I have always wanted to attend Sundance. I never imagined I would get the opportunity to go.

I received the amazing opportunity to represent Envirosax at the Alive! Expo Green Pavilion. Waiving goodbye to sunny San Diego 70-degree weather, I switched out my usual Norah Roberts novel and swimsuit for a wool coat and snow boots.

Greeted with a smile, my CEO and friend, Belinda David-Tooze was exuding excitement while also fighting jet lag from the 13-hour flight from her home in Australia.  Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to see Belinda, but this infamous dress was on the forefront of my mind!

I had seen pictures of the couture dress made completely out of Envirosax, however, laying my eyes on the real deal was incredible! The detail, the time, the colors, the stitching, the thought, and creativity put into this outfit was astonishing.

It is the passion behind the creation that I love the most…

Belinda has always wanted to create a dress out of Envirosax because she believed it would spread the word of reuse in an artistic and modern way. Being a designer herself, she has a deep understanding of how difficult it can be for a young student straight out of fashion school to achieve success.  These two passions came together and created a couture dress out of designer reusable bags.

I must add a great twist to this story; the beautiful model who attended Sundance and wore the dress is my sister, Jill, who has a career in Public Relations. I loved the moment when Belinda leaned over to me and said, “She’s brilliant, well spoken, and fabulous!”

Not only was she fabulous, she was fearless…

Getting Jill dressed was an event in itself! The dress consisted of four parts and weighed a good 20 lbs. While lacing the corset up, I was so impressed with how well made it was! I have trouble sewing on a button, so I cannot fathom how this young designer produced this masterpiece! So cool.

After tying the last knot and bending the last bone, gluing on the fake eyelashes and glossing the lips, Jill, now nicknamed “The Dress,” was ready to hit Main Street.

We knew The Dress was going to be a massive hit when the taxi driver asked to take a picture with her! This was just the beginning of the photography…

Even though the temperature on Main Street was a frigid 15-degrees, The Dress was on fire! Everyone from media to men, moms and their children, even celebs, begged to take a picture with Jill.  The best part was their reactions when they were informed the glorious dress was made from designer reusable bags! The overall response from the celebrities who attended the Alive! Expo was humbling.  Some of the actresses wanted to try on the dress and the actors were taken back and very impressed.

Sundance oozed creativity, originality, and progressiveness – a flawless fit for our first couture dress made entirely out of our bags, designed by a young grad student with a dream of becoming a costume designer for the movies!

Even though I didn’t catch one film at The Sundance Film Festival, my experience was wonderful! I felt so proud to work for Envirosax and be apart of the grand debut of The Dress!  I also look forward to seeing future creations from talented designers featured at different events.  The Oscars perhaps? You never know…

To view more photos of our dress, please visit our facebook page to view our photo album.

Like the designs in the dress? Click here to browse our bags and start saving the planet in style.

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Thank you to everyone who entered our “What Your Pets Mean to You” contest. The Envirosax staff had a terrific time looking at all of the great photos and reading the wonderful write ups. After much deliberation, it was hard to decide from so many cute photos, so we added a few honorable mentions as well. Here are our winners.

(Winners will be contacted via Facebook by an Envirosax staff member to receive your prizes.)

Funniest: Rudy and Kasper sent in by Megan Yani

Best Dressed: Sam and Cassius as Spiderman and Captain Jack Sparrow sent in by Staci Summers

Owner / Pet Look Alike: “Bearded Buddies” sent in by Marty Heflin

Honorable mention:

Webee sent in by Lindsey Stockton Garret

Lila sent in by Mary Elizabeth Kirkpatrick

Karma sent in by Julie Bacon

Thank you to all who entered! Don’t forget, during the month of November Envirosax will donate $1 from the sale of every Graphic Series pouch (set of 5 bags) and every Aqua Reusable Water Bottle sold on the Envirosax website to the ASPCA® (The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals)

What is BPA and is it dangerous?

The ‘big 3’ in a customer driven organization is providing ‘quality, cost and on-time delivery’. The latter aside, perceived quality can be very different from the actual quality a consumer is receiving.  An online search for the term ‘reusable water bottles’ will bring up a wide array of companies, around 90% of which use the term “BPA free” concerning their reusable bottles.

Since a popular reusable bottle was linked to the chemical BPA (Bisphenol A), the term has been widely reported and has quickly escalated into mainstream media.

