On Sunday, April 22 we will celebrate Earth Day. Earth Day was first celebrated in 1970 in the United States. The idea for Earth day was the brainchild of Senator Gaylord Nelson, who was trying to find a way to “put the environment into the political ‘limelight’ once and for all”.  This year, more people than ever will celebrate Earth Day all around the world. But the question remains, how will I celebrate Earth Day?

Here are a few ideas what you can do to celebrate Earth Day:

Learn more about the environment!
Earth Day is the perfect time to make a commitment to learn more about the environment and how to protect it. More importantly, take the time to talk to your children about the meaning of Earth Day and the environment. Educating our children is one of the best chances for a greener future!

Make your lifestyle greener!
Try changing your lifestyle to a greener way! Change your shopping habits: Try to avoid items that come in unnecessary packaging; Support local growers and producers in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport; Use reusable water bottles and also buy your children reusable water bottles (drinking at least 2 liters of water every day is good for your health – having a water bottle by your side makes it easier); Recycle as many things as possible; Don’t waste food – store it in reusable container; Use a reusable shopping bag, like our Envirosax bags, in order to reduce unnecessary plastic waste.

Cook a special Earth Day meal!
Cook a delicious Earth Day meal using local products only. Keep in mind our 10 Steps to Waste Less Food! If you still have to buy products from the supermarket buy organic products only. Also, create recycled decoration yourself. It is fun and an activity for the whole family.

Clean up your neighborhood!
Another very good way to celebrate Earth Day is to gather friends and family and clean up a local space everyone can enjoy such as a park, a street, or a beach …. This is a very good way to create awareness and understand the impact of waste on our planet. Useful information on clean up days –> HERE

Ride your bike or walk!
Use your bike, walk or take the public transportation system in order to reduce your personal impact. It is good for the environment and it is even better for YOUR health!

Remember: Earth Day is EVERY DAY!
Think of the environment throughout the year and discuss your personal impact on the environment. Make sure you recycle and reduce waste every day. Don’t restrict yourself to just one day a year. Learn about how you can make a difference.

These are just a few ideas on how to celebrate Earth Day. There are a hundred different ways. Let us know how you celebrate Earth Day and contribute to a brighter future for us and for our children. If you already know what you are doing also consider joining the official Earth Day campaign A BILLION ACTS OF GREEN to show your support.

Happy Earth Day!

Your Envirosax Team

Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Eve are just a few of many holidays were we cook and usually eat way too much! Too much food usually means more food and packaging waste.

The Worldwatch Institute brainstormed 10 Easy Steps To Waste Less Food:

1. Be realistic: Due to the fear that we might not have enough food, we always cook unrealistic amounts of food no one can really eat. In order to be realistic, have a look at the Food Hate Waste organization’s “Perfect portions” planner to calculate the perfect meal size.
2. Plan ahead: Create a shopping list before heading to the shops. It will help to not buy unnecessary products. Grocery Gadgets for your Smartphone are very useful little helper.
3. Go small: You can always have a second (or third) serving. Therefore, start off with smaller portions in order to reduce the amount left on the plate (which usually becomes waste).
4. Encourage self-serve: Let your guests self-serve and therefore decide how much they would like to have on their plate and can eat. This reduces the amount of food left on plates.
5. Store leftovers safely: Store your leftovers in secure and reusable containers. Also separate your leftovers and store them in small individual containers. This reduces the risk of stored food being passed over and eventually wasted.
6. Compost food scraps: Compost vegetable peels, egg shells and other food scraps from meal preparation. Composting systems can be relatively easy and inexpensive, and provide quality input for gardens.
7. Create new meals: Have a look at Love Food Hate Waste’s creative recipes to see if your food scraps can be used for new meals.
8. Donate excess: Donate canned and dried foods you didn’t need for your holiday meal to food banks and shelters. Have a look at the Feeding America’s Food Bank Locator or search for it on the web for your country.
9. Support food-recovery programs: In some cases, food-recovery systems will come to you to collect your excess. For instance, in New York City the world’s first food-rescue organization, collects approximately 28 million pounds of food each year.
10. Give gifts with thought: When giving food as a gift, avoid highly perishable items and make an effort to select foods that you know the recipient will enjoy rather than waste.

If you have any other tips on how to reduce food waste let us know!

Enjoy your holiday season!

Your Envirosax-Team

Source: Worldwatch Institute

The international World Water Day is held annually on the 22nd of March as a means of focusing attention on the importance of freshwater and the sustainable management of water resources. The origins of World Water Day go back to the year 1992 when the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development recommended a day to celebrate freshwater. The United Nations General Assembly responded to this recommendation by designating the 22nd of March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

Each year, World Water Day highlights a specific aspect of freshwater. This year the focus is on “Water & Food Security”. Have a look at this short video to get an idea about how close water and food are related.

