Tired of giving him the same gift year after year? It is often said that men can be difficult to buy for on Valentine’s Day. That’s why we’ve collected these five CustomMade projects to help point you in the right direction.
Give him a present that is thoughtful, and timeless, with this personalized money clip. Crafted from solid sterling silver, this piece can be stamped with a special saying, etched with images, and signed with a heart.
Who says kitchen tools can’t be hilarious? We love this handmade maple and cherry cutting board. It can be used to prep his favorite meal, or as a serving tray on game days with his friends. This piece packs a punch that is sure to make him smile.
You gave him the key to your heart, now give him a custom keychain to keep it on. This sterling silver keychain is hammered by hand, and can be personalized with your sweetheart’s initials. Each time he sees it, he’ll think of the thought and effort that went into creating a present just for him.
Made from genuine leather, and hand stamped with his favorite quote, or a heartfelt message, these bookmarks make a truly authentic gift. They can also be used as luggage tags or decor. Bookmarks will vary slightly in color, texture, and patina, making each one unique.
What could be cooler for his man cave than a reclaimed coffee table made from an actual shipwreck? The finish is completely authentic and reveals worn layers of paint, which was re-applied to the ship’s hull throughout its life at sea.
What special plans do you have for Valentine’s Day? Share with us below, or tweet us @CustomMade!
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CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting Buyers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate Makers of those goods.
Here’s a story sent to us from a Buyer in San Francisco, California, who teamed up with CustomMade to solve a unique need in his salon. We’ll let James tell the rest.
My name is James Colgan. I started my Hairdressing career in 1989 in Dublin, Ireland. I decided in 2005 that it was time for a change so I packed my blow dryer & scissors & moved to San Francisco. I am now the proud owner of my first salon located downtown Union Square.
The salon is a dream come true as I am on the 16th floor & the views of the city are sublime. However, I have had one dilemma; one of my salon chairs looks out at a window instead of a mirror making it a little difficult for me and my clientele to use. I have literally scoured the city and the internet to find the perfect mirror to no avail, until my fiancé suggested CustomMade.
This mirror is durable, sleek, modern, and beautiful to look at–AND to look in! Finally after a year and a half if looking I have found the perfect mirror for my beautiful clients.
James Colgan’s perfect mirror
Thank you CustomMade!
James Colgan
Of James Colgan Union Square
James Colgan
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CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting Buyers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate Makers of those goods.
Over the last 20 years, Frank has quietly built the most comprehensive collection of antique fishing tackle by The Shakespeare Company ever assembled.
When we set out to re-do the CustomMade blog, I really wanted to set a different tone. We used to create posts that featured interesting things someone could get custom made (like jewelry, furniture, frames, etc.), and while the items were interesting, just showcasing the items themselves didn’t get to the heart of what buying custom is all about. So I asked myself – what is it that all of our customers have in common? What type of person has something custom made? And that made me realize.
It’s people with passion. People who have the courage to be unique. People who go their own way, and pursue their own path.
People like my longtime friend, Frank Rybarcyk.
Over the last 20 years, Frank has quietly built the most comprehensive collection of antique fishing tackle by The Shakespeare Company ever assembled.
I’ve been trying to convince him to share it with the world for at least the last ten years, and he finally relented.
I’ve known Frank for almost my entire life. He was my father’s closest friend, and we spent years fishing together all over the world (that’s me in the middle there).
One day, over 20 years ago, I distinctly remember Frank explaining to my dad and me that he had started collecting antique fishing lures and tackle. We sort of dismissed it as a passing whim — something Frank was going to putter around with. It turns out – he was pretty serious about it! Over the next couple of years, he did what most new collectors do….he acquired lots of stuff.
The collection started in his garage, and then it moved into his basement. It got to be so big and so broad, that Frank couldn’t possibly curate it. So he finally decided he needed to specialize in one type of fishing tackle. Since his primary passion was for fishing lures made by The Shakespeare Company, that was where he shifted his focus.
The Shakespeare Company was founded in 1897 by William Shakespeare, Jr. and it has a rich 115-year old history that spans thousands of different products and permutations. The Company was conceived and founded in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Shakespeare, an avid fisherman, started to think about ways to improve the somewhat rudimentary equipment then available to anglers. His largest initial frustration was related to fishing reels.
Because the fisherman had to constantly guide the line onto the reel using his/her thumb, it was a constant effort to make sure that the line was evenly wrapped around the spool. This made casting the line difficult for all but the most experienced of anglers. So Shakespeare used a jeweler’s lathe to create a device known as the level-wind reel, for which he received a patent in 1897. And The Shakespeare Company was well on its way to becoming a household name.
By 1902, there were a dozen employees, and Shakespeare added fishing rods, lines, and baits to its product offering. The most popular bait of the time was a rubber frog (you can see one at the very bottom of the picture below), which like the rest of Shakespeare’s tackle innovations, is still widely collected by enthusiasts like Frank. Many of the innovations found broad-based commercial success, and by 1910, there were over a hundred employees. Today, well over a hundred years later, Shakespeare brand tackle is still used by anglers all over the world…. because “Shakespeare Baits Catch More Fish!”
Frank was hooked (pun intended). He started selling or trading all of his other brands for Shakespeare lures and tackle. He went to garage sales, antique stores, tackle shows, collector’s galleries, eBay, put ads in the newspaper – if someone was selling antique lures, rods, reels or catalogues, Frank was buying.
Eventually, even this newly-focused collection grew to the point where he no longer had the room to store and curate it. So Frank and his wife Sherry built a mini-museum behind his house to store the collection. He custom-built display cases and shelving, and made it a place where he can go to get away and pursue his passion.
Today, the collection is undoubtedly the finest and most comprehensive ever assembled. It spans the entire 115 year history of The Shakespeare Company’s products – including rods, reels, lures, accessories, and marketing collateral.
About Frank Rybarcyk
Frank lives in Elyria, Ohio. He is always interested in inquiries from fellow collectors or enthusiasts. Feel free to reach out to me (seth[at]custommade[dot]com) and I’ll forward any relevant requests to Frank.
About CustomMade.com
CustomMade helps unique people like Frank get cool things custom made. Jewelry, furniture, frames, sculptures, and virtually anything else you can dream up. Even custom fishing stuff! Check us out here.
Editor’s note: We received a small correction from another avid antique tackle collector, Steve Vernon of www.antiquefishingreels.info in regards to the early history of Shakespeare Tackle and the year he was awarded his reel patent. Please see his note below:
Although Wm. Shakespeare, Jr., did, in fact, patent a mechanical level wind for a reel, it certainly was not the first. Patented in 1897 (not 1896), its line guide was driven by a pair of spiral-grooved rotating shafts. Level winds employing only a single shaft had been around since 1860. (I also discovered recently that Leonardo da Vinci had designed a 2-shaft mechanism very similar to Shakespeare’s, but, of course, it wasn’t used for a fishing reel.) Shakespeare phased out his 2-shaft mechanism eventually, switching to the now-common single-shaft design by the 1910s. Of course, the company deserves credit for popularizing the use of a level wind on a reel.
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Bike use is on the rise — the number of trips made by bicycle more than doubled from 1.7 billion in 2001 to 4 billion in 2009 and many major cities are responding with bike-friendly communities. Hopping on a two-wheeler is great for you, the environment, and your wallet. But before you strap on your helmet, make sure you know the rules of the road, the proper gear to stay safe, and how to navigate the bike lane stress free.
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Though they are only one-eighth to one-third inch long—the length of a grain of rice—mountain pine beetles have made a devastating impact on our nation’s forests. A multiple-year outbreak of the small but mighty insects (Dendroctonus ponderosae) and other bark dwelling beetles has compromised thousands of acres of trees, and there’s no sign of them stopping any time soon.
Bark beetles have populated North American forests from Canada to Mexico for thousands of years, but within the last two decades, different species of beetles, including the destructive mountain pine variety, have killed pine and spruce trees throughout the Rocky Mountains and elsewhere. The current outbreak is the largest ever recorded in U.S. and Canadian history.
Pine forests have suffered in the past, and come back even stronger after previous infestations. And an ebb and flow of insect outbreaks is natural. However, there are a number of elements contributing to this current, more severe infestation.
An extended drought in the late 1990s and early 2000s is considered the spark that set off the explosive assault. Beyond that initial drought, three other factors have facilitated the epidemic: warmer winters, old forests, and continued dry conditions. With global temperatures on the rise, beetle eggs and larvae have a better chance of surviving the winter; it is only with a continued deep freeze of five days or more that the beetle population can be controlled. Secondly, bark-dwelling beetles prefer mature trees to carry out their lifecycle. The insects prefer older trees because the bark is thicker and more protective; larger trunks provide more space to colonize; and the phloem, which provides beetle food, is more abundant. As large portions of pine forests reach a mature age of 80 years old and up, due to in part effective wildfire suppression programs, those trees become more susceptible to bark beetle infestation.
Too many trees can be problematic as well. Overstocked forest stands mean trees have to compete for water, nutrients, and sunlight. “This causes stress that the beetles can sense,” says Gene Phillips, Forest Health Specialist at the Nevada Division of Forestry. Though small populations of beetles prefer older, weak trees, growing populations can destroy young, healthy trees. And to add to the perfect storm: Prolonged periods of low precipitation have weakened trees. All of these have contributed to an outbreak of epidemic status.
The Lifecycle of a Mountain Pine Beetle
A single beetle is all it takes to initiate an attack. That beetle will select a tree and begin feeding. Chemical reactions in the insect’s intestines create an aggregation pheromone, an airborne molecule that attract members of the same species. This pheromone, combined with volatile tree chemicals, draws in more beetles. The crew of beetles then tunnels through the bark to create vertical tunnels, called egg galleries. Inside the vertical egg galleries, females mate with males, then lay eggs along the sides of the gallery; each female beetle lays approximately 60 to 75 eggs. Roughly two weeks later, larvae hatch; those larvae mine galleries horizontally under the bark, where they stay protected from cold temperatures and predators until they begin feeding again in the spring. From late June to September, new adult beetles dig exit holes through the bark of the dying trees, at which point they fly off to select a new, live tree as a host.
And it’s not just the beetles’ living in and off of the trees that leads to a forest’s demise. “All of the beetles’ boring weakens the tree by damaging the cambium and exhausting defense reserves, but they also carry a symbiotic fungi which they seed into the tree from specialized chambers in their mouths,” says Scott Ferrenberg, a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado.
When the beetles first attack trees, they introduce blue stain fungi from spores near their mouths. It not only gives infested wood a distinct blue-gray color, but also aids beetles in killing the trees. “The fungi grows and clogs the tree’s cells, ensuring that weak trees don’t recover and eventually die,” says Ferrenberg; he has studied mountain pine beetle and other insect attacks. In other words, with the dozens to thousands of attacks on a single tree, that tree has little to no chance of successfully fighting back; all of the boring significantly cuts off nutrient and water supply.
Though mountain pine beetles usually live for only one year, some beetles may live two years in higher elevation areas. And they’re now breeding twice in some years instead of once.
Signs and Symptoms of a MPB Attack
While not all attacks are successful, there are characteristics of infested trees. Some signs are visible on the outside of the tree, while others will surface when a tree is cut down.
Under the tree
Look for a sawdust-like material at the base of a tree. The fine, dry mixture of fecal matter and chewed up wood, called frass, can be found on the ground around it as well as in crevasses in the bark.
The bark
Popcorn-shaped masses of resin, called pitch tubes, coat tree trunk bark and denote the spots where beetles started to tunnel. They may be brown, pink, or white. Some patches of bark may also be missing, removed by woodpeckers searching for larvae.
