Shirts Of Bamboo Blog

From the Seattle Times comes this GREAT article on bamboo:

If Jackie Heinricher’s Chilean feather bamboo hadn’t flowered in her Skagit County garden 10 years ago, we might, this very moment, be snacking on the latest, greatest gourmet craze: crunchy chips made from bamboo shoots.

But flower it did, a once-in-a-century phenomenon. All over the world, from Argentina to Alameda to Anacortes, every clump of Chusquea culeou unfurled fairy-like fans of pointy mauve petals and dancing chartreuse pods. Inside the pods nestled tiny seeds that Heinricher carefully stripped off by hand and germinated with the help of a local tissue-culture lab. It was a horticultural feat that eventually left Heinricher with 10,000 baby bamboos.

Click here for the whole article.

What’s the news from Shirts of Bamboo? The custom printer is up and running and we’d like your comments on possible new designs to be offered on our men’s and women’s tees, and our recycled cotton tote bags.

Drop us a note with your thoughts on these.

Method — the folks with the environmentally friendly line of cleaning materials (my housekeeper used their products before the economy took his job) have done away with those awful plastic blister packs that are murderous to get into, and non-recyclable.

Check out this link on the Sustainable Is Good website:

http://www.sustainableisgood.com/blog/2008/04/method-omop-sta.html

This series looks at contemporary American culture through the austere lens of statistics. Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes. This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

Check out this site — it is truly awe inspiring even on the web. To see it up close and huge would be amazing.

http://www.chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id

Here is an EXCELLENT, but long, article on bamboo in the Mother Earth News.

Though long misconstrued as an exclusively tropical plant, bamboo can actually be grown as a farm crop in much of the United States. Once you learn how to plant, grow and utilize this fast-growing, beautiful and functional backyard resource, you may never go back to wood.

From shoots to poles, it’s all in this extensive article by Daphne Lewis.

Full Article Here or Print Version Here

UPS has leased a fleet of 42 electric vehicles for use in Northern California. The vehicles were acquired from Zap!, the electric car and truck company.

Link to the full article.

Boy to I wish that we carried these … a $4 Bamboo Microscope.

A non-profit group in India called Jodo Gyan is distributing these cheap microscopes to poor kids:

This nifty device is a product of the creative minds at Jodo Gyan, a small nonprofit in New Delhi. “Indian children are not getting to experience all the joy and wonder of science because there is too much emphasis on the memorization and repetition of concepts,” says Usha Menon, a government researcher who founded Jodo Gyan in 1999. “Hundreds of thousands of children are learning without understanding anything.”Priced at 150 rupees (roughly $4), the microscope is just one of the educational tools created by Jodo Gyan, literally translated as ‘linking knowledge’. Other tools include mathematical card and board games and sticky geometric shapes in a variety of colors. The 30-member group has also led more than 700 teacher-training workshops and runs an alternative primary school that enrolls 54 underprivileged students.

But the microscope remains the star attraction. Jodo Gyan has supplied the instrument to several organizations such as Chennai’s Goodbooks Teacher’s Center and New Delhi’s Pragya, a nonprofit that provides services to neglected, high-altitude areas. These organizations then distribute the microscopes to schools in their localities. Jodo Gyan has also secured two big orders in the last few years from the UN Children’s Fund for use in alternative learning centers in India.

Thanks to http://www.medgadget.com/archives/2007/11/4_bamboo_microscope.html for this one!

News from the web about the fiber development biz….

The driving force for the fiber development, especially in past two decades has been ever increasing application for natural material in non-conventional sector such as automotive components, medical textile, protective textile, geo-textile etc. These applications bring out the excellent performance such as heat reduction, comfortness, soft handle, breathable and biodegradable properties of the natural materials.

The work focuses on the comfortness of automobile seating made out of natural and bio- degradable materials through introducing natural materials for improving the seating comfort and the riders seating posture. Todays automobile manufactures seek more seating comfort for their customers in terms of reduction in body temperature, by providing anti bacterial base to control the bacteria generation through body perspiration, improving ergonomics of the seat and care of health.

Click here for the full article.

I’ve been following ZAP for several years — they were some of the first to import/modify/certify the Smart Car for use in the US (even though it doesn’t totally adhere to the Zero Air Pollution) — but of course now, MB (Mercedes-Benz) is bringing the 50+MPG vehicles in starting in 2008.

ZAP is a manufacturer (and rep) for an entire line of scooters, bikes, ATVs, cars and trucks that are totally electric — some (like the cars and trucks) even have solar panel roofs!

So, ZAP’s announcement today is:

ZAP Signs Electric Car Joint Venture with China’s Largest Luxury Bus Manufacturer

 

Youngman Auto Group to Make Electric and Hybrid Cars, Trucks and Buses for Joint Venture

 

JINHUA CITY, China and SANTA ROSA, Calif., Sept. 21. 2007 — In a joint statement released today, USA electric car pioneer ZAP (OTC BB: ZAAP) and Youngman Automotive Group, China’s number one luxury motor coach and high-quality commercial truck manufacturer, have signed a joint venture agreement to manufacture, market and distribute electric and hybrid vehicles for the passenger car, truck and bus markets. The new joint venture company will also focus on the development and manufacturing of electric charging infrastructure.

 

Read More& ZAP News URL:

 

http://www.zapworld.com/news/zap-youngman-china-electric-car-truck-bus-hybrid

 

Slide Show… URL below:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11374805@N00/sets/72157602076760320/show/

Yes — all of you know that I’m a green gear head.

Oh folks — we’ve got a couple of pictures for you of more of the SOB Grand Canyon Challenge Gear.

So — here is the run down on the equipment. The center shot is your author in his “Green Queen” Shirts of Bamboo 70% Bamboo/30% Organic Cotton t-shirt that arrived in Berkeley (a stop on my trip) just in time for the trip.

The other two photos are of the Hot Pink Solio charger for my PDA that I’ll have to blog on for the three weeks I’m out of communication — the SOB budget doesn’t allow for a satellite terminal in the canyon. Damn.

For more information on the Solio click this link. Product review after the trip.

And more importantly, the TreeHugger review!

Shop around — REI has them for $99. Other places $79 — I forget what mine cost — probably less than $79 because someone was closing the pink ones out for less than the white or silver.