OPENING

An inspired approach to reusing and recycling: Spooner is a suite of bottle openers hand crafted from old and used silver plated spoons.

GREEN AND YELLOW

 

Who says recycling is all drudgery? This bright collection of taxi-yellow chairs lay discarded on the streets of New York City before being rescued, repaired and repainted by the Brooklyn-based architectural firm Bade Stageberg Cox, for a projected entitled Street Seats. Each piece is stamped with the date and location of its rescue–and can be purchased through the firm’s website.

SITTING PRETTY

The alliance between Emeco (the American manufacturer of chairs that, quite literally, can last forever) and Coca Cola (whose sugary, plastic encased product is both a health and environmental hazard) could not have been an easy one. But this “up-cycled” 111 Navy Chair, made from 111 plastic Coke bottles (and a few other, not incidental, materials) looks effortless enough.

CONSCIENCE CLAUSE

This jute shopping bag is part of a “commerce with a conscience” initiative by the Vancouver-based retailer, Old Faithful Shop–which is to say that proceeds from the purchase of one of these bags go to support the impoverished Bangladeshi women who craft them. It would, of course, be helpful to know what percentage of the proceeds actually go to these women, but as far as good looking objects go, one could do worse than this meticulously handsome carry-all.

BLUE GREEN

Can pesticides ever be ‘green?’  With branding this inspired and pristine (such a brilliant blue over ho-hum green), created by the Mexican agency Anagrama for a producer of sustainable agricultural pesticides, I just may become a believer.

BALANCING ACT

Display-worthy magnetic building blocks from Tegu, made from FSC-certified wood and non-toxic paint.

EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE

 

 

A pretty fabulous bag made from recycled 100% cotton sail cloth by fishermen in Kenya–who, one hopes, reap most of the profits from its hefty price tag.  What’s not to love?

CLEAN BREAK

Shampoo, minus the standard bulky plastic container, is an enticing enough prospect. But this clean and lovely packaging for shampoo in a bar, found at Brooklyn’s Kaufmann Mercantile, is an added bonus to its modest footprint.

OCEAN BLUES

I’m not sure the world needs another fruit bowl, but one can confidently say it needs the refuse of empty water bottles even less. This bowl is made from recycled PET water bottles–and its nautical hue is an enduring reminder of its small, but worthy, roll in diverting a plastic waste stream that too often ends in ocean waters.

NATURAL SELECTION

 

 

The natural and the commercial are a knockout pairing in VSA Partners campaign for GE’s ecomagination initiative–a program aimed at developing environmentally sound technological solutions.