Below the bark Where bark is missing, there may be areas of exposed tunneling. It’s possible some of the surface-layer wood will feature a blue hue from the blue stain fungus carried in by the beetles. The color will be more apparent when cuts are made in the tree.
It’s possible some of the surface-layer wood will feature a blue hue from the blue stain fungus carried in by the beetles. The color will be more apparent when cuts are made in the tree.
The needles Tree crowns of beetle-attacked trees can fade from a lush green color to a pale yellow, then to a reddish brown hue as the tree dies. This process usually takes 1 to 3 years.
The Greater Impact
In addition to the death of young and old trees, there’s another side effect of the infestation: soil erosion. That in turn puts water quality and wildlife habitats at risk and increases the chance for landslides, as well as forces the closing of hiking and biking trails due to the risk of falling trees. “It’s important to know that large regions of the west are supported by tourism related income,” Ferrenberg says, “and many of the possible effects are hard to measure because of the complexity of the landscape.”
Towns that run through national parks or towns thriving on hunting, fishing, and skiing tourism are all affected by the mountain pine beetle epidemic. Effected trees are hazardous since the weakened wood puts those trees at a higher fall risk, forcing the closure of many trails and campgrounds.
Beetle attacks also directly affect the timber industry by killing off forest stands that could have been harvested. “Once a tree dies there is a finite amount of time where the potential lumber becomes too dry and brittle if left standing too long,” Phillips says.
But one of the most significant concerns is the effect on snow. Because so many trees have been lost to beetle attacks, there is less protective cover from trees. Winds can move more snow than in the past, and the sun’s rays also have more access to the snow, impacting how pace of snow melts. “This is a very serious issue for ski resorts and for agriculture since snow pack is really utilized as a natural reservoir that maintains stream flow late into the fall each year,” Ferrenberg says. The loss of just three or four trees can change snow pack over an acre or more depending on how the winds change, and that has water managers very concerned, he says.
Wildfires are often considered an ill effect of pine beetle attacks, but the jury’s still out on the connection. “The majority of scientific evidence says fire risk is not increased by bark beetle epidemics, but the U.S. Forest Service and other groups push the risk to gain extra funding from Congress,” Ferrenberg says. “This topic is an example of where politics and emotion are currently trumping science.” Though dried-out, hollowed, dead trees are in fact at risk for catching fire, compounds in pine trees’ needles and resins, called monoterpenes, are highly flammable whether the tree is alive or not. Ferrenberg says fire risk is generally high, so it’s hard to pinpoint beetle attacks as a major contributing factor. Though research does suggest flammability is higher in infested trees, those flammable chemicals begin to degrade a year or two after a tree has died. Length and severity of an outbreak as well can influence the chance for wildfire.
Controlling an Outbreak
Bark beetle infestations can’t be stopped, but there are methods of controlling the spread and destruction. Preventive sprays, considered moderately effective, can be used on living trees early in the summer to kill or deter beetles. But because of the difficulty in large-scale application and concerns over the effects on drinking water, chemical measures are usually limited to small campgrounds or private land. A more labor-intensive way to slow down beetle reproduction is to remove tree bark, exposing larvae to the elements, though Phillips says it’s not very effective. “If people catch the signs before the new adults emerge, they can cut the trees down and remove the wood with the beetles from the site,” Ferrenberg says. Disposing of already-attacked trees by cutting them down and burning them, or burying them is one of the most effective ways to keep beetles from a continued onslaught.
Nature also has its own ways of controlling beetle populations from growing, but again, it can’t put the brakes completely on an epidemic. Woodpeckers and some other insects feed on mountain pine beetles and their larvae, but they don’t really prevent future attack.
Periods of extreme cold are a more effective means of reducing the size of beetle populations, but it takes a prolonged deep freeze to do the job. Other options include pheromone lures (attracting beetles with a synthetic hormone to contain them in a single area) or diversifying tree species. Planting a better species mix and thinning out susceptible trees helps the trees that are left survive. “They now have room to grow and there is less competition for water, nutrients and light,” Phillips says.
Though mountain pine beetle attacks have substantially declined in the past three years due to the death of a large portion of mature pine trees, the beetle can continue to infest and kill other pine species. “There is still great potential for an epidemic, largely in Ponderosa pine, which has an enormous range across the west,” Ferrenberg says. He believes controlling attacks will never be easy. Because outbreaks cross borders of both countries and states, agreeing on control methods as well as objectives is a difficult task. “Many agencies have different mandates and management directions which often conflict,” Phillips says.
Management for beetles is also a multi-generational effort, Ferrenberg explains, “and that’s one reason why it fails. Few of the residents of the west can be convinced to care about long-term insect pest management when fire risk is a more constant and emotional issue.” Even so, insect damage across North America is 10 to 50 times greater in total acreage than fire in a typical year.
Though research continues on the impact of mountain pine beetles and potential methods for controlling current and future outbreaks, beetle attacks will continue, despite best efforts to prevent and treat them. Research and improving technology may prove more effective, but it’s clear there is no simple, immediate fix.
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Everything you throw away has value, however small. Whether it’s a garment that has outlived its stitching, a broken chair, a bicycle wheel or a lowly plastic bag, it is still something that’s made from a refined material and designed for a purpose.
But what if it’s broken, bent, torn or rusted? Is it trash? What can you actually do with it? Realistically, what is its value? Repurposing and upcycling may provide some answers.
Upcycling interrupts the cycle of consumption and the habit of buying things and throwing them away. Upcyclers give still-useful things another life in an effort to keep those things out of the landfill for a little while longer. At its best, upcycling takes something that appears to be worthless and transforms it so completely that it will always be valuable and valued.
The problem with upcycling is how do you turn junk back into something useful? What does it take to rework something broken into something beautiful? And how do you elevate cast-off bits of cultural detritus into valuable things that will never be thrown away again?
Step One: Obtainium
When I was a young artist toiling in the warehouse workshops of West Oakland, we used to go on missions for a magical substance we called “obtainium.” Obtainium was whatever you could get that would work. At one point, we had a great lust for car wheels and sheet metal; at other times, we scoured the alleys for shipping pallets or old windows. We gathered our obtainium on street corners, in junkyards and recycling centers, at yard sales and thrift shops. You never knew what you would find, but you could always find something amazing.
We would haul our amazing obtainium back to the shop, and then look at it: Yep, still garbage. Dirty, dangerous, heavy garbage. The difficulty wasn’t in finding and collecting it; it was in looking at those raw materials and understanding what could be made from them. With the same tools and materials, two artists could produce entirely different works. The true magic of the obtainium was in our own hands.
Step Two: Discovery
To effectively upcycle something, you usually need to reduce it. To do that, you remove the assumption of its previous use, strip away layers of grease, paint, and dirt, and reveal the underlying potential. If it’s plastic, you might melt it down. Metal usually gets the grinder. Wood is sanded and shaped.
Technically, this is a step backward. To re-create something in a new form, you have to go back to what it was before it became useless. That doesn’t mean erasing all traces of a past life: Some of the best upcycled works constantly remind us of their most recent reincarnations. But in order to give a new life to an old thing, you have to go back to the last fork in the road. Maybe you can’t un-bend that old bike wheel—but before it was a wheel, it was a strip of steel or aluminum. What can you do with that?
During discovery, you begin to understand and appreciate what you really have in front of you. The past life of an object falls away, and so too does its stigma as “trash.”
Step Three: Magic
Once you know what you’re working with, you brainstorm. What can you realistically make out of the oddly shaped things you have collected? What strange beauties have you unearthed, and how can you repurpose them into something that is more than the sum of its parts?
This is the crucial part of the story. We have all seen our share of mediocre upcycled arts and crafts. I have even produced quite a few sub-par items while a few of my cohorts created masterpiece after masterpiece.
Working with the same tools and materials, one person creates a piece of junk, while another makes something sublime. Why do some “repurposed” projects still look like trash, while others are transformed into treasure?
It isn’t really magic: It’s skill, instinct, experience, and artistry. It is the ability to use the tools, a knowledge of the materials, and the power to predict every step of the process, including the result.
Step Four: Craft
Ask yourself: How do bicycles, clothes, furniture, appliances and automobiles—the things we use every single day of our lives—wind up on the garbage heap in the first place? Overwhelmingly, we throw things away because they weren’t well made. We bought them at a bargain because they were right in front of us and had an appealing price tag; the hidden cost was that, sooner or later, they would break and not be “worth” fixing, or would be completely unfixable.
Most of what we buy was made in a factory somewhere; it has thousands of identical copies. In a mass-produced world, almost none of our possessions are truly unique. We might treasure them for a time, but in the end, if something can be replaced by a reasonably similar item, why hang onto it?
It’s ironic that quality and craftsmanship are often sacrificed in the name of convenience and cost. The cheaper things we buy tend to become “worthless” over time, and need to be replaced, while something well-made and unique can be a treasured possession for a lifetime or longer. Buy one gorgeous, handmade coffee table in your life, or buy five mediocre ones at half the price: In the end, what costs you more? What costs the planet more?
Meanwhile, quality craftsmanship can resurrect a “worthless” thing from ruin, and in the process restore and even increase its value.
A skilled craftsperson ultimately sees little difference between working with repurposed and new materials. The work required is comparable, the skill and experience needed are the same, the artistry is similar. In the end, the product is equal: a high-quality, unique, interesting, useful work. What does it matter if it started as junk? It isn’t junk any more.
Part of what makes craftspeople and upcyclers tick is the challenge of making things better. It’s the knowledge that, by remaking something into a useful, pleasing object, you don’t just remove it from the waste stream; you attempt to interrupt the cycle of buying and throwing. In the process, you gain the deep fulfillment that comes from making something right, from refusing to sacrifice quality and artistry, from developing and applying your skills.
Upcyclers start with trash, and seek to create treasure. They inject skill, love, and hard work into discarded materials. It may seem counterintuitive to pay a craftsman’s price to a person who repurposes found materials. The reality is that you aren’t buying the materials; you’re investing in the craft.
Next time you look at an upcycled or repurposed item, take the time to really think about its past. How was it made? Where did it come from? How many days of labor, how many months of planning, how many years of experience did it take to create that work? Each upcycled creation comes with a unique history.
Featured Makers
Howard Pincus of Iron Lumber & Light - “Inspired by the industrial age, my designs try to capture the look and feel of vintage Americana while maintaining function for today’s modern world. Utilizing the same materials as our industrial pioneers; Iron, Lumber & Light, and a few modern things too, we create functional art for the modern world.” See more work by Iron Lumber and Light.
Jeremy Medow of Tungsten Customsdesigns and builds both vintage and modern inspired lamps, furniture and clocks. Many projects start with antique pieces, and end with something more contemporary. See more work by Tungsten Customs.
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J.H. Fearless
J.H. Fearless is a blogger and writer whose work explores the intersection of art, nature and culture. Her blog, "Uprooted," won the Tripbase Eco-Travel blog award in 2009 and 2011. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Burning Man, National Geographic’s Green Living Website, Sharable and many more notable publications. Currently, she lives in Reno, Nevada, where she spends her time learning to garden in the desert and blogging for Burning Man each September.
Since the first wheels of mass production started turning during the Industrial Revolution, fine craftsmen and DIYers have found it more difficult to sustain their crafts. Until recently, those handmade-focused entrepreneurs who wanted or needed access to the latest technology would have to assemble a large amount of capital for items such as 3D printers or CNC machines. Those who couldn’t afford the high overhead were left to envy those wares and hope for a price decrease.
