Chloe Angus Wrap

The Chloe Angus Wraps are back in stock! These wraps can be worn a million different ways- there's even a step by step instructional video on their website! Check it out here Available in either wool blend or bamboo, and a variety of different colours, it's this season's solution to a bulky sweater or jacket and can be worn dressed down with a pair of jeans or worn out with a cute dress. Great for all ages and sizes and is even a chic option for maternity or new mothers. Made in Canada, it's the perfect gift for the Holiday season.

Some Good Stuff

In a time when we are being bombarded with information about all the terrible things happening in our world, it's refreshing to see the positive changes being made. People all over the planet are taking steps to reduce our impact, change our habits, and eliminate older, less efficient technologies. For me, it's more motivating to see progress, and get motivation through other people's actions. Here are a few examples of progress from "How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint":

** In Australia the sale of incandescent lightbulbs will be banned in 2010. California is planning to phase them out by 2012.

** Refillable plastic bottles are common in Scandinavia- you put your used bottles into a reverse vending machine and get your deposit back.

** Thanks to water saving publicity campaigns, water use in Finland has gone down by 40% in the last 20 years.

** Composting organic waste from the home saves approximately 30% of our trash from going to the landfill.

** Between 1994 and 2006, the value of U.S. agricultural products directly sold from farm to customer increased 37% from $592 million to $812 million.

** Organic farms have been found to contain 85% more plant species, 33% more bats, 17% more spiders and 5% more birds than nonorganic ones.

** A tax on plastic shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland has cut their use by more than 90%.

Plastic Plague

We recently came across this National Geographic video about the damaging effects of plastics. Check it out- scary!!!! A good wake up call to help kick your plastic habits....

New Tea Thermos Has Arrived

For those of you who love to drink tea...

 

I have just come across this fabulous new B.C. - based line called Libre Tea....They have designed a very chic loose leaf tea on-the-go thermos and it is absolutely fabulous!!  They just arrived and they are flying off the shelves.  

The Libre tea glasses are leak-proof and thermal with removable stainless steel filters.  They have a heat-resistant GLASS interior for great taste and are non-leaching!! So no plastic tasting tea.  Yummy! The exteriors are made of a durable polycarbonate and the cap is made of BPA-free polypropylene.

So easy to use and to carry with you everywhere you go!  I am loving mine.  You should check them out!

The Truth About Plastic Bags

The plastic bag is an accepted part of Canada’s shopping culture, but it shouldn’t be. Every year we use over 9 billion plastic shopping bags in Canada. That’s 17,000 bags a minute.

Here are 10 things you need to know about plastic bags:

1. Canadians use 9-15 billion plastic shopping bags every year. Is that number too big to think about? Then picture this: if we tied 9 billion bags together they would circle the earth 55 times.
2. Plastic bags are made from non-renewable resources. Just 8.7 plastic shopping bags contain enough embodied petroleum energy to drive a car 1 km.
3. Five minutes versus 1000 years. The average plastic bag is used for five minutes to carry your purchases home, yet these single use plastic bags can take up to 1000 years to break down.
4. Plastic bag recycling is inefficient. The market price for recycled bags in Canada is $55 per tonne which is about 150,000 bags. The energy and funds required to collect and process plastic bags far exceeds the $55 market price after recycling. Recycling plastic bags just isn't worth it.
5. Plastic bags kill birds, wildlife, and livestock. Plastic bags are known to kill sea birds, sea mammals and fish. Turtles, dolphins, and whales can choke or starve by confusing plastic bags for jellyfish. On land, plastic bags kill birds, livestock, and deer.
6. Plastic bags block drains, leading to flooding. Plastic shopping bags have been banned in Mumbai, India, and in Bangladesh after they were blamed for clogging drains and sewers, leading to severe floods that killed over 1000 people in 2005.
7. Every piece of plastic ever made still exists. There are approximately 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in each square mile of the world’s oceans. In some places there's more plastic than plankton. Plastic bags are in the top 12 items of debris most often found in coastal cleanups.
8. Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade. Photodegradation is a chemical reaction between plastic and sunlight. It means that the plastic bags break down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest them. Yuck!
9. Canadian plastic bags have been found as far away as Scotland. Because plastic bags are easily transported by wind and water they can travel great distances. Plastic bags are now common everywhere from Spitsbergen (78° North latitude) to the Falkland Islands (51° South latitude).
10. Not all litter is deliberate. Up to 47% of wind borne litter escaping from landfills is plastic, mainly plastic bags. These end up in our forests, grasslands, waterways, and oceans. Approximately 80% of marine trash is swept by wind and rain off highways, streets, and landfills, down streams and rivers, and out to sea.
11. Reusable bags are the solution. A sturdy, reusable bag will last for years, and only needs to be used 5 times to have a lower environmental impact. Buy a bag at Agnes Jean Boutique today!

Information obtained by the following resources: www.greenerfootprints.com