There is a promo on BBC TV at the moment that has Sir David Attenborough saying that in the 50 years that he has been reporting on the natural world the human population has increased threefold. Now I turned 50 in September and it horrified me, I am part of the increase – I blame my parents.
The estimated world population as of
The London School of Economics recently looked at the benefits of ensuring the world’s population has access to effective ways of contraception. It turns out that 40% of babies are unplanned so if you manage to stop them think of the consequences! It is also one of the cheapest ways of reducing CO2 emissions, through contraception it costs about 4.70€ per ton of CO2, cheaper than everything else analyzed except geothermal and sugar cane ethanol. By comparison wind power costs about 16.20€ per ton of CO2 saved.
I know many of us are passed the age where having children is an option but it might help if we take the message out to the younger members of the world.
With the colder weather around the corner I thought it might interesting to look at some more environmental ways of creating fabrics to keep you warmer this winter.
There are people who collect all their pets fur when grooming them and spin it into wool to make clothes! In fact there is more than one business who will do it for you, all you have to do is send it in the post and for a fee will spin it and make it into the garment of your choice. Weird but not so bad when you think where normal wool comes from, I’d do it but I know how bad my dogs smell when they get wet!!!
Chilean designer Alexandra Guerrero has figured out a way of spinning a yarn from of all things cigarette buts! Trillions of ciggie buts are thrown away every year and if properly cleaned can be recycled into a wool-like fabric and made into stylish, durable and eco-friendly clothing,
Following on from last month’s bamboo bicycle, bamboo clothing. Crushed it produces a fibre which can be spun and made into a luxurious fabric, benefits include, it’s very soft, warm in winter, cooler in summer, antifungal, antibacterial, UV protective and anti static, the yield from cultivated bamboo is also about 10 times that of cotton and uses much less water. Why isn’t it available more commercially?
You could probably team up your bamboo clothing on a bike ride with a new innovative and eco friendly bamboo cycle helmet called the Roof R06, fear not it has passed all the European safety tests, but is a tad pricey at 208€