Today, instead of taking out a second mortgage to fund a workshop, artists, tinkerers, engineers, and gadget nerds across the country are pooling their financial and creative resources to establish the next wave of manufacturing.
“Makerspaces” are the 21st-century solution to the wastes and excesses of the old industrial model of production. They lower the entry fee into the competitive market, and serve as community hubs and hands-on education centers.
Makerspaces began to spread throughout Europe and North America in the early 2000s. Also referred to as FabLabs or Hackerspaces, they began in the mid-1990s in Germany as collectives of programmers. Some of the first, named c-base and the Chaos Computer Club, inspired U.S. hackers during a Chaos Communication Camp meeting in 2007. Soon after, makers established the first fledgling spaces in New York, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco.
As membership grew, hackers began to purchase more equipment and work on physical objects as well as create code. Some started to use the word “make” instead of “hack” in order to distance themselves from the negative connotation of subverting computer programs, as well as encourage a more creative and community-oriented ethos.
Some now differentiate hackerspaces, which typically focus on computers and programming, from makerspaces. Makerspaces are typically facilities centered on crafting rather than repurposing hardware. According to hackerspaces.org, there are currently 1,762 active spaces across the globe with 350 in development. Of those, MAKE Magazine has cataloged over 100 within the U.S.
Makerspaces have grown in popularity during the last ten years, spawning successful business such as MakerBot Industries and MakerFaires in metro areas to showcase the best of the community’s efforts. Sponsored by MAKE magazine, these events in places such as San Mateo (CA), New York, Austin, Washington D.C., Detroit, and Kansas City, draw thousands of makers and spectators. Giant kinetic sculptures sit alongside workshop pavilions and food trucks, while lecturers, tech reviewers, and musical guests discuss the art of turning imagination into reality. On a smaller scale, independently organized Mini Maker Faires in local communities are also excellent introductions to the maker culture and networking opportunities for established craftspeople.
In June 2014, the White House hosted its first MakerFaire, featuring 100 makers from 25 states in 30 exhibits. President Obama toured the Faire and addressed the makers. The Small Business Administration also announced its $2.5 million Accelerator competition to encourage communities to include startup accelerators and Maker spaces for entrepreneurs in regional entrepreneurship strategies.
Shared resources and on-demand fabrication of goods not only helps human enterprises flourish, but also has marked benefits for the environment. Fixing broken furniture or electronics becomes much simpler with the help of a soldering iron or 3D printed component, and mending clothing is less of a headache when a serger or sewing machine is close at hand. Found materials can be given new life through the vision of a crafts person, and the professional polish of a laser cutter, welder, or lathe.
Having one central location for storage and fabrication can centralize materials and equipment and encourage resource sharing. With a smaller physical footprint in a living space, makers can reduce personal energy consumption and find homes for unwanted, excess bits and pieces. A collaborative environment ensures that ideas are developed from concept to finish. If a knowledgeable friend can restore a busted gadget, it is much less likely to end up in a landfill.
“The Maker Movement and sustainability go hand in hand,” says central California-based SLO MakerSpace co-founder Clint Slaughter. “The trends toward fixing instead of trashing, DIY instead of buying cheaply made goods from across the globe, and upcycling along with recycling have allowed millions to learn new skills, hack things to better suit their own needs, and even make a living just being a Maker. MakerSpaces are not only a place people to build, learn, and hack for themselves, they’re also spaces that generate community and connections between people. We’ve already seen a number of people get jobs, start businesses, build prototypes, and find new opportunities through our space.”
Like any other cooperative, rules governing everything from the use of tools and storage space to cleaning up messes vary at each space. Every makerspace is governed by a loose set of principles that can be adjusted to suit the character and needs of its users. Websites such as makerspace.com and makezine.com offer online guides to starting a workshop, reviews on new equipment, and project inspiration. Yet the nitty gritty details of how to shop for real estate and work through the permitting process is often a stumbling block for many maker enthusiasts.
“Insurance and permitting was a tough obstacle, sucking away a large portion of our startup funds, ” says Rory Landon Aronson, FarmBot creator and makerspace founder. “It’s not that makerspaces are extremely dangerous, it’s that they are an untested enterprise and therefore riskier for the insurer because they don’t understand what they are dealing with. As makerspaces become more mainstream and ours matures, we hope insurance premiums will drop significantly.”
There are both private and government funds available for makerspaces. DARPA, university science programs, and industry giants such as Ford and Lowe’s have all awarded grants to makerspaces in hopes of encouraging the incubation of the next world-changing invention. This lets companies rely less on expensive, in-house R&D departments, and allows the market to see exactly what the consumer wants. By “democratizing” the means of production, the economy stands to gain from a host of grassroots ventures.
Like any endeavor that requires raw materials and power to operate, makerspaces have the potential to negatively impact the environment. To keep makerspaces as green as possible, startup collectives can encourage upcycling, biolplastic feedstocks for printers, a hazardous chemical-free work area, and solar panels for electricity. Facilities such as the Loveland, Colorado, Warehouse hope to establish a “health club-like scenario for business” with a focus on sustainability and care for the planet. However, the level of sensitivity for the biosphere ultimately rests in the hands of the members, and it is up to the founders and operators to establish and encourage a sustainable framework.
As mass production jobs leave America and Europe, supporters of the maker movement are reclaiming the vacant warehouses of global corporations. Local hackers can take advantage of the collaborative energy and buying power of a group while still striking out on their own to pursue their fortunes. Thanks to technology, the cottage craft industry may be seeing a revitalization that in turn may create consumption practices that respect the planet.
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Morgana Matus
Morgana Matus is an environmental journalist, educator, and performer living in Northern California. Her background consists of an eclectic mix of a formal degree in Environmental Science, a Fulbright Fellowship in Environmental Ethics, and a performing arts certificate from the San Francisco Clown Conservatory. She has contributed to a number of online publications including Inhabitat.com, Ecouterre.com, and Ecyclebest.com. When not scribbling, teaching, or hiking, she can be found making terrible jokes without any provocation and singing jazz and blues tunes that only your grandparents would remember.
Raised beds are the perfect way to start your own garden. Fruits, vegetables, flowersand shrubs can all thrive in the raised bed environment. The popularity of raised beds is on the rise because of their many benefits – reduce soil erosion, the ease of access to control weeds and pick vegetables, creation of a warmer soil temperature in the spring, plus many more. Follow this guide to learn how to create your own raised bed garden. From the building materials to the vegetables – We dive into everything you will need to create a flourishing raised bed.
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CustomMade
CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting Buyers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate Makers of those goods.
When we think of renewable energy, “environment,” “green,” and “clean” may be some of the first things that come to mind. But while renewable energy is critical to solving many environmental crises, to treat it as simply a green and energy focus is to miss a gigantic element in the renewable energy story: jobs and the economy.
Renewable energy has created hundreds of thousands of jobs in the United States, and millions worldwide. Because renewable energy is distributed and modular—which is to say, created from systems spread all over—it has an economic impact that’s often widespread. Many people contribute to systems and their installation, and a good portion of those people are self-employed or employed in small enterprises.
Solar Power Equals Jobs
The growth of the solar industry has resulted in thousands of new American small businesses that install solar panels, as well as manufacturers who build different components of these solar panel arrays. Creative entrepreneurs have also developed innovative businesses in the solar sectorIn total, in the fall of 2013 there were approximately 143,000 people working in the U.S. solar industry, mostly at small businesses. This was an increase from approximately 119,000 in 2012, 100,000 in 2011, 93,000 in 2010, and 50,000 in 2009. The 143,000 jobs come from 18,000 locations, with jobs in every one of the 50 U.S. states. Of these jobs, 9.24 percent were filled by veterans of the U.S. Armed Services.
Approximately half of the 23,000 new solar jobs added in 2013 were solar power system installers. These installers are often self-employed or work for small businesses serving a local area or region.
In the period covered by the 2013 National Solar Jobs Census, the number of solar workers grew almost 20 percent, about 10 times more than the national economy as a whole, which grew an anemic 1.9 percent. The trend is expected to continue as solar power demand grows. “Many employers remain optimistic about continued employment growth,” notes The Solar Foundation. “Over the 12 months following the 2013 survey period, 44.5 percent of solar firms expect to add solar workers, while fewer than 2 percent expect to cut workers. With the expected addition of over 22,200 new solar workers over the next year, employment in the solar industry is expected to grow by 15.6 percent during a period in which employment in the overall economy is expected to grow by only 1.4 percent.”
Wind Power Job Creation
In terms of wind energy, there are also many small manufacturers that supply wind turbine parts. Wind farm developers are mostly large companies, but wind turbines provide needed income to many farmers, as they can be co-located with crops (and actually help at least some crops to grow) while create valuable electricity sold to utilities and may add supplemental income.
Wind power has grown quickly because it is often the cheapest option for new electricity. Big wind farms are common, with companies such as Google, IKEA, Walmart, and Facebook, investing hundreds of millions of dollars in wind farms. However, small farmers can also buy several wind turbines and place them in crop fields. Many have seen their farming supplemented by the extra income.
The nonprofit Windustry has been promoting community-owned wind farms for over a decade. It assists farmers and other citizens and local community members on the logistics of leasing land to wind developers, working with local governments, taxes and tax credits, turbine selection, and more.
In general, wind farms are located in rural areas. Wind technician jobs in these areas, as well as the construction and administration jobs needed for such projects, also provide much needed economic activity. Several community colleges in rural areas where wind farms are popular have started wind technician courses and degrees.
Sales and land taxes on these wind turbines and wind farms also helps to put more money into the local economy.
A Feast for Entrepreneurs
Aside from the design, development, installation, and manufacturing jobs in the wind and solar industries, there are also creative entrepreneurs helping to advance these industries in more creative ways. Here are a few examples.
Mosaic: Mosaic is a B corporation that enables crowd-investing in large solar projects; people can invest in a project with as little as $25. It’s been compared to Kickstarter or IndieGogo. Mosaic has begun offering home solar loans for as little as $0 down.
EnergySage: EnergySage provides estimates of how much money you would save by going solar via a solar lease/PPA, a loan, or an upfront cash purchase. It links you to multiple solar installers and lets them pitch you so that you can closely examine the options in your area.
OwnEnergy: OwnEnergy helps entrepreneurial individuals, companies and communities generate their own renewable wind power.
Renovate America: Renovate America’s HERO Financing Program solves one of the greatest barriers for homeowners and businesses that want to go solar: It enables them to skip the high upfront price of a solar power systems and pay for solar panels, small wind turbines, geothermal heat pumps, or energy-efficiency improvements by paying more on your property taxes over time.
One of the most exciting things about the renewable energy revolution is that it’s not only transforming our energy sources, but is also transforming our economies and societies.
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Zachary Shahan
Zachary Shahan is the director of CleanTechnica.com, the most popular cleantech-focused website in the world, and Planetsave.com, a world-leading green and science news site. He's also the founder of SolarLove.org, EVObsession.com, and Bikocity.com. His work has been published on Scientific American, Reuters, TreeHugger, Change.org, and on dozens of other sites around the web, as well as in print magazines. His work has been referenced by the New York Times, MSNBC, Forbes, the Washington Post, and hundreds of other media sites and blogs. Zach has landed on a list of the "Top 20 Fuel Economy Influencers" along with President Obama, Tesla Motors CEO & Chairman Elon Musk, and executives from several major auto companies. He is also a recognized global thought leader on solar energy and wind energy matters. You can connect with him on Google+ or other social media sites via ZacharyShahan.com.
