding. you can either make the labels for them in advance if you know what kind they need, or present them with a “card for 20 labels” which then can then redeem either on the spot (fun holiday activity), or in the future.
4. recycling or compost setup: a lot of people out there want to recycle or compost, but are just too lazy/busy to set things up. present them with the necessary objects if you have any around the house, or a card offering your services at their own home.
5. charity/event marketing or public relations: if you’re a marketing guru, public relations expert, or just someone that a lot of people listen to, give a friend the gift of free promotion for their next charity cause or event! don’t forget to remind them how much you usually charge for your services by giving them a giftcard for $1000 worth of marketing, and running out after a one-hour consultation (just kiddin’).
6. you know it wouldn’t be christmas if i didn’t give a shoutout to my own charity cause: http://www.charitywater.org/pages/yukayoneda/
   please donate if you have a chance! 100% of your money goes to repairing a well in a village where people don’t even have clean water for christmas. thank you and have an awesome holiday!

the green life at the wired store

if you haven’t checked out the wired store yet, i suggest you do so immediately. my favorite tech/lifestyle/all the cool stuff you would ever need magazine has appropriately upped the ante from last year with a greentech exhibit curated by man of a million facets, adrian grenier of the show alter eco on planet green (you may also know him as vince from a little show called entourage).

side note: as much as greenwashing has been a trend this year, with many companies pretending to be green in order to attract customers and positive buzz, the opposite phenomena, let’s call it “greendirtying” until i think of something less…dirty-sounding, has also been on the rise.

greendirtying is a practice where sustainability promoters use popular products, media outlets and lifestyle choices to expose eco-friendly ideas to the public. an example of greendirtyng that i like: at the c.l.a.s.s. eco-materials showroom launch 2 weeks ago, model and eco-activist summer rayne oakes, who is working on making eco-sensible shoes with footwear giant payless, said that she got into fashion so that she could look for ways to promote sustainability to a wider audience.

so, for those of you who are wondering whether or not the green life exhibit fell into the first category or the second - maybe you shouldn’t care so much!

think about it - people who came to the wired store to check out the latest gadgets also got a taste of green innovation, and people that came specifically for the green life exhibit were able to see how even products that were not in the exhibit were adopting eco-standards. sometimes we need to forget about labeling things, and focus more on the progress being made.

anyhoo, some highlights were:

the hymini portable wind and solar power generator (looks like they beat the comparable sanyo charger to the punch in the american market) that can charge your cell phone, camera or other small device. what a great gift for both the ecosumer in your life and the techie who might need a little nudge to go green.

the watermill (doesn’t it kind of look like a crazy mashup of c3po and a stormtrooper?) is a home appliance that makes drinking water out of- get this - air! although it is pricey, the prospect of drinking water made by a big, futuristic, smileyhead would definitely motivate some of my bottled water fanatic friends to make the switch.

recession stew

with my impending last day of work looming over me, my survival instincts have finally kicked in. gone are the days of multi-cheese purchases at murray’s. i’ll be sticking with kraft singles for the time being, or maybe even america’s choice (cringe).

luckily, my favorite soup in the world, corned beef and cabbage stew, is also cheap as heck. a simple analysis proves that this brokeman’s broth is actually cheaper than an item off of the mcdonald’s dollar menu. behold:

cabbage (chopped up into big chunks): $1.29
corned beef: $1.89 for a can
noodles (wide, elbow or orrechiette): i purchased mine for 98¢, but they’ll usually run you a good $1.29 so let’s just use that figure
water: free
salt & pepper: free (from mcdonald’s when i stopped in there to ogle the dollar menu)

fill a large pot with 6 cups of water and bring to boil. then drop in the cabbage. after 3 minutes, drop in the pasta and cook for as long as the package specifies. lastly, drop in the corned beef, season with salt and pepper and cook for another 3 minutes.

the total comes out to $4.47, but will feed 6 people. 75¢ a head!

if you want to be really fancy, you can drop in some mini mozzarella balls or tofu.

interactive telecommunications goes green

i was lucky enough to check out some insanely creative projects at nyu’s itp (interactive telecommunications program) show last night in a space that can only be described as what it would look like if the smartest, most creative person in the world vomited their brain out and arranged the contents neatly in compartmentalized stalls.

so what do interactive telecommunications have to do with sustainability and going green? just about  everything. not only are electronic methods of communicating inherently less wasteful because they eliminate the need to use paper and send packages that need to be transported using fuel*, many of the concepts directly addressed the energy, water and waste crisis that we are currently facing.

check it:

cameron cundiff and nobu nakaguchi’s how much water? is a system that shows you the amount of water you’re using as you use it. cameron explained that although the project is still conceptual, he hopes that such a system is in the works in the real world. how cool would it be if something like this could be integrated into your wii or posted to your facebook? note: the poland springs water bottle in tucked behind the project is ironic, don’t you think?

