Waste Not

While working yesterday, I was introduced to a new company called LOOPTWORKS. As an avid and active fan of re-purposing pre- and post-consumer waste I had to share!

LOOPTWORKS is an apparel production company located in Portland, Oregan that transforms pre-consumer waste into fashion forward basics. A process Looptworks coined upcycling. With upcycling, LOOPTWORKS takes high quality never before been used textile waste and reconstructs it into a limited edition line, i.e. shirts, jackets bags, etc.

Check out this truly "eco-friendly" company at www.looptworks.com

Also LOOPTWORKS is hiring, hint hint job seekers!!

There's Understanding Then There's Action

“People in your country [the United States] need to understand how hard people work to make this coffee…That they work too hard. And to know the suffering they experience, because I think they don’t know about it” -Excerpt from Brewing Justice by Daniel Jaffee

Once you know-then what do you do? This is the question I have been pondering ever since I read this passage from Jafee's book. Ok, I have sympathy. I internalized the description, but now what? My urban cowgirl background can only comprehend so much. Do I simply reiterate the story, or actions what about those? What purposeful actions can be taken to make a difference in this farmer's life, in any small-producing farmer's life?

For today, my action will be purchasing my coffee from a small coffee shop across the street, who's merchandise is more than 50% fair trade vs the label lover coffee house around the corner, who's total fair trade purchase is less than 2%. Then..., then I will keep reading in hopes of discovering my most ripple-creating action.

Possible areas of action:
Retail
Community Education
Activism
Government
Production
Distribution
Marketing

To read more on this topic check out the following article at http://www.alternet.org/economy/145555/does_fair_trade_coffee_lift_growers_out_of_poverty_or_simply_ease_our_guilty_conscience?page=3

Does Fair Trade Coffee Lift Growers Out of Poverty or Simply Ease Our Guilty Conscience?

Veja Project

Reduced CO2 emissions. Zero paid advertising. Transparency. Fair trade organic cotton and rubber. Job Creation.

This is the Veja Project. Check it out at http://www.veja.fr/#/projets/VISION-26 or watch this video.




-Consume With Thought

Brewing Justice

Curious as to the intricacies of Fair Trade, I started reading Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability and Survival. The book, a case study of small coffee producers in Oaxaca, Mexico, delivers an easy to follow breakdown of the structure and players within the Fair Trade Market. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to kick-start his or her fair trade knowledge.

Currently pondering...

Certifications
Floor Prices
Market Fluctuation
Profit-Risk Sharing
Labor
Consumer-Citizen
Doing What I know
Advertising
Distribution Channels

Consumer Purchasing Power

Blogger: Ten months out of college, one internship down, one current part-time job, six new books and one endless search for life, for me this is living post-grad in 2010. Taking advantage of my partially employed status, I have chosen to pursue the realms of consumer purchasing power, a topic, which has always fascinated me.

I want to explore the choices we have as consumers. Do we support the mass merchandisers, the local community or the small producers throughout the world? Do I buy a product because it is organic or because it is cheap? What really is fair trade and what are all these labels?

I hope, as readers and fellow consumers, you will join me in this conversation sharing topics to discuss, products to highlight and experiences you have had. This is an open source community welcoming interaction and critiques.

It is my hope that through this exploration we become educated consumers who consciously decide how to spend our dollar.

Consume With Thought.
-Samantha Harmon