The tiny house trend is on the rise with more and more individuals, couples, and families choosing to trade in space for simplicity. And from college grads to retirees the appeal of a miniature home spans the ages. Shrinking square footage not only cuts down on chores — it’s a lifestyle change all about living with less and decreasing environmental impact over time.
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CustomMade
CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting Buyers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate Makers of those goods.
The Definitive Guide to Community Supported Agriculture
Community Supported Agriculture is having its moment. Across the country, more and more people are signing up for farm shares, looking to benefit from a sense of community, healthier environments, and fresh, wholesome food. But despite its increasing popularity, community supported agriculture is still hardly a common term at every dinner table.
If you’ve been wondering what a community supported agriculture membership is or whether you should join one, or if you’ve already joined and want to know how to get the most from your weekly share, this guide will help you discover the ins and outs of CSAs and how to make a membership work best for you.
What is Community Supported Agriculture?
Community supported agriculture (CSA) allows people to purchase seasonal produce directly from a local farmer. The farm offers a certain number of “shares” to the public and commits to grow food for participating members. In turn, community members agree to support the farm through financial contributions, which are typically paid up-front before the growing season. Membership dues help to pay for seeds and plants, greenhouse expenses, equipment, labor, and other items related to the workings of the farm. Members then receive a weekly or bi-weekly share of the farm’s harvest—essentially, the community members become shareholders of the farm. To date, tens of thousands of families have joined more than 4,000 CSAs across the U.S.
The benefits of CSAs are numerous. CSAs promote sustainable land management and farming practices, reduce participating members’ food transportation needs, support local commerce, provide farmers with financial security, offer consumers access to healthy, fresh food, and allow communities to build mutually supportive relationships.
Since then, different farms and communities across the country have tailored the same model to their own needs and preferences. CSAs can operate on vastly different scales, with some serving just 20 families and others providing food for over 1,000 households. CSAs offer delivery options or distribute shares at farmers’ markets, or require members to pick up their shares directly at the farm. Members at some farms choose what kinds of produce are included in their share each week, while other farms let the week’s harvest to dictate what will be included. Many farms exclusively distribute vegetables and fruits; others include additional foodstuffs such as eggs, bread, meat, flowers, or dairy products. At some farms, members may work on the farm in exchange for part or all of a share; other farms offer only a cash-for-food exchange.
A partnership between two farms—for example, a vegetable farmer might partner with a chicken farmer—is increasingly popular; it allows them both to meet more of their consumers’ needs. Other farms have created specialized CSAs devoted exclusively to meat, flowers, or preserved products. And in some areas of the country, third parties have established CSA-like businesses in which they sell boxes of food to their members but do not produce the food themselves.
Despite all variations, the basic concept behind CSAs remains the same: Create community, benefit farmers and the environment, and provide consumers with healthy, flavorful food.
How to Get the Most Out of a Membership
Interested in joining a CSA? Keep these tips in mind to maximize your experience.
Before You Join
Depending on products offered and frequency, a season’s CSA share can cost hundreds of dollars, While the cost can easily pay for itself in food and community benefits, it’s a big enough investment that it’s worth considering whether a CSA is right for you. Keep the following considerations in mind.
The farmer matters. Remember: Joining a CSA means joining a community. You’ll have an ongoing relationship with your farmer, so positive rapport is important. If you can, schedule a meet-and-greet so you can get to know your farmers in person and understand their approach to risks and shareholder needs. Also ask for references from other shareholders.
Cooking is required.A CSA share will offer up a variety of fresh, unprocessed foods that may require prep and will need to be cooked within the week (generally) in order to prevent spoilage. View this as an opportunity to beef up on your cooking skills (or, if you absolutely hate spending time in the kitchen, reconsider if a CSA is right for you).
Shares’ sizes may vary. Before signing up for a share, consider how many people you’ll need to feed and how often you can (realistically) cook. Ask the farmer what a typical share looks like and use this information to decide whether you’d like a full or half share or a big or small box. (Different farmers divide shares up in different ways.). If you live alone, consider splitting a share with a neighbor or friend so produce doesn’t go to waste.
Pick-up (or delivery) days must work with your schedule. Most farms offer pick-up or delivery only on specific days and at certain times, so make sure you’ll be available to receive your share.
“Local” doesn’t necessarily mean organic. If you’re concerned about how your food is grown, talk to the farmer about practices. Just because a farm isn’t certified organic doesn’t mean its farmers don’t grow produce organically, but it’s useful to ask whether they use pesticides or herbicides, what kinds of fertilizers they use, and whether they’re concerned about issues of sustainability.
Once You’ve Joined
Here’s how to maximize your share so food doesn’t go to waste.
Use the power of the internet. Before getting your first share, research what foods are in season in your area. That way you can develop a sense for what kinds of produce to expect in your share and learn how to store and cook them.
Plan meals after picking up your share. Even with research, it’s impossible to know exactly what will be in your share until you pick it up, so it’s helpful to get comfortable with planning recipes around ingredients instead of the other way around.
Wash and prep greens before storing them. Make a habit of washing all greens (including the tops of beets, carrots, turnips, and other root vegetables—they’re edible, too) as soon as you receive your share. Rinse in cold water, put them through a salad spinner, and (this is important!) dry thoroughly before storing them in the fridge. Then they’ll make easy additions to weeknight meals.
Learn how to store produce. Ask your farmer for tips or research how to properly store vegetables, fruits, and herbs in your share so that they stay fresh through the week instead of going to waste. Be sure to use up the veggies that won’t last as long as early as possible.
Get creative with recipes. Experiment so that ingredients stay interesting and enticing (If you only use lettuce for salads, for example, you might start to get sick of it very quickly.). Also, don’t expect every item in a share to work as a main dish; get comfortable experimenting with side dishes and garnishes.
Make stock. What to do with limp or leftover vegetables? Make stock out of them! Use stock to create soups, stews, and gravies, to cook couscous or quinoa, or as a substitute for cream in pasta dishes.
Befriend the freezer. Fruits, vegetables, and beans can all be frozen raw for later consumption. Spread out produce on baking sheets, put the sheets in the freezer until the produce is frozen, and then transfer the produce to airtight plastic bags or reusable containers before returning them to the freezer.
Preserve extra produce. If you can’t eat your produce as fast as it arrives (and don’t have space to freeze it all), consider preserving fruits and vegetables. Pickle vegetables, make jam or jelly, and can or freeze fruits so you can enjoy nutritious produce all year round.
Give away whatever you can’t use. If you’re out of ideas for how to use up your share, consider giving away extras to a neighbor or local food bank.
Ready to join a CSA? Check out the links below to find one near you.
Will this trend last? That depends on the individual consumer.
Who’s Buying?
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is no longer a new or vague concept in the minds of global consumers. And the increasing number of people who are willing to pay extra for a “do-good” product is a clear sign that attitudes are changing. According to the Nielsen report, 55 percent of people worldwide will pay more money for products from companies “committed to positive social and environmental impact.” The report also found that 52 percent of people have done just that in the past six months, and 52 percent regularly check product packaging for proof of its sustainable impact. Worldwide, 49 percent of people volunteer and/or donate to organizations engaged in social and environmental programs.
But will this socially responsible attitude become the norm? Or is it a passing trend? There’s no doubt that conscience-driven consumerism is on the rise. From 2012 to 2014, marketing agency Good.Must.Grow forecasted a 12 percent increase in the number of Americans who shopped for socially responsible products. Worldwide, Nielsen reported a 10 percent increase since 2011.
This growth isn’t due to just education and awareness. It reflects the coming of age of the Millennial generation, whose members begin turning 35 this year and whose numbers have outpaced Baby Boomers. Though this generation has often been stereotyped as spoiled, fickle, and self-absorbed, the stripes they’re showing are very different indeed.
The Millennial Shift
Deloitte’s Millennial Survey 2014 paints a picture of a Millennials that are disappointed in business and government leaders, and expect improvement in social and environmental responsibility. Sixty-three percent of Millennials donate to charities and 51 percent—more than any other generation surveyed—told Nielsen they would pay extra for sustainable products.
“Millennials believe the success of a business should be measured in terms of more than just its financial performance, with a focus on improving society among the most important things it should seek to achieve.” – Deloitte
This doesn’t mean that other groups—Boomers, Generation X, and the under-20 Generation Z—are unwilling to make socially responsible purchases. But according to the Nielsen report, they are less willing. Only 25 percent of Gen Xers—less than half the number of Millennials—would pay extra for sustainable products. Boomers halve that number again, to 12 percent.
Interestingly, Generation Z’s dedication is negligible Only 9 percent will shell out the extra cash. They may have fewer resources or they may not be dedicated to socially responsible shopping Millennials could change, too.
How can sustainability and social responsibility become more entrenched? Eradicating “greenwashing” May help. It’s no longer enough to slap a green flower on a toxic product. Consumers often feel betrayed by companies whose actions don’t match marketing, and that cynicism may pose a threat to brands who truly fulfill sustainable claims.
CSR-driven companies need to continue evolving, too. Good.Must.Grow urges socially responsible companies to move beyond purpose and create a competitive customer experience. For on-the-fence shoppers, responsible products are beginning to compete effectively with conventional ones, but must focus on innovation in order to present a real threat.
Global Disparities
What worldwide causes do consumers support? An overwhelming 67 percent are chipping in to increase access to clean water. Access to sanitation ties with environmental sustainability at 63 percent, followed by eradicating extreme poverty and hunger at 62 percent.
For North American and European consumers, the prioritization of clean water and sanitation—things we often take for granted—may be surprising. But, Nielsen reports that Europeans as a whole have the lowest level of interest in socially responsible shopping (40 percent), with North Americans just two points higher. That’s a big jump from the 18 percent of Americans who would have chosen sustainable products in 2011, but it’s still over 20 points behind the rest of the world.
Good.Must.Grow reports that Americans are in an even three-way split: One third of us actively seek to do good through our purchases; one third think it’s important but do not plan to increase their dedication; and one third don’t think it’s important or don’t pay attention. The most socially responsible region of America: the Midwest.
Why the disparity? There are endless theories, but Good.Must.Grow reports that the main thing holding Americans back from responsible shopping might be that we just do not know what social responsible products look like, how to find them, or where to get them.
Raising Awareness on the Home Front
Worldwide, Americans and Europeans score lower on two interesting fronts: We’re less likely to check product packaging, and less willing to talk with family and friends about products and brands.
Where roughly 62 percent of shoppers in Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa read product packaging to find evidence of sustainability, only 36 percent of Europeans and 32 percent of Americans do the same. Even more surprising, only 29 percent of Americans and 28 percent of Europeans talk with their friends and family about the brands and products they trust.
If the problem facing consumers in a lack of awareness, then there’s a clear opportunity for individuals to effect change just by talking with peers about socially responsible products, how to find them, and how to verify that they’re legitimate.
You Are an Influencer
If you’re reading this article, you probably have at least some interest in socially responsible shopping. That gives you an important role to play in the cycle, aside from just voting with your wallet. Want to see this shift in values become a lasting, even permanent change? Then become an advocate for the companies and products you truly believe in. Change does start at home—that includes your own.
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J.H. Fearless
J.H. Fearless is a blogger and writer whose work explores the intersection of art, nature and culture. Her blog, "Uprooted," won the Tripbase Eco-Travel blog award in 2009 and 2011. Her work has been featured in The Huffington Post, Burning Man, National Geographic’s Green Living Website, Sharable and many more notable publications. Currently, she lives in Reno, Nevada, where she spends her time learning to garden in the desert and blogging for Burning Man each September.