martin ceperley’s power aware is similar to the wilting flower that i wrote about a few weeks ago, but improves upon the idea by consolidating the system to a single powerstrip. i also like how martin encourages potential users to compete with one another to use the least energy via facebook and other social networking sites.

some of the other projects didn’t necessarily focus on green technology, but were undeniably brilliant or just a delight to look at and play with:

oscar torres and florica vlad’s pianocktail is a contraption that mixes you a cocktail based on the combination of notes that you play. “now you can drink your music in addition to hearing it,” they explained.

aram chang, amanda syarfuan, dharmarajan ratnagiri ayakkad and seungran woo’s reverve is a shopping portal that works in conjunction with your favorite shows. let’s say you love charlotte’s glasses and want to buy them on the spot. reverve gives you the option to do it!

tweetmobile, the brainchild of jill haefele, jorge just, joshua schelling and sara huong allows your twitter tweets to be manifested into the actions of these playful birdies. my tweet made the bluejay flutter!

nobuyuki nakaguchi’s breath note was inspired by his childhood memory of fogging up his mom’s car window with his breath and doodling words and pictures on it. nobuyuki turned his fondness for this little pleasure that almost everyone has enjoyed into a way to capture your breath notes and send them to friends.

corey lane menscher transformed his desire to know when his wife (who is actually pregnant!) felt kicks from their baby into the kickbee, which wraps around a pregnant woman’s tummy and sends a twitter tweet to loved ones every time the baby kicks!

what a treat to peek into the minds of tomorrow’s interactive media moguls. and how empowering to see so many minds focused on conserving, recycling, and communicating these goals to the rest of the world.

* the flipside is that electronic communication requires, you guessed it, electricity, which we all know needs to be conserved as well. but think about it this way: sending a whole bunch of text messages really uses about the same amount of energy as sending one or none, so why not use it to its full potential?

free stuff: pink motorola razr

if you think you can give it a new home, please post a comment describing what you’ll be doing for the holidays to make the world a greener, better place.

bonus: send me a pic showing what you’ll be doing (whether it be helping out at a soup kitchen, recycling more, using less water, wrapping your gifts with newspaper instead of buying giftwrap, greenifying your home by switching to CFL lightbulbs, etc.).

details:

verizon cdma network

gently used with just a few tiny scratches

in box with charger

good luck!

one life to live, one cubicle to empty

this is it.

after working diligently in the finance world for

3 years,

1 month,

and

8 days,

i am packing up the kid robot mousepad, bearbricks and cubes (remember those? goodness, they are so fun with their free downloadable accessories! - but, i digress) that never really belonged here in the first place, and i won’t be looking back.

“what?!!!” you’ve all said to me, with shaky voices and absolutely no attempt to hide the fear and confusion in your eyes. why would i leave a company that has been my home for so long -and now of all times?

i scribbled down an answer to that question and practiced it so that i could spew it out to people when they inevitably ask. but i don’t even think that it sounds right. so i’ll try to explain what i think the answer really is.

part 1. i love my job, and i know that i am lucky to be at a company like mine. but i also know that someone else, in fact thousands of people out there, could be better at, and actually want, a job like mine. so why would i be a spacefiller? ever meet a couple where one of the members blatantly dislikes the other but keeps dating them because they are either too scared to be alone or too posessive to see their mate with someone else? yeah. i don’t want to be that person.

part 2. without sounding like a cult member or something, i believe. i believe that sustainability and the movement towards a simpler, cleaner, smarter, freer (that looks weird, is that a word?) lifestyle has many advantages and very few disadvantages. i don’t think it is fair to my current employer for me to keep collecting a paycheck when my mind is constantly occupied with how i can make something more energy-efficient or how i can promote eco-sensibility to everyone on the planet. i’ve never been a cheater and i never will.

my piece being said, i am scurred.

what if i can’t find another job? what if i get sick and have no health insurance? what if i end up back in finance?!!!

this weekend, i’m going to get a balloon and blow it up with all of my fears and frustrations and release it over the east river. then, i’m going to reel it back in on a string that i’ll have attached to it beforehand because i don’t want to litter. i’m just nice like that. and i’ll give the balloon to a kid or something so the frustrations and fears will be gone. i know what you’re thinking, but as long as the kid doesn’t inhale the air in the balloon, he’ll be fine.

technically, i won’t be evacuating my generic grey cubicle with sliding glass door that adds absolutely no privacy but instead actually amplifies sound when closed, until next wednesday but i felt that i wanted to gradually start saying goodbye.

so…goodbye.

revisiting brita’s filter for good campaign

remember these?

