Posts Tagged ‘bambu batu’
After spending a good chunk of hard-earned cash on a smartphone or tablet, it is wise to find a way to protect the device from all of the perils of the modern age. Your electronics may be powerful, but they are still susceptible to drops, cracks, scratches, and the occasional teething baby. Portland, Oregon-based company, PRiNK offers a fashionable and sustainable option for those who wish to remain tech-savvy while also keeping the health of the planet in mind. Once we saw that they produce shells for iPhone and iPad in bamboo, we took notice. Upon finding that they helped to fund the planting of 2,000 trees in the Pacific Northwest last year alone from the profits of their merchandise, we simply had to carry their cases. As an added bonus, they have a partnership with Arbor, one of the most enlightened bamboo clothing companies out there. As members of the Forest Stewardship Council and Fair Labor Association, you can be assured of a quality product that respects both humans and the environment.
Bambu Batu plans to be featuring several sizes of their bamboo mobile device cases for iPhones and iPads with the Arbor logo, our famous “Kale” emblem, stylish Om label, and “B Here Now” mantra. Custom etched designs are also available for anyone with a favorite image or artistic streak! Stay tuned for the newest exciting addition to the Bambu Batu family!
In the best of all worlds, clothing would be sustainably sourced, ethically produced, and with profits given to those most in need. Not waiting for the fashion industry to see the light, The Transient Design creates an entire closet filled with hand-woven cotton sewed by Thai workers who are paid fair wages. After taxes and production costs are met, 100% of the profits are donated to organizations like the Wildflower Home women’s shelter in Bo Sang. Fabrics are made and dyed with traditional, indigenous methods for gorgeous, robust, comfortable apparel.
Just in time for the holidays, Bambu Batu is proud to carry a selection Transient Design shawls, Thai fisherman’s pants, and pullover jackets. Casually elegant, each piece shows a dedication to craft and commitment to helping those in need. What better way show your affection to someone you care about than to give them to wrap them in a symbol of love? Come and take a look at our newest items!
Halloween must be one of the year’s best holidays. Children and adults alike have an excuse to dress as the characters and creatures they most wish to embody, and go house-to-house in pursuit of treats. For the kids, candy is the reward of choice. For those over 21, a good cocktail helps celebrate the night of spirits. For Bambu Batu’s next Art After Dark Celebration on November 1 from 6-9pm, we will be holding hard alcohol tastings from Re:Find in Paso Robles. The evening will also feature astrology readings from celestial superstar Harry Farmer and Tarot card reading by Francesca, plus live music and prizes for the best costumes.
Re:Find Handcrafted Spirits from Paso Robles uses saignée, or the free-run juice from grapes removed prior to fermentation, to produce their vodka, gin, and brandy. The juice is triple distilled to create the highest small-production spirits. The company is the result of Alex and Monica Villicana’s efforts to promote sustainability through using an often ignored artisan product. While most gins and vodkas are made from grain and sometimes potatoes, grapes produce glycerol which are responsible for the “legs” found in wine. The unique base accounts for their unique flavor profiles as well as providing locavores a handcrafted option for their liquor cabinet.
For more information, or to find a location where Re:Find is sold, check out their website, call: 805.239.9456, or email: monica@refinddistillery.com. Tours and tastings are offered from 11:am to 5pm daily at their distillery located at 2725 Adelaida Road, Paso Robles, CA 93446.
There is no doubt that the earth and human beings are intertwined. However, our species certainly has a knack for pretending as if this were not the case. The Bioneers Network brings together leading thinkers from around the world to help heal the divide between nature and people.
One of the perks of being the caretaker of the Bambu Batu blog is that I, Morgana Matus, can engage in a little shameless self-promotion from time to time. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that I have started a photoblog over at morganamatus.com that will be a chronicle of my past adventures, explore visual culture, and be a repository for terrible puns. In the coming months, I will be posting images taken in Norway, Hawaii, Costa Rica, Mexico, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Napa Valley, Lake Tahoe, Big Sur, and San Luis Obispo. You can expect tales from trekking in the frozen north, slogging through the jungles of Central America, and fooling around in clown college.
So, next time you are surfing the web, stop on by! And I promise, no more shameless self-promotion. That name again, Morgana Matus.
Whatever happened to the good old days when deciding what to eat didn’t have to be a political statement or involve enough research to qualify for a doctoral dissertation? Now, if you want to be sure that you are consuming food that is free of pesticides, genetic modification or the influence of big agribusiness, it’s necessary to be hyper-vigilant about what goes into your body. Among the major offenders to the environment, small farmers, and decency in general, is Monsanto, the maker of Roundup and a number of GMOs that have infected other crops, created superweeds, and potentially affected the health of millions around the world.
From its poisonous pantry of industrial seed stock, Monsanto boasts a wide variety of “Roundup Ready” crops — including soybeans, alfalfa, corn, sugar beets, canola and cotton — whose DNA has been altered to withstand heavy doses of their own trademarked herbicide. This allows farmers to spray their fields with toxins, eradicating the weeds and leaving behind nothing but their cash crop, albeit laden with Roundup®. These Roundup Ready crops grow prolifically in the United States, although they have been banned throughout the European Union and much of South America.
Here at Bambu Batu, we like to wear our hearts on our sleeves and our convictions on our shirts. We are now featuring a proudly organic (and non-GMO) cotton t-shirt that cheekily proclaims, “Roundup: Its whats for dinner!” For each shirt we sell, we will donate one dollar to Millions Against Monsanto, run by the Organic Consumers Association. The front side sports the chemical composition for glyphosate, the weed-killer sold as Roundup®.