Many of us make daily choices to try to live more environmentally conscious lifestyles. But there’s an element probably present in everyone’s home that’s contributing to the destruction of the natural world: items made from illegally sourced wood. The paper sitting in your printer, the toilet paper in your bathroom, and the coffee table in your living room may all come from illegal logging operations. Each year, more than 32 million acres of forest are illegally and unsustainably logged.
Illegal logging—the harvesting, transporting, processing, buying, or selling of timber in violation of national laws—is a global issue, affecting most forested countries. The term also includes wood harvested from protected areas or threatened species of plants or trees as well as the falsification of official logging documents, breached license agreements, and corruption of government officials. Because of the natural of illegal logging, it’s also difficult to measure the scale of the devastation. “Most of it is selective logging, not big clear cuts,” says Dr. Matt Finer, Amazon Conservation Association’s research specialist. The pick-and-choose method makes it extremely difficult to spot missing trees in aerial pictures or satellite imagery.
Illegal logging runs rampant in poorer nations and is dominated by organized crime. A 2012 U.N. report estimated organized crime groups were to blame for up to 90 percent of tropical deforestation. It takes place primarily in the tropical forests of the Amazon basin, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia. Currently, Indonesia is the hardest hit country; 40 percent of its 6.02 million forest hectares have been lost to illegal logging. Though a short-term law enforcement effort in the mid 2000s temporarily slowed the loss , illegal logging has increased in scale over the last three to five years.
The main, most obvious reason for illegal logging the high global demand for timber, paper, and other wood-derived products. But not all logged trees are turned into flooring, paper, and plywood. Around 40 percent of removed wood is used as fuel for energy needs, including cooking and heating; in some tropical regions, that figure skyrockets to as high as 80 percent.
Corruption, economic and political instability, a lack of democracy, insufficient regulations, and weak governments all contribute to illegal logging. There are also insufficient penalty systems in place: A low risk coupled with high profit incentive makes illegal logging all the more enticing to those who need or want the money. Because illegal timber is generally less expensive and revenues are up to five-ten times higher, it’s hard for legal timber operations to compete.
The source of the wood is only part of the problem. Consumer countries contribute by importing wood without always knowing or checking if it’s been legally sourced. For example, the U.S. is ranked as the largest wood products market in the world. Translation? Many of us unknowingly purchase items made from illegally logged wood and keep the demand for inexpensive goods strong.
The Impact
Illegal logging costs the global economy an estimated $30-100 billion U.S. dollars in lost revenue annually— 10 to 30 percent of the total global timber trade. But the mass exodus of our forests has more devastating, long-lasting implications. It puts the environment, politics, and social stability at risk.
Clearing trees haphazardly decreases the chances for ecosystems to adapt to climate change and human contact. Research shows that for every commercial tree removed, 27 other trees are damaged, 40 meters of road are created, and 600 square meters of canopy is opened. Once trees are cut down, they are transported by tractor along the newly formed roads, which double as easy-access hunting routes.
Without dense forests to filter water and hold soil in place, soil erosion increases, and rivers and streams fill with sediment and debris, which has destroyed coral reefs and other aquatic habitats. Degradation of forests also destroys wildlife habitats on land, threatens populations of some of the most endangered primates, and jeopardizes plant biodiversity.
Logged areas are also susceptible to changing weather patterns as lost forest can make rainfall more erratic and consequently lengthen dry periods. Forest fires are another known environmental effect of logging: Clearing areas emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, which in turn becomes fuel for intense blazes. Many major forest fires worldwide were either started or worsened by logging or other agricultural development in otherwise pristine environments.
Illegal logging can also result in political conflict and clashes over land and resources. When the law is disregarded, community values are strained. “[It] undermines the entire landscape-level conservation strategy,” Finer says.
For many tropical countries, the conservation of forest cover focuses on the establishment of protected areas and indigenous territories, he explains. Once illegal logging bulldozes its way through these formerly protected areas, the system is destabilized. Local villagers and indigenous tribes are driven from their homes, face murder and violence, and are subjected to uncontrolled colonization. In July 2014, Amazon Indians—previously unconnected with the outside world—emerged from a Brazilian rainforest due to illegal logging.
For the forest-dependent locals that have thrived on tropical forestland for thousands of years, logging near and through homeland can result in scarcer quantities of food, building materials, and medicinal plants. Meat and fish have been compromised by hunting, habitat destruction, and polluted conditions. Logging companies have even bulldozed through gardens and other edible plants and trees that provide nutrients for native peoples. Oil runoff from machinery and chemicals used to treat timber also pollute the land and water supply.
Putting a Stop to Illegal Logging
Even if timber sports a single producer label, it’s often been traded many times during transport and could have come from an illegal location. For a logging operation to be legal, there are a number of guidelines a company must follow to cut, extract, transport, and sell timber. Along that supply chain, there are countless methods of breaking logging laws. Even timber marked as certified—and with a higher price tag—may not be.
Some laws, such as the Lacey Act, control logging in certain areas in an attempt to halt illegal trade. Unfortunately, they’re often broken. Even in countries like Peru where forests are protected by a modern forestry law as well as a free trade agreement with the U.S., some logging operations still operate illegally. “This mostly comes from providing false information in the annual management plant and claiming the presence of trees that don’t actually exist within the concession, so they can then use those permits to log timber elsewhere outside,” Finer says.
Most legal logging initiatives focus on promoting sustainable logging, with incentives for legal trade (like REDD+); they don’t address the widespread extortion, fraud, laundering, and bribery. For instance, the Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade Action Plan (FLEGT) was developed to reduce illegal import to the European Union. The key to the program is voluntary partnership agreements that ensure only legally sourced timber and products are imported into the EU from participating countries. Other major players in the legal logging game include the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC), which helps enforcement agencies prevent and detect illegal logging and other forest offenses as well as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), with around 2,000 delegates representing more than 150 governments, indigenous peoples, non-governmental organizations and businesses. Other regional partnerships, such as the recent one between Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, have been put in place to improve customs at borders and ports and bolster enforcement.
Smaller efforts are working to make big changes, too. Rainforest Connection, a San Francisco-based nonprofit (check out the Kickstarter campaign here) converts old phones and parts of old solar panels into devices to detect illegal logging and poaching. The recycled devices pick up real-time sound of chainsaws and notify conservationists, who can then put a stop to the damage before it continues. But even with these efforts, both big and small, illegal logging continues at an alarming rate.
The Future of Logging
The only effective way to combat illegal logging is global collaboration. It will take more effectively monitored trade methods, harsher punishments, and smaller-scale efforts, such as consumer awareness campaigns, to hinder the exploitation of our natural resources. The U.N. says the three most important law enforcement efforts would be to “reduce profits in illegal logging,” “increase the probability of apprehending and convicting criminals at all levels involved including international networks,” and “reduce the attractiveness of investing in any part of production involving high proportions of wood with illegal origin.” But, like we’ve discussed before, it’s not just the people in charge that matter. Everyone—government, corporations, investors, and consumers—will all have to play a part in reducing the viability of the illegal timber trade.
Though it’s difficult for consumers to determine where their paper towels or kitchen cabinetry actually came from, it’s a good idea to look for products certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The certification means the wood was sourced in compliance with local laws and with respect for the rights of indigenous peoples. It’s not foolproof but it’s a start. And ask your go-to stores to carry FSC-certified paper goods and other wood products.
Illegal logging will not cease completely soon. “Until the legal system shifts the focus away from transit documents and toward verifying extraction of wood at the source and the subsequent chain of custody,” Finer says, “widespread illegal logging will likely persist.” The problem is too big. But with more initiatives, tougher penalties, and stronger global collaboration, the social, environmental, and economic effects of illegal logging may slowly and steadily decline over time.
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CustomMade
CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting customers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate makers of those goods.
Regular dust busting and de-greasing are important to any well-maintained home. But it’s also critical to keep your home as eco-friendly as possible. With hundreds of brands and products in the supermarket and big box stores, it may feel like an impossible task to navigate.
Why is having a greener cleaning routine important? Chemical and toxins found in cleaning supplies have been linked to cancer, asthma, reproductive and developmental toxicity, allergies and irritation, and accidental burns and poisonings. A home that’s free of these chemicals in one more step you can take to keeping your family safe.
A few tips can help you avoid many chemicals, non-biodegradable plastic tools, and energy-sucking appliances—and it’s easier than you might think. Here are ideas, tricks, and recipes to help your family begin a greener cleaning routine.
Clear the Clutter
It’s simple but true: One of the best ways to ensure that grime doesn’t collect in your home is to keep things tidy. Keep dishes, food, and paperwork organized in cupboards or closed containers, and surfaces free of dust, cooking splatters, and detritus. Try easy-to-follow ideas: Remove shoes as you go from outside to in, do the dishes right after a meal, and wipe down cabinet exteriors daily to reduce the elbow grease and time for deep cleaned.
Pros suggest “working from the top down” during a cleaning routine, dusting from the highest point in a room to the lowest, and vacuuming up what falls at the end to maximize efficiency. Also, mop from corners outward to avoid a soggy escape route.
One good guide is Clean Sweep: The Ultimate Guide to Decluttering, Detoxing and Destressing Your Home by Alison Haynes. Online tips can be found at Instructables.com or Make.com, including step-by-step blueprints for shelving, containers, and DIY cleaning gadgets.
Recycled Remedies
Upcycling tired t-shirts or transforming disposable items not only squeezes the last utility out of objects that took valuable resources to create—it also reduces the need to buy new. Instead of purchasing paper towels, try old newspapers or phonebook pages for cleaning windows and mirrors. Worn-out kitchen sponges can be thrown in the dishwasher or microwave for a refresher. Reincarnate threadbare clothing as great rags, which can be tossed in the wash along with other dirt-collecting items like bathmats, dishtowels, and area rugs.
DIY Detergents
Natural and easy home concoctions enable you to know exactly what’s in your cleaning products. Vinegar, baking soda, and water offer a great base to clean just about anything, and can be bought in bulk, too. Borax, lemon juice, cornstarch, isopropyl alcohol, cream of tartar, hydrogen peroxide, salt, and plant-derived soaps are also excellent weapons in the war against filth.
Start out with the most popular ingredients for green cleaning.
Instructions on how to make everything from air fresheners and disinfectants to furniture polish and window cleaner can be found online. Here are a few hardworking green cleaning recipes.
Steer Clear
Sometimes, being an environmental steward is about what you don’t do. Countless new mixtures of chemicals are introduced each year and many are not regulated or extensively tested for safety. While it can be almost impossible to read the back of a bottle without a degree in chemistry, steer clear of nasty offenders like formaldehyde, chlorine, petroleum-derived substances, benzene, phosphates, and sulfates. To see if your cupboard contains hazardous materials, check its contents against the Environmental Working Group’s Hall of Shame Guide, available online at ewg.org.
If you do not have the time or space to mix your own cleaning solutions, there are plenty of biodegradable brands that promise to leave a small environmental footprint. Companies such as Seventh Generation, Ecover, Mrs. Meyers Clean Day, and Dr. Bronner’s offer natural alternatives to synthetic chemicals.
It’s important to note that antibacterial soaps and disinfectants are facing increasing scrutiny as scientific evidence shows that these microbe killers actually foster the rise of superbugs. Cellulose sponges are safer alternatives to the polyester or plastic wedges that are treated with hazardous chemicals and can produce dangerous byproducts when left to decompose in a landfill.
