Israeli design shop, Studio Groovy, transforms recycled items into functional products imbued with new-found style and funky flair, (car rim fruit bowl, above).

A telephone handset gives birth to a retro-designer bottle opener for a different kind of communication.

Moroccan themed end tables created from laser cut vinyl record albums.

This lighting fixture (above) was created from 4 colorfully authentic Israeli metal soda bottle siphons.

via the very groovy: recyclart

We spent a few days in Wellfleet on Cape Cod a couple of weeks ago – visiting old friends and partying with new ones at the annual Oyster Shucking Festival. Despite the pouring rain, the 2-day contest, featuring the world’s fastest oyster shuckers, was attended by hundreds of happy fans who stood huddled, elbow to elbow, juggling beer and fresh oysters while getting completely drenched. Only hearty New Englanders could survive the bone chilling conditions.

In the bay, we made a few casts off a low lying bridge with hopes of catching some tale but to no avail. The blustery winds of a nor’easter won that little battle. Although wet and soggy, the rain didn’t dampen our spirits as we continued our sojourn through quaint Provincetown ducking into pubs, shops and eateries, soaking in the last of the season, happy to be one with the water.

Along the way I made a mental note to try and find a nice neck warmer for winter.  Inspired by our freezing but relaxing trip, I did a little digging and uncovered a few handmade fineries, all made in the USA of natural fibers. Cowls make stylish, cozy alternatives to scarfs.  Add some cool gloves and they’re a great way to update your cold weather wardrobe.

(above, L to R)

• 3-button Cowl Neckwarmer, by bizzybcreations, 70% wool/30% soy, ($45)
• Cowl Neck Brown by Lulu Caswell, 100% fisherman’s wool, ($30). Not pictured, but also available in a shabby, rugged style with rollup ends @($25)
• Infinity Scarf with Buttons, alpaca & wool with Indonesian wood buttons, by corrugatedfiber, ($55)

(above, L to R)

• Ribbed Cowl in Charcoal, Pima Cotton & Merino Wool, by trishafern, ($32).
• Slate Cowl bamboo/wool/angora with 3 buttons by corrugatedfiber ($52).

A simple, cleanly designed product with “recycle” written all over it.  Depending on where you shop, or shopped, this frame, designed for holding your reusable bags for recyclables, can be a testament to your good taste in shopping venues – or a physical manifestation of your green street cred.  Set your kitchen recycling area up with a little style by using several matching frames to bag your metal, plastic and paper recycled stuff.  The frame is made of 30% recycled steel and is itself fully recyclable.

frame comes in steel, red, white or black (and with 2 paper bags) – 30.00 eur @ matteriashop.com

An ironic product name can often take a company a long way.  In this case, use less is the message, and Useless is the name – we all could do a little less consuming of everything – whether it be too many Halloween gummy bears, too many six-packs of bottled water or the plethora of pointless do0-dads and gadgets with which we clutter our lives.

U.S.-based Useless makes its hoodies, water bottles, bags and tees from trash, recycled, and/or low impact materials and donates a fat 10% of its profits to developing nations’ water and sanitation products.  Good stuff, and far from “useless.”   Find out more at useless.org.

• Not good…Snows of Kilimanjaro Could Vanish in 20 Years – dawn.com
• A 20% increase in wild fires…Climate Change Will Burn Yosemite – bbc
• See above…Republicans Move to Delay Climate Bill Progress – reuters
• Another climate change story…Fishing Boat Sunk by Giant Jellyfish – livescience
• Related – Rare Photos: Giant Squid Eaten by Sperm Whale – natgeo
• The power and glory of fossil fuel…Leaking Oil Rig Catches Fire Off Australia’s Coast – msnbc
• BPA Safer Than Contraceptives in Rat Study – npr
• Fla. Wildlife Officer Loses Gator at Show and Tell – myway

The body wash and shampoo aisle is overwhelming. There are literally thousands of different soaps and shampoos “specially formulated” for your hair by people who have never seen your hair. Here are a few things to watch out for when buying soaps:

• soap companies can put “natural” on just about anything
• “fragrance” means a conglomeration of chemicals
• avoid anything that has palm oil, as it is extremely unsustainably harvested

A great resource when purchasing health & beauty products is the good guide. They have a rating system that helps you tease out the good from the bad throughout the grocery store. Here’s what they say about soaps. You can also look for local soap producers, and see if you can support their business and get clean, chemical free soap.

If you’re interested in making your own soap from scratch, it’s a pretty complicated process. Especially bar soaps, which easily turn into messy, slimy little balls. You’ll also need several ingredients you probably don’t have lying around the house, such as lye and tallow. If you have the time, and the patience however, home made soaps leave your skin feeling really soft, and they also make great green gifts.

Half way recipes (in which you take a pure form of soap and spruce it up) can be fun and easy to do at home (more…)

Wind power innovator, Mariah Power, and Connecticut’s Quinnipiac University are installing the first micro-wind farm at a U.S. university.   The 25 turbine installation, which will be installed along the new York Hill Campus’s main walkway, will power about 50% of the campus’s exterior lights.  The 35 to 45 foot Windspire vertical axis wind turbines will create a “wind terrace”, or “kinetic sculpture garden” that, when combined with a sweet view of Long Island Sound, will hopefully become student destination.

read the full press release

Not arrested and still standing after another devilish Mischief Night, (anyone?)…we’re a bit shaken and barely stirring after one too many spirits of a mind blowing sort.  But, it is halloween and we love dressing in disguise so we’ll persevere and rally this eve.  Although, right now, desperately in need of some fresh air, I’m focused on a few of my favorite, fairly local, green haunts -  jump in with yours…

Central Park, especially the terraced garden and sitting area by Belvedere Castle

Hawthorn Valley Farm, Harlemville, NY

Jacob’s Pillow, the Berkshires, MA

Kaaterskill Falls, the Catskills

Montauk – The End

This the second post in Theresa Gould’s series on her organic farming experience.