yes, that’s oil spilling out of their mouths.

there was a considerable amount of positive buzz surrounding brita’s filter for good ad campaign last summer, but many people are still purchasing bottled water. why???

it is somewhat understandable if you’re out on the street, feel a bit parched, and pick up a bottle of water at the closest bodega. but it’s a little different when you consciously purchase cases of the stuff to drink at work, especially in an office like mine where delicious, double-purified and free water is available right from the cooler.

many of my officemates were horrified when the cases of water they buy from staples skyrocketed from $3 a case to $10 (due in large part to oil prices). but guess what? they still kept buying them! many still purchased 2 or 3 cases. $20 or $30 bucks a month vs. free? seems like a no brainer to me, but for some reason, we americans can’t seem to shake the idea that something that we have to pay for is inherently better than something that we don’t.

by the way, if you haven’t heard yet, these brita ads are referring to the fact that making the plastic bottles to meet our country’s demand for bottled water requires more than 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel more than 1 million U.S. cars for a year.

so, why are you still drinking bottled water?

the little bit of controversy behind the ad campaign was that brita never mentioned the fact that their filters are also made out of plastic and end up in landfills just like plastic bottles do. but kudos to them for being able to counteract that dirty little secret with a new collabo with recycline, a company that makes toothbrushes, plates and other cool stuff out of plastics like stonyfield farms yogurt cups that aren’t usually recycled.

brava, brita, brava.

pics courtesy of why me design

paperless post

want to send a beautiful and formal invitation without resorting to pocket-draining and wasteful paper and envelopes?

it’s paperless post to the rescue! they offer classy evites that have the look and heft of real paper, and even pop out of matching envelopes when your guests click on them. paperless post also keeps track of your rsvps (just like that other service), but in a way that i feel is more discreet and grownup.

check it out here.

find out how you can never have to buy another envelope again.

pantone x panettone giftbox

as a follow up to my last post on giftwrap, check out this fly pantone-inspired panettone giftbox design by purpose.

photos courtesy of black rainbow

for those who aren’t familiar with it, pantone is a color system that designers around the world use to pick colors. panettone is the italian equivalent of fruitcake. clever!

although you probably won’t be able to get a hold of one of these limited editions, it would be easy to make your own by painting a regular panettone box. if you received panettone from someone else, transforming it into a pantone giftbox for your favorite designer is a great way to reuse it!

thoughtful design that creates an emotional bond is one way that many designers are combatting one-time-use packaging. this holiday, try and package your gifts in a way that continue to be useful to the giftee even after they open the gift, and is something that they like so much that they won’t want to throw it away.

green giftwrapping for the holidays

of all of the inanimate objects i could be, traditional giftwrapping would probably be in my bottom 5 (along with a plunger, those plastic rings that keep beer cans together, and toilet paper). think about it - giftwrapping gets one moment in the spotlight on the big day of the unwrapping and then, in an instant, is thrown away as if it never existed. sure, some people, like my mom, carefully save the paper that their gifts come wrapped in, but then just keep it in the closet forever. is that the kind of life you want your giftwrapping to lead?

this year, i’m switching to less wasteful methods of wrapping my gifts. my favorite, furoshiki, or the art of wrapping items in a large cloth, is easy to do, and your giftee gets to keep and reuse the wrapping so there is no waste!

check out this how-to video from recycle now.

Furoshiki gift wrapping from RecycleNow on Vimeo.

the video shows you how to wrap funky-shaped items like bottles, and even shows how the recipient can turn his/her new cloth into a bag!

some great ideas for where to get cloth are to reuse a piece of cloth that you already have, buy a $5 pashmina or scarf, or even use a shirt or sweater!

check out the link here.

c.l.a.s.s. is in session

c.l.a.s.s., new york’s first luxury eco-materials showroom, celebrates its opening tonight by hosting an event that promises to be inspiring and educational.

the event will reflect all three of the aspects of design that c.l.a.s.s. evokes in its name, creativity, lifestyle and sustainable synergy, and will present the latest in eco-materials as well as a round-table discussion moderated by barbara kramer, co-founder of designers & agents, focused on the following questions:

what is the current state of sustainable fashion?
how has the current economic downturn affected designers, retailers and consumer spending?
how do we create pathways toward change?

attendees will get the scoop on how the most knowledgeable professionals in the eco-materials realm feel about the future of sustainable fashion. there will also be eco-friendly treats courtesy of silkstone bespoke events and a fun giftbag for all those who attend!

eco-fashion guru bahar shahpar, who is also the creative director of the c.l.a.s.s. new york showroom, will be on the panel as well!

the c.l.a.s.s. new york showroom is located at 286 spring street, second floor. for appointments and inquiries call 212.206.8319 or email newyork@c-l-a-s-s.org.

