Nudie is labeled

Reuse, reduce, recycle: Nudie reuses the old slogan in their own way and makes it into RE-Pair, Re-use, Re-Duce. It stands for the recovery and reuse of jeans. Cotton fibers are often much longer than the time the garments are used. Customers will therefore get a discount on new purchases if they leave their old jeans.

- We mend the jeans, each pair becomes unique, and sell them again, says Karin Stenmar, CSR Manager at Nudie Jeans.

Nudie Jeans new RE: garments were launched in their own stores in Gothenburg and Stockholm on the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation‘s Sustainable Swap - 

New wood technique – go on and use it!

This environmentally friendly technique seems to make room for some new designs.

PhD Mojgan Vaziri has developed a method to weld pine with heat instead of merging it with hazardous adhesives.  In a recent doctoral thesis, she presents a technology that shows that pieces of pine wood that are welded together during intense heat can handle moisture and be twice as durable as if they were glued.

- It provides unprecedented opportunities for the timber industry, which can make furniture, floors and ceilings without the use of environmentally harmful adhesives,  said Mojgan Vaziri, PhD in the Division of wood technology at LTU Skellefteå. 

Fuel Cells – finally happening!?

Fuel cells are a bit like the holy graal; a technique that will come soon and save us all. So far it has also been just out of reach for many years. Something seems to have happened to that now.

I am not a technique expert, but I think this is a bit interesting, it seems to be a fuel cell that is actually ready for the market.

Swedish myFC (read My Fuel Cell) has developed a power unit that is used to recharge the internal batteries, which then can charge a cell phone or laptop. 

We are back! Stockholm Design Week coming up.

The break for Saving the Planet In Style will be much shorter than advertised! From now on the website will be alive again and keep reporting on engaged design from Sweden and Scandinavia.

As an appetizer for Stockholm Design Week I will give you this photo of a lamp made by waste textiles by Egil Jansson, and after the jump products by Matilda Dominique, Egil Jansson, Anna Harbom, Julia Göransdotter, Anna Löfstrand, Rasmus Löfstrand Grip and Martina Nystrand, all coming  from an exhibition in Trikåfabriken in Hammarby, south of central Stockholm. More about events during the week after the jump. 

Creatables at Seamhack – an interview

Last friday Seamhack took place during Researchers Night (Forskarfredag) in Göteborg. I asked Erik Thorstensson who was taking part in the event on part of his design group Creatables about his experience from Seamhack.

Seamhack is the local term for ”taking your old textiles and stuff to an expert who helps you to make them into something new and exciting”. It was started a year ago when Lisa Brunnström at Göteborg & co got inspired by Otto von Busch and his book ”Fashion-able: Hacktivism and Engaged Fashion Design” (article about the book) and decided to make it happen.

Research on use and reuse of clothes

How do we act with old and discarded clothes? What are the considerations behind the choice to throw, mend, donate or sell? Can we even imagine donate in return of a pawn? These are issues that a research team from University College of Boras will consider when they review the case of textile waste from a consumer perspective. The research project will last for three years and aims to contribute to a sustainable trade in garments.

Plastic Fantastic

Polyeten bag attached to a key ring

Have you all heard about the continent of plastics floating in the Pacific Ocean? According to some estimates it has now reached a size greater than the United States. In many countries this has led to a ban on plastic bags. In Sweden, however, we are very good at recycling, so we don’t need to do drastic things like prohibit selling or using plastic bags. Or do we? There are also the small bits of toxic plastic waste in the Baltic Sea to take into account.

I find the topic rather confusing. There are many practical and good looking cotton bags out there, to take instead of the plastic ones, but then cotton is one of the worst materials when it comes to water usage, toxic pollutants, labour conditions… it needs to be used many many times before it’s better than plastic. And paper isn’t better as it is heavier to transport than plastic.