We attended our first Stateline Farm Beginnings class last Saturday.  It was like a date for us since we rarely go out as a couple. Imagine driving over an hour each way and having a conversation without multiple interruptions! Heaven!  The class is the largest class yet in the five years since the program began. There were exactly 30 of us, if my quick count was right.  It was exciting to be with other aspiring farmers who were there to find out whether or not farming is the next step for them in their journey in life, just like us.

The Farm Beginnings program is a part of CRAFT – Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training – which creates learning opportunities for future farmers through diverse talents of our regional community of organic, biodynamic and sustainable farms.  There are actually only 7 known CRAFT organizations across North America – Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Ontario, Canada.

Stateline Farm Beginnings is only 12-13 years old.  We also learned that there are only 6 other Farm Beginning programs across the U.S. which doesn’t seem like a lot considering the fact that farming is where our food source begins.  There are two SFB programs in Minnesota, one in North Dakota, one in New York, one in Nebraska and two here in Illinois.

The first class gave us a better idea of exactly what we would be learning through Farm Beginnings. This is the definition that our facilitator gave us:  Stateline Farm Beginnings is a strategic business planning course that has four parts:  (more…)

We’re thrilled to feature Nature’s Cork as our generous sponsor of this Great Green Giveaway. Nature’s Cork high-end collections of Fair Trade and earth friendly products are made with a naturally renewable resource, cork.

I met company owner, Randy Bowman at Eco-Luxe and had the chance to checkout some of their fine home goods, fashion accessories and apparel. Their upscale products, all made from cork, feel wonderfully soft yet highly durable.  One lucky winner will receive a $50 Nature’s Cork Gift Certificate to apply toward any products on their Website, plus free shipping to anywhere in the USA or Canada.

Here’s how to enter:

• checkout the wide array of collections in their catalog @ naturescork.com (don’t miss the ladies collection of accessories)
• Then leave a comment on this post, telling us why you’d like to win, and which item you like most.
• Sign up for their enewsletter and receive an additional entry by leaving us another comment to let us know.
• Be sure to add the following address to your email address book: m at AlternativeConsumer.com.

One lucky winner will be selected in our Random Drawing, and notified by email. Contest ends Monday, November 9, 2009 at 11:59p (EST). Winner has 24 hours to claim their prize, or offer is null and void. Winner’s name will also be included on this post. Giveaway includes free shipping, anywhere in the USA or Canada.

*One entry per person.
*EXTRA CREDIT If you have your own blog, you can post about the giveaway with a link back to this giveaway post. To make sure we know, you can come back and leave a comment with a link to your blog post. If you Twitter, you can tweet about the giveaway (once per day), and be sure to refer to @altCon, and leave a comment linking to the status. You can also receive additional entries 3 more ways: subscribe to our RSS feed, follow us on Twitter or friend us on FaceBook. (If you’re already a subscriber, just enter a comment to let us know.) Time’s ticking, so start clicking – good luck!

For a little more background about Nature’s Cork, take a peek at our previous post, Pelcor – Cork Goes High Fashion.

U.K. based Finisterre has moved way beyond its original surf apparel roots, and now focuses on the goal of manufacturing the best outdoor technical apparel, with minimal environmental impact.  The company’s ‘World First’ production initiative evaluates the impact of each product’s entire life cycle and weaves innovative thinking throughout its entire production process.

Just a few of Finisterre’s cutting-edge approaches:

• Biomimicry – the imitation of systems present in the natural environment and the application of their design to man-made products.
• Natural Advantage – solutions built by nature.
• Reclaim, Reprocess, Reuse – a multi-option recycling program relating to what happens to the garments after their life.
• Eco-circle – the world’s first closed loop polyester recycling scheme.

The company’s products are designed in Cornwall and manufactured in some of the most ethically advanced factories on the planet.  Finisterre considers it to be one of the greenest product lines in the industry.  The line extends from merino wool boxer shorts and designer tees to high-performance jackets and outerwear.

Pictured above: the Matanuska MKII a light woman’s jacket suitable for antiques shopping or mountain climbing.  The jacket has been impregnated with beeswax for water resistance.

People tend to get carried away on Halloween — must be the combination of all that pagan energy and sugar blurring folks’ judgment and inducing them to strap-on a Sarah Palin wig or David Hasselhoff mask.  As a hound I’d like to speak for all those canines trapped in loving homes with owners hellbent on including little Fluffy in all their Halloween hijinks.  Rule of thumb, if your pooch looks miserable in that tutu or sombrero don’t make them wear it.  Animal cruelty can sometimes be obscured by love.

pictured above: Shiny Clown $28, Frog Dog (diy), and Batdog…I mean Batman $12.74

Maybe we need to look to nature for innovative alternative energy designs.  Clean energy design firm, green wavelength, has created a bumblebee-inspired 19-foot wind turbine prototype that they demo’d at this week’s The Perfect Pitch 2009 entrepreneur conference.

The company’s xBEE press release states: “Created by the clean energy company Green Wavelength, the prototype represents an attempt to break the mold of everyday windmill solutions that are, at best, 30 percent efficient, and seek efficiency from biological sources such as the movement of bumblebees, hummingbirds, and dragonflies.”

The prototype got Green Wavelength into the top 50 finalists in the pitch conference, that featured Sir Richard Branson as a keynote speaker, and placed it in the running with entrepreneurs focused on everything from high-end recreational vehicles to artificial fingers.

Unfortunately, the prototype did not break into the top ten.

YouTube video of sidewalk demo