Look for the Label
Some third-party certifications let you know whether or not what you are buying is helpful or harmful to your health. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency offers the DfE (Design for the Environment) seal of approval for eco-friendly cleaners; it also lists safe choices on their website. An EnergyStar label lets you know that appliances such as vacuums and fans use a minimum of electricity, saving money and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other reputable organizations include the Green Seal and EcoLogo.
Family Fun
The idea of chores may not immediately inspire joyful thoughts. But sharing the load among family members can help you take pride (and maybe have fun) in your labors. Turn on some good music, set up a sibling competition, and offer rewards to give the entire household something to strive for, and the pleasure of a treat when the job is complete.
Farming Out
Not everyone’s schedule accommodates homemade cleaning supplies and a regular cleaning routine. For a fee, professional green cleaning services will scour your home with eco-friendly soaps and tools. While not the cheapest option, it does cut down on personal time, effort, and space devoted to storing vacuums and gallon containers of vinegar. As an added bonus, it encourages the use of healthier chemical alternatives for those in the service industry and sends a message that, as a consumer, you don’t welcome toxins in your home.
Next time you tackle your home’s cleaning, use these ideas to build your eco-friendly, guilt-free confidence.
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Morgana Matus
Morgana Matus is an environmental journalist, educator, and performer living in Northern California. Her background consists of an eclectic mix of a formal degree in Environmental Science, a Fulbright Fellowship in Environmental Ethics, and a performing arts certificate from the San Francisco Clown Conservatory. She has contributed to a number of online publications including Inhabitat.com, Ecouterre.com, and Ecyclebest.com. When not scribbling, teaching, or hiking, she can be found making terrible jokes without any provocation and singing jazz and blues tunes that only your grandparents would remember.
The earth receives more energy from the sun in 1 hour than is used in 1 year. With the rise in popularity of solar energy many homeowners have begun equipping their homes with solar panels. In 2014, it’s projected that new solar electric capacity will generate enough clean energy to power 1.13 million homes. From saving money to helping the environment—there are many benefits to equipping your home for solar energy.
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CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting customers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate makers of those goods.
Swapping storage space and years of belongings for cramped quarters and just the essentials isn’t just about making a statement—it’s an overhaul to conventional living. Tiny homes, which typically clock in around 100 to 400 square feet, help homeowners drastically reduce their carbon footprint, ditch debt, and move closer to a life of self-sufficiency. Recently, we were lucky enough to speak with Jess and Dan, a young couple committed to practical, simple living. They ditched their apartment in favor of a custom 128-square-foot home— with no plumbing. Their tiny house adventure is about relying on blood, sweat, and manpower— with an emphasis on sweat.
There are realistic ways to reduce your footprint every day, and Jess and Dan are working toward a completely sustainable lifestyle. They’ve had triumphs and setbacks, but their build-your-own-home story is also about learning and customizing along the way—all by themselves, without a huge investment. (For updates on this labor of love, make sure to check out Jess and Dan’s blog, http://livinginatinyhouse.blogspot.com/)
Did you purchase plans from a tiny house company or create them yourselves?
We created the designs completely on our own after purchasing some of the major components for the build: the trailer, windows, and a door. We bought these all from Craigslist and saved a substantial amount of money by getting materials that were gently used, like new, or just plain brand new and still in packaging! Once we knew what our dimensions could be based on the trailer, and knew what size and shape windows to work with, we used Google Sketchup.
How did you choose the location for your tiny house?
We didn’t so much choose our current location as lucked out. We met our current landlords through a mutual friend. This friend has actually lived in the area her whole life and is very much on the same page as us [when it comes to tiny living]. She is passionate about living responsibly and sustainably, so she grew to know many like-minded people in the area. She sent a message out to everyone she knew who may be interested in letting us stay on their land. Our landlords loved the idea of what we were doing so here we are!
What were the most taxing moments?
Sometimes it seemed like the most taxing moments weren’t about a particular stage, but just keeping our heads on straight and feet on the ground. It is incredibly easy to be overwhelmed and feel you are not capable or skilled enough. Dan and I really leaned on one another when we were feeling especially overwhelmed.
The rafters were difficult due to the lack of ladders and the heat and humidity. We put our roof on in June when the temperatures were beginning to skyrocket. We only had one ladder, which Dan used on the outside of the house. I had to climb my way around the corners of our walls and perch in very precarious positions just long enough for the nail gun to secure a board in place. We were cranky, covered in sweat, and nervous about falling. We found out after the fact that we installed three out of six windows wrong. Of course the largest, heaviest, highest window in the house was done wrong too. And the insulation install seemed like it would never end. I’m not sure I have words for the feelings as we placed the first pieces of knotty pine on the walls. It meant insulation was done, and the bright yellow-white of the pine brought light and open space back.
What turned out better than you first imagined?
I think our favorite success was the ceiling. It was one of the first finished-surface jobs we did. It was exhilarating to finally be at the stage of interior finish work, but also just as amazing to be working with such historically rich materials. To think that we were handling wood that was cut and planed by hand in the 1700s was awe-inspiring. Once the ceiling was in place, Dan and I spent almost an hour a day just staring up at it. There are so many different species of wood with beautiful colors and unique patterns and so much character from nail holes and other imperfections.
How did you find the old barn and clean up the reclaimed wood?
We wanted to use reclaimed barn boards for our flooring. We searched Craigslist and found a guy in New Hampshire that was about to tear an old barn down because the new owners of the home didn’t want it and didn’t care what was done with it. When we got there he had already started to pull off the boards and pile them up. They were still full of nails, covered in old paint, and all different widths and lengths. We picked through and chose groups of boards with consistent widths and laid them out on the ground to get an idea of the square footage. Once we brought them home and started looking into what it would take to get them into flooring shape, we started to dread our decision. Not only did they need to be the same thickness, but they needed to have super clean edges so there were no cracks in the flooring. We quickly found we didn’t have the tools or the skills to make this happen.
One of our neighbors was very helpful throughout the build, and suggested we put them on the ceiling. He had a great point:— By the time we put all the interior pieces like the closets and counters, only about 30 percent of our floor would be visible. So why put such awesome wood where it would be covered? Why not put it on display? Once we put them on the ceiling we no longer needed to worry about tight edges and perfectly smooth surfaces, and nearly all of the wood can be seen and admired. There were plenty of old square head nails on the boards, which we plan to use in the future. After we removed them, we scraped any areas with especially thick paint or gunk.
We then grouped them into piles of similar widths and put them through a planer. This was one of my favorite memories too. We had a handful of people helping that day and it was the first time Dan got to use a planer. The boyish smile on his face when the first board went in all gray and rough and came out smooth and beautiful was priceless. We were amazed by the colors and patterns on each board. The install went relatively quickly and smoothly, which is another reason why it was one of our favorite experiences.
Did you upcycle any other materials?
We wanted to use as much reclaimed or recycled materials as possible. All of the insulation in the walls is reclaimed, the windows and door are secondhand, and several pieces of furniture are made up of scraps of barn board and fallen trees in my Dad’s back yard. Two of the three doors in the house that we use as partitions came from Dan’s Grandma’s old house and the other came from my Dad. There are other tiny details like the love seat cushions made from an old set of sheets. Probably about 30 percent of our materials were recycled and re-used.
What drove you to choose certain materials? Cost? Sustainability? Proximity?
It was a mix of all three. When we were still in the planning stage and waiting for the snow to melt, we had plenty of time to search and be picky about materials. Once the build actually got rolling, we didn’t have as much time or energy to seek out second hand materials. It can be a lot of work just to find the materials amongst hundreds of listings, let alone maintain lines of communication, travel, and haul the stuff back. We would have loved to use more recycled materials, but we also had a deadline and were realistic. This was our first ever project of such magnitude and we wanted to keep it as simple as possible. Using recycled materials sometimes means more work just prepping than buying brand new. The ceiling was absolutely worth the work, but I doubt I would have felt the same if we put ourselves through the stress and frustrating trial and error of making that wood into flooring grade material.
Your home, just like many other tiny houses, is on wheels. Why did you choose the option for mobility and do you plan on relocating in the future?
We chose to build on wheels for two major reasons. First, there are laws against building a house too small. You can go as big as you want, but not small. Since we built on a flat bed trailer, the house is not considered a traditional structure, which allowed us to bypass the zoning laws and building codes that would make creating a tiny house on the ground nearly impossible.
The second reason was it was a very small project that we could afford. The fact that it’s mobile is a bonus, but certainly not our main reason for choosing tiny houses. We want a house on the ground one day, but we also wanted to start our road to financial freedom now, and we knew we didn’t want someone else’s house. We want to design and build our own earth-integrated house. Something like that requires land and money. With this house, we didn’t need to buy land first or have huge savings to get started. So we decided to live tiny, save money, and pay down debt. Once we have enough saved, we plan to buy land. We will move our tiny house and begin building on the ground when we can afford to.
We’re fascinated by your choice to forgo plumbing. What compelled you to do it?
We knew we were going to make use of a naturally composting toilet, which requires no water. That would have been the biggest piece of plumbing. We also wanted to reduce our carbon footprint. In my opinion, water usage is out of control in today’s society and our current management of humanure and urine is a broken system. Mixing organically rich compounds with water, run off, chemicals, and toxins from big businesses and manufacturers is such a waste. It’s then fed through a water cleaning process that ends up adding even more chemicals to the mix, then that “clean” water is dumped back into rivers and other bodies of water.
I read the Humanure Handbook and was shocked by what I learned. Our humanure and urine is filled with incredibly rich and useful organic compounds that should be put back in the soil, not mixed with chemicals and other true sewage, then sent through a costly cleaning process. After reading that, and of course considering the thought of installing plumbing, we decided to do a “water challenge” at our apartment. We filled our water storage bricks for the week and did not use any running water.
We didn’t count the toilet since that would be composted in our new house. Surprisingly it wasn’t that difficult. It required a little planning with daily chores, like heating water before rinsing a dish. We went a full week without feeling all that restricted. We cooked, cleaned, and lived as we normally did and made use of a gravity fed camp shower or went to the gym for showers. After seeing how easy it was, we decided to forgo plumbing. It saved us time, money, design and install headaches, and future complications. We also saved those 9 square feet out of just 128 to something that’s used just about 15 minutes once a day.
What’s the most challenging part of living in a plumbing-free home?
I don’t even consider it challenging. The only piece I needed to work on at first was remembering to plan ahead. If I wanted to make soup, I knew I needed to remember to heat up my broth water first so it would be hot and ready to add at the right time. Dan and I have had more than one day where we were covered in sweat and dirt from working or exercising and the thought of grabbing our shower stuff and traveling somewhere wasn’t great. In the grand scheme of things, we are both proud of and committed to the way we live. We both believe too much convenience can be dangerous. You become disconnected and lose sight of how much work or effort goes into things. Dan and I want to live more deliberately with appreciation for even the smallest and simplest of things. I feel we have finally begun to see the true value of things.
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CustomMade
CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting customers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate makers of those goods.
How Colony Collapse Disorder affects our food supply
Most people know that, in addition to stinging when angry, bees have a role to play in pollinating flowers. But many don’t realize that pollination work bees do affects the food supply, too. And as bees’ numbers continue to decline at an alarming rate, scientists are starting to ponder what that will do to some of our most essential crops.
For almost 10 years, beekeepers, scientists, and environmentalists have sounded the alarm about disappearing bees. The phenomenon, called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), occurs when otherwise healthy bees collectively abandon their hives. No one knows the exact reason CCD happens, or how to stop it. What we do know is that the disappearance of honeybees has serious repercussions for the environment and for the food supply.
What Causes CCD?