housegreening gifts

it’s surprising that with all the attention going green is getting these days, so many people are resistant to the idea. i’ve tried sending personal emails, guilt-tripping, begging and bribing, but my success rate has been admittedly pathetic. it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the reason my methods fail is that none of what i am doing is making my friends to want to be  eco-conscious. all they wonder is “what is in it for me?” and the answer that i am presenting is “nothing.”

when facebook first started gaining popularity, i turned a blind eye to my friends’ claims that it was the social networking tool and that i simply needed to join. i eventually gave in because a boy that i liked invited me, but more importantly because i saw something that i wanted at the end of the rope - the boy. good news - i got him in the end!

what does all of this have to do with anything? well, one of my girlfriends recently purchased a home, and i’ve been bugging about what to give her as a housewarming gift.

my original plans were wild and not really well thought out:

“a set of natty ice beer can cups would be eco-friendly and hip!” i thought. no.

but a great alternative for a guy’s housewarming!

plan b: my friend is already somewhat green, but what better way to boost her eco-consciousness to the next level than by giving her the tools she needs to greenify her new place?!

green lemonaide’s ‘get started’ toolkit does just that, and it’s a present, which will positively associate eco-friendliness to getting gifts in my friend’s mind!

get yours at greenloop.

green lemonaide’s kit is super-pretty and very matchy, but you could certainly put together your own, personalizing it to suit your friend’s tastes. remember, the 99¢ store is your friend.

misericordia…

is my new obsession. these clothes come from lima, peru and are made of sustainable materials by workers who are paid fair wages (35% higher than the average wage in the area) and actually care about the product they are making.

there is something beautiful and haunting about the name. it rattled around in my brain for hours until i decided to google it:

mis·er·i·cord or mis·er·i·corde

[Middle English, pity, from Old French, from Latin misericordia, from misericors, misericord-, merciful : miserr, to feel pity; see miserere + cor, cord-, heart; see kerd- in Indo-European roots.]

Word History: A dagger, a support for someone who is standing, and a special monastic apartment share the same name because, oddly enough, they are all examples of mercy. The word misericord goes back to Latin misericordia, “mercy,” derived from misericors, “merciful,” which is in turn derived from miserr, “to pity,” and cor, “heart.” In Medieval Latin the word misericordia denoted various merciful things, and these senses were borrowed into English. Misericordia referred to an apartment in a monastery where certain relaxations of the monastic rule were allowed, especially those involving food and drink. The word also designated a projection on the underside of a hinged seat in a choir stall against which a standing person could lean, no doubt a merciful thing during long services. Finally, misericordia was used for a dagger with which the death stroke was administered to a seriously wounded knight.

check out the site here.

buy misericordia at nyc’s very own ecovaruhuset in the l.e.s.

diddy gripes about gas prices

saw this youtube clip of diddy on eco-hustler’s blog, and was alarmed but not surprised. the video depicts the artist formerly known as puff daddy griping that he could no longer fly on his private jet because gas prices (at the time this video was filmed) were too high.

although i agree wholeheartedly with eco-hustler that i wish more celebrities (especially those who are role models for urban youth) would step up and promote green thought, i don’t blame diddy for being oblivious. no matter how obvious the green movement appears to us ecophiles, it is still relatively low-profile compared to other causes. i think this is because many celebrities (not all, because there are many out there who live and promote green) are so busy that they want to endorse one-shot deal causes. case in point: diddy was a key supporter of the vote or die campaign, but was not at the polls (or even registered to vote) as he preached we all should be! for celebrities who talk the green talk, like gwyneth paltrow, walking the green walk is something that takes constant care and effort everyday. all of this just reinforces the concept that being eco-friendly isn’t just a hyped up campaign, it is a lifestyle.

see more of what eco-hustler has to say here.

another thing that i found disturbing is that some people seem to think that being green somehow goes against rap’s hardcore image. true, the images the media often associates with eco-friendliness (grass, flowers, blue sky, green leaf), don’t mesh well with hip hop’s persona. perhaps we need to emphasize that eco-consciousness is not about gardening or making things pretty. the future of our planet is at stake. we’re fighting a war. for most of us, it is a quiet and peaceful war, but it was exactly this kind of war that the leaders that i admire most, martin luther king jr. and mahatma ghandi, waged on hatred and intolerance, and i think they made amazing progress that continues to touch our lives today.

even though most of us are not celebrities, it is just as important for us to use the influence you have on your friends, family and especially kids to promote a change in the way that we think and act. yoroshiku ne.

why is this a site?

swyyne has always been an experiment for me. with all of the other super eco sites out there, i've been feeling like i want to contribute something just a bit different. so for now, here are my random musings.

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