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

Do you want to know more about Water & Food Security or World Water Day in general? Just click on the World Water Day logo to get more information on this years campaign.

Envirosax is passionate to share the idea of the World Water Day. Therefore, we encourage you to take March 22nd as an opportunity to think about your personal water usage and how important water is. Talk to your friends, family and especially children and spread the idea of sustainable water consumption.

Enjoy World Water Day 2012 and don’t forget to share the message.

Your Envirosax Team

*photo compliments of Vancouver retailer Lavish & Lime.

To read his interview, visit our Tumblr blog

To read his interview, visit our Tumblr blog

Today’s focus is on Melinda Morey. To read her interview, visit our Tumblr blog

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch has been compared to a ‘floating island of trash’, and is spread over an area twice the size of France in the North Pacific Ocean. Four oceanic currents converge there, causing floating plastic debris from Asia, North America and the South Pacific to accumulate in a swirling vortex that’s rumoured to be doubling in size every 10 years. The islands of Hawaii lie in the centre of the Gyre and suffer from massive levels of plastic pollution.

The voyage is being coordinated by the premier organisation researching the impact of plastics on the oceans, the Algalita Marine Research Foundation. Their team plans to do research that will shed light on the global distribution and biological consequences of marine debris. Tim will also be taking photos and filming it for an upcoming documentary.

We took some time out to ask Tim some questions:

1. Tell us when your passion for the environment started. What struck you in your life experiences to become an advocate?

I have grown up with the ocean in my life like most Australians. I started with the sport of surfing and have been doing it now for over 20 years. However, surfing isn’t only a sport for me but much more. When you’re out in the ocean, you’re out in this incredible raw state of the environment. When you start to see things impacting on the health of the arena, you want to do something about it. So I started young and was focused on plastic pollution. I would pick up floating plastic while I was surfing and put them in my wetsuit.

I also traveled around India and Asia for 10 months and that’s when you really start to see the problems and I was just shocked. It was at that point I really started to think pro-actively and advocating the message for people to be the difference.

2. There are many people who don’t live near an ocean such as the middle of the United States and may not perceive this being too much of a problem. What would you say to them?

It’s really easy to say it doesn’t affect me because I am thousands of miles inland. However, once plastic gets into a drain or a stream it will eventually be dragged out to sea. Then sea life may mistake it for plastic and the fish you eat could contain toxins because of it. A lot of people out there, like and eat fish, so this something that is happening now that could affect everyone.

3. What’s the most surprising memory of your travels around India and Asia?

It’s not so much as a striking memory rather than just being shocked by what I’ve learned with the statistics. I’ve learned that…

• We only reuse 5% of what we have.
• Every molecule of plastic that’s ever been created is still in existence. This use of plastic paints a bit of an alarming statistic for our future.
• From 2000-2010 our planet created and consumed more plastic than in the entire history of plastic before that.
• Plastic particles in our oceans kill approximately 100,000 marine mammals each year.
• 80% of marine debris is initially discarded on land and is blown, rolled, or washed out to sea via our beaches, rivers, streams and storm water drains.

4. What inspired you to embark on a voyage like this and what do you hope to achieve?

I have a natural passion for the environment and I hope to take this to a wider audience. It’s a unique opportunity to visit the Pacific Garbage Patch and by seeing it and making a documentary, my hope is that it will bring a higher level of understanding to this real issue that we have and encourage people to take small steps that lead to big changes.

I also hope to further develop ‘Take 3’, which is a nonprofit that I cofounded, that encourages anyone visiting the beach or going into the ocean to pick up three items of trash to help save the life of our marine animals.

5. Any other final thoughts?

The support I have received thus far is really humbling such as companies like Envirosax. It represents simple changes like start eliminating one-use plastic bags from your lifestyle. Just these small changes can make such a huge difference when we all start doing it. There’s power in numbers and it’s incredible what you can achieve.

Tim is seeking donations to help cover his voyage. Please visit http://www.indiegogo.com/Great-Pacific-Shame to learn more and to donate. Alternatively, Australian residents can attend one of the many fundraising movie premieres of the movie, Bag It, which Tim is hosting. Please visit www.timsilverwood.com to learn more.

*Note: Envirosax has donated reusable bags to Tim’s Australian fundraising movie premieres of Bag It.  Please help spread the word and help Tim raise the funds he needs for his voyage!

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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