In the winter of 2006, beekeepers began reporting high losses of hives, as the worker bee population inexplicably disappeared. Although the queen and young bees remained, without worker bees the hives eventually died. To date, almost one-third of all honeybee colonies in the U.S. have disappeared.
Why are all the bees vanishing? A variety of factors probably contribute to CCD: the invasive varroa mite; diseases such as Israeli Acute Paralysis virus and the gut parasite Nosema; poisoning from pesticides; and stress. Experts also cite the loss of undeveloped land and with it the decline of good bee forage space. Honeybees require habitat in which to hunt among floral sources, but by some estimates wheat, corn, and soy crops take up over 60 percent of U.S. farmland. That means bees have less and less space for finding adequate nutrition.
Some research points to neonicotinoids (aka neonics, a relatively new variety of insecticides) as the major culprit in CCD. These pesticides are toxic to bees, and may play a significant role in hive deaths. More research is needed to determine exactly how these pesticides and other possible factors work both independently and together to cause CCD.
In the meantime, some countries are taking steps to reduce the risks to honeybees. In 2013, the European Union announced that it would ban the use of neonics for two years in order to determine whether that would help bees reestablish populations.
The U.S., however, has yet to establish regulations in support of honeybees, so a group of beekeepers and environmental consumer groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for lack of bee protection action. Unfortunately, without cooperation from the EPA and farmers, it’s difficult—if not impossible—to implement better bee management practices.
The good news is that the U.S. Department of Agriculture plans to spend $20 million over the next five years investigating the causes of CCD. It’s allotted $8 million in five states to use as farmer incentives. Those spots—Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin—are home to more than half the country’s summer commercial honeybee population; the money is to be used to establish new habitats for bees. President Obama recently announced the creation of a new task force charged with investigating the effects of neonics and other new insecticides on pollinators.
While these efforts are laudable, some farmers and environmentalists worry that they may not be too little, too late. Farmers and grocery chains are already facing a potential loss of crops that bees pollinate each year. This has implications for the U.S. economy, ecosystems, and shoppers in the produce aisles.
Why Bees Matter for the Environment and Our Food Supply
Of course, bees are responsible for honey production, but bees’ influence extends beyond that single product category.
A number of crops rely on honeybees, including apples, almonds, avocados, broccoli, carrots, cucumbers, onions, and pumpkins. In fact, nearly one third of our food supply—or 100-plus crops that provide flavor, diversity, and nutrition—is linked to pollination.
While birds, bats, and insects also help pollinate flowering plants, honeybees are the most reliable and manageable pollinator. Each year, commercial U.S. beekeepers travel from farm to farm around the country with millions of bee hives in tow to pollinate crops such as blueberries, almonds, and other fruits, nuts, and vegetables. Without honeybees pollinating these food items, the U.S. stands to lose up to $15 billion worth of crops.
Humans won’t starve without bees; many communities around the world already survive without these movable bee hives. But we would lose access to a huge number of some of healthy foods, and there would be a steep increase in costs for other crops that farmers continue to grow through alternative pollination techniques.
Almonds are considered a “bellwether” crop for the country’s hives—if almonds suffer from a lack of pollinators, that’s bad news for the rest of the country’s food supply and for the health of local ecosystems. In California, the almond industry relies on 1.4 million colonies of honeybees (nearly 60 percent of all managed honeybee colonies in the U.S.). In stark terms, the loss of bees would equal the loss of U.S. almonds and all the associated jobs and economic benefits.
As pollinators, bees play a major role in maintaining natural plant communities. This contributes to biodiversity (or the presence of a variety of species in an ecosystem), which is vital for the health and proper function of the environment. If bee populations continue decline, that may also signal both dwindling biodiversity and increasingly unstable ecosystems.
Sadly, the destabilization is already happening. U.S. farmers have been forced to reduce the acreage they allot to crops on account of a shortage of honeybees for pollination. The shortage has also driven up costs for renting hives, which also challenges farmers’ ability to grow food. With honeybees dying off around the world, it’s important for everyone—from consumers to government officials—to advocate for identifying the cause of honeybee disappearances and contribute to potential solutions.
Wondering what you can do to help honeybees? Here are a few easy steps to take:
Grow a garden. Whether you have a giant yard or just a small porch or windowsill on which to plant a few flowers, growing a diversity of plants that are attractive to bees (such as Russian sage and germander) can provide important pollen and nectar sources. Do not use plants that have been treated with insecticides, and keep your garden insecticide- and pesticide- free.
Let weeds be. Instead of eradicating all the weeds from your lawn, recognize that they’re more than an eyesore. Dandelions and clover, in particular, are two of bees’ favorite foods. So let weeds grow free (and be sure not to spray them with pesticides).
Ditch the chemicals. Make your yard, garden, and home a commercial pesticide-, herbicide-, and fertilizer- free zone.
Support pesticide-free food. Purchase pesticide-free produce at the grocery store and farmers’ markets so that you’re supporting crops that are grown in a way that is helpful, and not harmful, to bees.
Speak up. Sign petitions to ban the use of neonics and other harmful pesticides, and write to your representatives to express your support for finding a solution to CCD.
Become a beekeeper. Want to take your bee advocacy a step further? Learn how to keep a beehive on your own property. Small hives add diversity to local bee pollinations. Bonus: If you also keep a garden, your bees pollinat it for you!
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How to Keep Chickens Healthy and Happy in An Urban Backyard
Increasingly, urban dwellers are choosing to raise chickens and embrace their inner farmer. There’s good reason for this — hens are the smallest of the domestic farm animals and the easiest to keep in a backyard. They are friendly birds that lay eggs and contribute nutrients to the compost pile. That said, chickens only thrive if they are provided with the right environment and care.
Home Sweet Home: Setting Up the Coop
Your chickens should live in a coop, but before you set up shop, keep this in mind: Chickens need more space than you may think. Set aside four square feet of floor space per hen, minimum. Less than that and hens will have behavioral issues, such as feather picking and bullying. Even if you have a small backyard, it’s not a great idea to keep just one hen. Chickens are flock animals and need to be with others of their kind. Start with a minimum of three chicks. By the way, a rooster is not necessary for the hens to lay eggs or to get along with each other. It’s okay to keep it to just girls in that urban flock.
The coop should have height, too; a low box won’t cut it. Hens don’t sleep in nests, but on roosts. Since chickens have best friends, they like to cozy up next to each other (and stay away from the hens that they don’t like). At bedtime your chickens will jostle for a favorite spot next to their buddies. Ideally, the coop should accommodate several roosts at different heights. A wooden ladder, leaning against the wall — make sure to attach it so it doesn’t fall — makes an excellent roost. Plan on a minimum of six linear inches per hen. The lowest roost should be at least eighteen inches off of the floor of the coop. This is because chickens poop (a lot!) when they sleep. Chicken manure is 75 percent liquid, which evaporates and dampens the air in the coop. As the manure decomposes, it gives off ammonia fumes. You don’t want your flock breathing any of that in as they sleep, because too much exposure can lead to respiratory diseases. The further from the manure the girls are, the more healthy the environment.
Fresh and Clean: Maintaining the Coop
To improve air quality and control flies, cover the floor of the coop with absorbent bedding, like pine shavings, and remove manure before it piles up. A fine-tined pitchfork is a great tool to keep the manure skipped out. Set aside just five minutes each morning to pick out the waste. Once a week do a more thorough cleaning, and every few months, remove all bedding and start fresh. Even a small coop in a city yard requires tools, including that pitchfork, a muck bucket, and a scrub brush for the waterer. Plan on a storage space for tools, feed,and shavings, in or near the coop — it will make chicken keeping that much easier.
Fresh, dry air is essential for your flock’s well being. Good ventilation makes a huge difference in air quality. Install vents along the eaves, windows that open, and, if possible, a cupola that pulls air up and out through the roof. But ventilation is a slippery slop since hens should not be housed in a drafty structure. This is why the chicken door (often called a pop hole) is only slightly larger than the hens themselves. The door allows hens to go in and out, but keeps wind and driving rain at bay. Conversely, it’s not good for the flock’s health to have a closed-up coop, as the air will be dusty, damp, and harbor pathogens. Even in the winter, don’t be tempted to seal it up tight.
Windows have additional benefits beyond letting in fresh air. Sunlight is necessary for egg laying and to stave off disease. Chickens can’t see in the dark. If your coop looks like a windowless doghouse, your hens will stay put on their roosts, even if the sun is shining outside. They won’t eat enough to be able to make eggs. And if your hens are in the dark, they won’t lay them either. If they’re not up and about and exercising, chickens are prone to disease. Sunlight is also a natural disinfectant. So plan on a coop with windows and let that sun shine in.
Hens lay eggs inside of the coop in nesting boxes. These should be lower than the roosts (so that the hens won’t sleep in them) and about 16-inches square. Three boxes are plenty for a flock of up to a dozen hens — they’ll all try to crowd into one even if the others are empty.
Chickens need plenty of room to roam outside of the coop, too. Most urban chickens are confined to a fenced run (for predator protection and to keep them in place — hens do wander.) Eight square feet per chicken in the pen is the minimum allotment, but more is better. Hens spend most of their day scratching the ground and the dirt in the runs packs down into an impermeable base. Occasionally turn the soil over with a pitchfork and add coarse sand to improve drainage. Loose earth makes the hens happy because they take dust baths in it, which is a communal activity that the hens enjoy. Dry dirt under the feathers also helps reduce any external parasites that the hens might harbor.
Safe and Sound: Protecting the Coop
Unfortunately, there are many predators that want a chicken or egg dinner, including foxes, raccoons, opossums, and black snakes. Hawks and owls are hunters from above.Good fencing is a must — rats can gnaw through chicken wire. Urban flocks are best protected by wire hardware cloth. Extend it below the ground by eight inches to deter digging predators. Cover the run with more hardware cloth or hawk netting as well. Keep away burrowing animals by installing a gravel trench around the perimeter of the pen. To deter mice and other vermin, keep the sides of the coop clear of woodpiles, clutter, and other things rodents like to hide in.
No fencing is secure against nighttime predators (weasels can slip through a 2-inch gap!). Always close your hens inside the coop at night. If you can’t be home at dusk, purchase an automatic door. But don’t worry, the chickens happily put themselves to bed as soon as it gets dark, and will all be inside before the door closes behind them.
Healthy Hens: Feeding Your Flock
Beyond keeping your chickens safe, the next order of business is food and water. It is best to have dispensers inside the coop where the pellets will stay dry. If there’s no space inside your coop for a feeder and waterer, then hang them outside under shelter during the day and store the feed inside a galvanized can each night (so you don’t feed mice and other critters).
Hens need proper nutrition to produce eggs and regrow feathers during the molt. Start with a quality laying hen pellet, which should have the optimum protein content of 16 percent. Although chickens love scratch corn, it isn’t necessary. In fact, feeding too much corn can lower your flock’s protein consumption, which can lead to thin-shelled eggs and may cause liver disease. Feed your flock corn and other carbohydrates — such as bread and leftover pasta —sparingly. On the other end of the spectrum, too much protein (often given in the form of mealworm treats) can cause kidney disease. Healthy additions to a hen’s diet are vegetables and fruits, such as pumpkins, zucchini, and apples. But don’t chop them up — pecking at whole vegetables can keep your flock busy.
Chickens require two supplements to their diet: oyster shell for calcium (to build strong eggs) and granite grit (to aid in digestion.) Offer these items to your flock free choice. A source of clean, fresh water is of the utmost importance. Dispensers designed for poultry will keep the water flowing and clean.