BPA is a chemical used to make polycarbonate plastic and epoxy resin. The plastic is used in some food and drink containers and the resin is used as lacquers to coat metal products such as food cans and metal water bottles. There are mixed reports as to the dangers of BPA but it is generally agreed that the chemical does transfer across to food and liquid in older food and beverage containers. The NTP (National Toxicology Program) released a report with their findings, in which they expressed concern with BPA’s effect on the human body, and in particular, on infants and children.  NTP Associate Director John Bucher Ph.D concluded that “the possibility that BPA may affect human development cannot be dismissed”.

So it is for good reason that consumers are turning towards products that state they are BPA Free.  Despite the fact that the published research is still rather inconclusive as to the detrimental effects of BPA, it is prudent to avoid the chemical wherever possible until a definitive conclusion has been made.

BPA and Water Bottles

When a new bottle is made, testing procedures are undertaken in laboratory conditions to ensure the beverage within the container will stay chemical free.  A reputable, certified testing lab will conduct a leaching test at 90C (194F) for 3 days in order to simulate usage and ageing.  These are extreme conditions for the bottle and cap.  After this time the contents of the bottle are tested for contaminates. It is at this crucial point where labs can differ in the results they present.

Different labs will have different limits as to what they can detect. For a given sample, one lab may not detect BPA due to their testing limits while another will detect BPA every time. Generally BPA is tested in parts per billion or parts per million (abbreviated ppb & ppm). A comparison of results from four major labs showed their testing limits varied greatly. Below is a table showing from top to bottom the most effective testing limits found to the least effective.

Company A is able to detect BPA if only 0.25 ppb is found, yet Company D would not be able to detect BPA if the chemical was found to be under 10,000 ppb.  These are two modern labs providing results used as certification on consumer goods, yet one is 40,000 times as accurate as the other.  It is scary to think that one “BPA Free” bottle could potentially have 40,000 times as much BPA in it as another marked as “BPA Free”, depending on which labs were used to do the testing.

Health Canada and the EFSA Europe have set the following Tolerable Daily Intake for BPA limits per kilogram of bodyweight.

Europe –  TDI of 0.05 milligram/kg body weight (eg 70kg person = 3.5mg TDI per day)

Canada –  TDI of 0.025 milligram/kg body weight

A 600ml bottle tested by Company D could theoretically leach up to 6 milligrams of BPA into the water over the testing period (enough to be in excess of the TDI for anyone weighing less than 120kg or 264lbs), and still be called “BPA Free” according to that lab’s standards.

Therefore, it is important when purchasing your bottle that you ask the company what limits they test down to.  The claim “BPA Free” is readily used as a marketing tool to imply the bottles do not contain any traces at all. On the contrary, the lab may not have been capable of testing down to the most sensitive limit.

Finally, it is worth noting that a number of bottle manufacturers claim that they are BPA free simply because the bottles are made from stainless steel and have no plastic liner.  It may be true that the bottle itself is BPA free, but the contaminates can come from the polycarbonate/polypropylene lids.  Whatever part of the bottle BPA may leach from, the hazard could still be there.

This article has been written to give the facts about the industry, which is still largely unregulated. Again it is left down to consumers to sift through the spin.  Anyone can claim to be “BPA Free” but unless the company is transparent with their certified testing results, as a careful consumer you should be wary of what you may be purchasing.

We are delighted to launch our new range, La Boheme, which has been inspired by a fusion of the romanticism of Bohemia and the ideals of the Art Nouveau movement. It is about bringing art and beauty into every day life and a celebration of pushing conventional boundaries.

We would like you to help create a story for the new La Boheme range to give it depth and personality.

While our focus is on breathing new life into eco-friendly products with beautiful design, feel free to take this story anywhere you want it to go.

Comment as many times as you like, and any length. Get your creativity flowing. The story can go in any direction…however comments will be edited if necessary if the story goes beyond decency boundaries.

The blog will be ‘live’ for two weeks, at the end of this time the story will be posted across our sites permanently, so your words will be a part of the Envirosax La Boheme story.

To start you may find inspiration from this picture.