Make a strong statement by using a little sense of humor! Start a conversation and a revolution to take back control of our food supply. Roundup may be what’s for dinner, but Monsanto will get their just desserts.
NOTE: Although our parody of Monsanto is protected by the Fair Use Act, we have opted not to list this t-shirt on our website, due to biotech behemoth’s notoriously aggressive legal practices, regardless of what side of the law they are on. Please contact us directly to order a “Roundup” shirt, and we’ll gladly send one your way.
As a part of Bambu Batu’s ongoing fundraiser for marriage equality, the next recipient of our Kale shirt donations will be The All Family Project. Based out of San Francisco, the non-profit encourages social equality by countering negative stereotypes of the LGBT community with videos and photographic essays featuring gay and lesbian families.
Their primary audience is middle America heterosexuals, and since that demographic is unlikely to visit their Facebook page or YouTube channel, they have decided to take their message to them. Depicting same sex couples and their children on billboards across the nation, The All Family Project hopes to encourage tolerance and familiarity. For those inside the LGBT community, they seek to complement other organizations focused on empowerment and awareness and to show the unsure that it is possible to raise a happy and healthy family.
To prove that same sex couples are not just a “coastal phenomenon”, they invite families from all over the world to pose for photographic essays. Other than names and general geographic area, no personal information is given, allowing the smiling faces to tell their stories. They also encourage participants and supporters to host grassroots parties to help spread their message of love and acceptance.
As in any campaign challenging traditional, narrow-minded notions, the Project was faced with resistance when trying to establish their ads. In Salt Lake City, Utah, they tried for 7 months to install transit ads on 12 buses. Eventually, their photos were accepted, but were forced to remove their copy reading, “2 Moms + 1 Child = Family”. Even though the transit system was funded by the government, the decision to erase their message was a direct result of pressure from the LDS community. Regardless of the church’s views, however, the Project still maintains that, “We are all, after all, all family”.
Peering into the creek flowing next to Bambu Batu, I am happy to say that since we banned the plastic bag in the county, I see fewer flimsy pieces of trash floating in the water. However, I still see a ton of plastic water bottles nestled in the reeds and submerged in the mud. San Luis Obispo, look towards Concord, Massachusetts who as of the first of this year have officially ditched the single-use plastic water bottle. It is now illegal to sell any non-sparkling, unflavored beverage in a PET plastic container of sizes 1 liter or less. A first offense gets a warning, a second infraction levies a $25 fine, and the third will slap you with a $50 ticket.
Aside from being a huge eyesore when they appear in our neighborhoods and natural areas, plastic water bottles use a staggering amount of resources to produce, fill, and recycle. Activist group Ban the Bottle estimates that it takes 17 million barrels of oil a year to make the containers, enough petroleum to fuel 1.3 million cars. In 2007, Americans used a whopping 50 billion bottles, recycling only 23%. That means 38 billion bottles ended up in landfills.
In addition to wasting fossil fuels, activists are worried that the bottle water industry is having a negative impact on local community water tables. By draining aquifers, big companies take advantage of tax payer subsidized infrastructure only to sell back the water at a gigantic profit. Human health is also a concern, as many chemicals found in PET plastic have been shown to be harmful. For example, antimony, a component of polyethylene terephlalate plastics, has been shown to cause dizziness and depression in low doses, and and in high levels can cause anxiety, vomiting, and death.
Why not avoid the whole mess altogether and buy yourself a trusty reusable water bottle? Here at the store, we recommend our Bamboo Bottle or bamboo-topped Klean Kanteen. Make a statement, keep hydrated, and do you part to keep the Earth from becoming a plastic planet!
Looking for clothing with conviction? Sustainable style with sense? Apparel with altruism? Join SLO Green Drinks and HumanKind Fair Trade for the Eco Fashion Show on Thursday, May 31 at the Steynberg Gallery (1531 Monterey St) from 6-9pm. The event will feature attire from local retailers, including HumaKind Fair Trade, Hemp Shak, Curio, Nekkidd and yours truly, Bambu Batu! Mingle with your fellow fashionistas as you watch the night’s lineup of dance and music performances, take part in the silent auction, and grab a drink or a bite to eat from the cafe. All proceeds will benefit HumanKind Fair Trade, a non-profit store that provides vital income for artisans and farmers in the developing world.
Tickets are $10 presale (available at Steynberg and HumanKind) or $15 at the door. See you by the runway!
Help us spread the word about responsible holiday shopping, the importance of supporting local businesses, and (most importantly!) the Green Saturday After-Thanksgiving Sale at Bambu Batu. Whoever does the best job of sharing, re-posting and generally helping to promote our biggest sale event of the year will win two Bambu Batu Gift Certificates ($25 each!) – one for you and one for a loved one. Thank you for spreading the Love! (Of course, if you’d rather keep both Gift Certificates for yourself, or give both of them to loved one, you can distribute them however you like.)
In addition to saving 20% off any one item in the store, all Bambu Batu customers will also revel the festivities as we kick off the holiday season in style. Swan Sisters Tea will be on hand pouring samples of their delicious organic teas, the intuitive and amiable Jude Alexander will be present for personal demonstrations of the Tarot Game to uncover your inner wisdom, and Carol Overstreet will offer Henna painting to celebrate your outer beauty.
Only at Bambu Batu: soft on the skin, easy on the earth, and good for the soul!