The average six-pound hen will eat upwards of four ounces of feed and drink four ounces of water a day. She’ll also produce four ounces of manure daily and her egg weighs about two ounces. Keep her glossy and healthy with a balanced diet.
Coop Comfort: Managing Temperatures
Your hens will be stressed by extremes in the weather. Although you can’t control Mother Nature, you can house and care for your flock to minimize the negative effects of bad weather. Chickens are prone to respiratory diseases, so it’s essential to keep their housing dry. As mentioned earlier, ventilation inside the coop is key. It’s crucial to keep their pen dry, too. Standing around in muddy pens will leave your hens susceptible to illness, so do what you can to improve drainage and give them outside roosts to get out of the muck.
Most new chicken keepers worry about their hens staying warm during the winter. Actually, cold is rarely a problem. A chicken has about 9,000 feathers, which keep her plenty toasty. Don’t use a heater, which is unnecessary and is always a fire hazard (chickens create a lot of dust and the air in the coop is highly flammable.) Hens do need to stay out of strong winds and they appreciate it if you shovel snow out of their pen. The most important winter chore is to keep the waterer from freezing. Even a couple of hours without fresh flowing water can cause health issues. A heated metal pad designed for use under waterers is available at most feed stores.
Do worry when the temperature soars. Chickens are prone to heat stress and will die in extreme hot weather if there’s nowhere to escape the sun. Put up a shade tarp if necessary. Chickens won’t drink warm water, so provide cool water in a shady spot. When temperatures near triple digits, cool things off by hosing the roof of the coop and the dirt in the pen. Some coops can benefit from a fan to move the air.
Chickens are curious, active animals that get bored and will develop bad habits (like eating feathers off of each other) if kept in an improper environment. However, they’re easily entertained and there are plenty of ways to enrich their lives. If their enclosure doesn’t have loose, dry dirt to dust bathe in, put a kitty litter tub filled with sand into the pen. Provide outside roosts or a stepladder and stumps for the hens to stand and roost on. Give them a hard winter squash that requires hours of pecking to eat. Hang a wild bird suet feeder in the coop and fill it with kale and other greens. Also, spend time with your hens — they really do like human company.
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Terry Golson
Terry Golson has kept a small flock of chickens for twenty years. For the last ten years she has shared those hens (and goats, dogs, and rabbit) with a worldwide audience via HenCam.com, where she has live cams on her animals, writes a daily blog about the goings on in her backyard, and provides sensible advice for the backyard chicken keeper. Terry gives chicken keeping workshops and does school visits (with a hen in tow!) She’s appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, and has been featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles. Terry is the author five cookbooks, including, The Farmstead Egg Guide and Cookbook (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) a picture book starring her hens, Tillie Lays an Egg (Scholastic) and postcard books of vintage photographs of farm animals. You can contact Terry through HenCam.
For budget-conscious consumers, frequent movers, or first-time renters, furniture meant to stand the test of time doesn’t exactly sound feasible. A $30 coffee table, $200 bed frame, and $150 dresser may sound enticing, but as many of us have found out the hard way, these particleboard wonders weren’t exactly built to last.
The primary issue with cheap, dispensable, slap-together-in-a-1-2-3 furniture isn’t just what it’s made of (we’ll get to that shortly). The bigger problem: It’s easy to chuck it. When there’s a low upfront investment, we may not be as attached to a set of inexpensive side tables as compared to heirloom oak ones. If it teeters, wobbles, breaks, or doesn’t fit a room’s changing design aesthetic, the simple solution is to toss furniture to the curb and buy new, right?
Though bargain-basement furniture offers a temporary solution, investing in replacements every few years can put a damper on your wallet and the environment. Read on for tips, from choosing sustainably sourced materials to giving old items another go, to help make your home just a little bit more green, and not just in the short term.
Choose Sustainable Materials
When purchasing new or used furniture, look for hearty materials that can handle years of use (take into account normal wear and tear from kids, pets, and moves from one home to another).
Wood
While chopping down trees to furnish your home isn’t inherently sustainable, there are some better wood choices than others. First off, keep an eye out for timber harvested under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) guidelines. On paper, an FSC certification means the wood was sourced in compliance with local laws and with respect for the rights of indigenous peoples, but it’s not always foolproof. Unfortunately, since there are a number of ways illegally-logged wood and wood products can sneak past rules and regulations, the FSC label is currently just step in the right direction. Some major retailers offer furniture lines made from responsibly sourced woods such as teak, bamboo, walnut, and eucalyptus. Though wood isn’t as easily recycled as some other materials, it’s long lasting and can be sourced locally.
Veneer: a thin layer of nicer wood applied over cheaper wood. Can be used in expensive furniture as well, but limits the amount of times it can be refinished.
Plywood: layers of wood glued together, then coated with veneer
Particleboard: flakes of wood and sawdust molded together by high pressure and glue
Fiberboard: like particleboard but made with wood-pulp fibers instead
Laminated wood: a weaker type of plywood comprised of thin layers of wood
Bamboo
Bamboo is gaining praise as one of the smartest, eco-friendliest furniture choices available. While a tree may require dozens of years to reach a suitable size to complete a farmhouse dining table, bamboo is very fast growing. Technically a grass, bamboo can reach anywhere from 18 to 47 inches in a 24-hour period; compare that to the decades it takes for conventional lumber-producing trees to become harvestable. It also releases 35 percent more oxygen than the equivalent of forest trees. And when it comes down to bamboo’s use in furniture, the material is seriously durable—it’s stronger than mild steel.
Rattan
Regularly sold as wicker furniture, rattan is especially durable when woven and is slow to show wear and tear. Since rattan is a member of the palm family, it grows much more rapidly than wood (much like bamboo).
Metal, Steel, and Aluminum
While the manufacturing of metal, steel, and aluminum may not be so green—production often requires tons of electricity—all of these materials can be easily recycled when it’s time to move on to new furniture. They’re also durable and sometimes already made of recycled content.
The materials used to make furniture are only one part of the equation. Though it’s an added challenge, it’s also a good idea to purchase furniture from companies dedicated to reducing their environmental impact. Herman Miller and Steelcase, for example, are both committed to the Cradle to Cradle Framework, making eco-effective decisions, such as powering all operations with 100 percent renewable energy. A little research into sustainable business practices can help you make a more informed purchasing decision.
Ditch Toxic Chemicals
A lot of furniture is manufactured with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which are chemicals used in things like paint, leather treatments, upholstery, plywood, and pressed wood products. VOCs leach into the air in the form of a gas. New furniture slowly releases VOCs in a home’s air over time, gradually building up to toxic levels when all doors and windows are closed. Exposure to VOCs has been associated with allergies, respiratory irritation, developmental and reproductive issues, and neurologic effects. Pre-owned furniture often releases fewer VOCs since it has already had the chance to off-gas (in other words, release all that toxic stuff). If you plan to refinish furniture, look for low VOC paints and stains.
Stain-resistant and flame-retardant fabrics are also raising concerns about potential harmful health effects. Upholstery treated with stain-resistant coatings often contains perfluorochemicals (PFCs). While the jury is still out on just how dangerous they are, PFCs have been linked to tumor growth, reproductive problems, and changes in liver and thyroid function. Keep an eye out for GREENGUARD certified products (mostly just office furniture suppliers for now), which signify furniture with low chemical emissions.
The foam inside couches, chairs, and other upholstered furniture is often doused with flame retardant chemicals. Despite their name, flame retardants have actually been found ineffective in preventing furniture fires. During manufacturing and with use over time, these chemicals are released into the air we breathe, and then accumulate in our blood stream. Studies suggest exposure to flame retardants may lead to reproductive issues, cancer, autism, and obesity. Though the chemicals aren’t completely unavoidable, look for the TB117-2013 tag and check with furniture retailers to verify purchases are free of flame retardants. Furniture without filling, including most items made from wicker, wood, and metal, are unlikely to contain dangerous flame retardants.
Learn to Love Pre-Loved
The term pre-owned often carries a negative connotation, but a little wear and tear on furniture isn’t the same as say, a car. Trolling Craigslist, tag sales, and flea markets can unearth all sorts of gems, generally within a low price bracket. Be sure to check out the furniture before you buy to make sure any damage is easy to conceal or repair. Again, you want to look for durable pieces that will last from move to move. Vintage furniture may even be better made than new stuff especially with dovetail joints and solid wood. Another option? Repurposing. A little elbow grease and some fresh paint or stain can freshen up hand-me-down furniture or tag sale finds without a major financial investment.
If the hunt for the perfect pre-loved piece (complete with a few dings and scratches) isn’t exactly your idea of a good time, there are other ways to go vintage. Many furniture makers and designers are breathing new life into scraps and reclaimed materials to create beautiful pieces. Turning to old doors, windows, beams, and even sinker wood (logs harvested from river and lake bottoms) means the furniture is at least partially made without having to cut down new trees.
Look Close to Home
One of the ultimate steps toward sustainability lies in sourcing your furniture from local makers. Shopping for furniture locally helps reduce transportation waste as well as some of the processing and packaging necessary to ship items from a far away land to your door. As an added bonus, statistics show local, independent makers are more likely to reuse materials. Purchasing American-made furniture is also a smart choice. Plenty of U.S. retailers carry furniture made from countries all over the world, meaning they may come with a considerable carbon footprint. Close-to-home purchases have the added benefit of stimulating the local economy. To put it into perspective, local business generate 70 percent more local economic activity per square foot than big box retailers. Check out local papers and classified sites for locally made items or look for an American-made label.
Conclusion
While a low price tag is appealing, remember to think long term both for your finances and Mother Earth. You may be hard pressed to find a perfectly earth-friendly item, but it doesn’t hurt to make strides toward lasting, greener purchases. And remember, in the end quality materials trump just about all else.
When it is time to send your not-so-treasured nightstand to the furniture graveyard, take the extra step to dispose of it in an environmentally conscious way. An estimated 8.8 million tons of furniture ended up in U.S. landfills in 2005 alone. Recycle, sell, donate, or even refurbish furniture rather than sending it straight to landfills.
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CustomMade
CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting customers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate makers of those goods.
Turning a metro space into a more walkable urban space, though costly, can reap benefits from economic growth to an increase in development. Walkable urban spaces have a higher amount of wealth and a larger number of college graduates than less walkable areas. From an increase in money spent per week to decreased crime rates—the benefits of walkability are beneficial to all. Learn about walkable urbanism and how it helps drive the economy.
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CustomMade is an online marketplace connecting customers who want one-of-a-kind creations with professional and passionate makers of those goods.
“Makerspaces” are the 21st-century solution to the wastes and excesses of the old industrial model of production. They lower the entry fee into the competitive market, and serve as community hubs and hands-on education centers.
When we think of renewable energy, “environment,” “green,” and “clean” may be some of the first things that come to mind. But while renewable energy is critical to solving many environmental crises, to treat it as simply a green and energy focus is to miss a gigantic element in the renewable energy story: jobs and the economy.
The rafters were difficult due to the lack of ladders and the heat and humidity. We put our roof on in June when the temperatures were beginning to skyrocket. We only had one ladder, which Dan used on the outside of the house. I had to climb my way around the corners of our walls and perch in very precarious positions just long enough for the nail gun to secure a board in place. We were cranky, covered in sweat, and nervous about falling. We found out after the fact that we installed three out of six windows wrong. Of course the largest, heaviest, highest window in the house was done wrong too. And the insulation install seemed like it would never end. I’m not sure I have words for the feelings as we placed the first pieces of knotty pine on the walls. It meant insulation was done, and the bright yellow-white of the pine brought light and open space back.