So we will begin the story…

Life was starting to get a little hectic for 20 year old Lorien with uni exams, boyfriend giving her grief and parents just not understanding the pressure she was under. She decided to have a break from study and go for a walk in the forest behind her house. She had always loved the quiet, stillness and imagined growing up that it was enchanted, just like in fairy tales. After walking for a while, slowly feeling more calm and peaceful, she came across this beautiful red bag. Her attraction to it was immense and she just sensed there was something special about this bag, something magical…

Fair Trade is an alternative approach to conventional trade that has become recognised as the standard for evaluating the rights of workers in developing nations who produce the products we consume.

The FTAANZ website provides an informative summary of Fair Trade, noting:

It focuses on helping farmers and producers in developing countries to move towards economic self-sufficiency and stability. By paying producers and their workers fair prices and helping them gain the skills and knowledge needed, allows them to have a greater stake hold in their own business, provide safer and ethical working environments and therefore play a wider role in international trade. Fair trade also encourages better environmental practices and the application of responsible methods of production.

It is about providing a fair go – not charity.

A Fair Trade Certified Company ensures that the supply chain down to the production of goods in factories has purchased all their manufactured components from producers and workers that have been treated ethically using the Fair Trade principles.

This covers:

• Banning child and slave labour
• Guaranteeing a safe workplace and the right to unionize
• Adherence to the United Nations charter of human rights

Horror stories are constantly emerging of employees losing limbs in factories, only to receive no compensation and without the ability to work, not being able to afford to go home. An Amnesty International report tells the moving tale of a Chinese woman who had been working 12-hour night shifts in an embroidery factory in Korea, who wrote this on her suicide note:

“Migrant workers are also human beings. Why don’t they pay me for my work? I cannot go home because I don’t have money. I have chosen to kill myself, as there is no other way.”

What you have to remember when purchasing a product from somewhere that states they are a Fair Trade Company is that anybody can claim they are a Fair Trade Company.

Do not be confused by such organizations as the Office of Fair Trading (UK) or the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC). Both of these organizations regulate economic competition law and policies amongst businesses, but have little to do with Fair Trade in the workers-rights sense of the word.

Their mandate is to provide consumer protection, not worker protection. The OFT slogan is to make “markets work well for consumers” and the KFTC website indicates that it’s primary focus is on anti-trust and consumer-protection cases, as does the KTFC’s own byline which refers only to competition laws, consumer protection, and boosting competition.

This has nothing to do with Fair Trade as it is commonly perceived.

To ensure that you are buying Fair Trade these are the only labels that are certified:

To read more about Fair Trade and where Envirosax stands in regards to these ethical principles, please read the full article.

Did you know that April 22, 2009 is the 39th Earth Day?

Founded by Senator Gaylord Nelson in 1969, the first Earth Day was held in 1970 and led by 20 million students around America. At the time, The New York Times wrote an article reporting on the astonishing rise of environmental activism – “rising concern about the environmental crisis is sweeping the nations campuses with an intensity that may be on its way to eclipsing student discontent over the war in Vietnam”.

Earth Day has grown to be a worldwide campaign with events being held all around the world, see http://earthday.envirolink.org/calendar.html , http://earthday.net/search/location and http://www.deepdalefarm.co.uk/earthday/ for examples.

While Earth Day is a great way to increase awareness worldwide of environmental issues, every little action that millions of people take on a regular basis is what really helps to protect our planet. There are many small ways we can help, as simple as turning out lights when we are not in the room or walking instead of using the car.

Users of Envirosax designer reusable bags should be congratulated for helping to green the planet every day. In its lifetime, each Envirosax bag saves the planet from approximately 6000 ‘one-use’ plastic bags from clogging waterways, killing wildlife and floating in the ocean for thousands of years. This one action of 3.5 million people using Envirosax reusable bags around the world is having an enormous environmental impact. Congratulations and thank you for making a difference to our planet!

Kristi L. Gustafson, staff writer for Times Union recently wrote “Reusable shoppings bags are so in vogue, shoppers can now find hundreds of different totes that are neither paper nor plastic. In fact, a reusable sack may be more fashion-forward these days than the latest must-have Louis Vuitton handbag.”

It seems that in the current economic market, the must have Dolce & Gabbana or Chanel bags have been replaced by more affordable, eco-chic reusable bags like Envirosax.

And with the likes of Cynthia Nixon using Envirosax, the reusable bag trend looks set to continue.

(holding Retro Graphic Bag 4)