Go Go Gadget Lane

Since it's not like any of us have money to burn right now, here is a thing that is not really available for purchase but is so ingenious that its lighting up the blogosphere, literally. It's a little funny to be singing the praises of a thing that doesn't actually seem to yet exist, much like lauding the concept of a teleporter. But I'm not the only one. It's such a good idea that it seems to elevate the designers who came up with it to the more esteemed distinction of Inventor.

So what is it? Drumroll please...a bike light that creates a Bike Lane all around you as you ride. So say you're living under the iron curtain of a certain injunction? Take matters into your own hands! Have trouble with pesky vehicles crowding your god-given right to the road? Show them, with lights, who's boss. And since the lane travels with you, no more bike lanes that mysteriously merge into automobile traffic or disappear altogether.



Dubbed the Light Lane, the laser-lane guarantee hints at very great possibilities in advocating cycle commuting. It's a little guerrilla, a little techie and a little imagination. Magnifique!

Recycling Fibers

In a hunt for slender but windproof, waterproof winter gloves the other day, I glanced at the Patagucci website just to see their offerings, knowing full well they were probably too rich for my blood. Though I was correct in my assumption, I also ran across something unexpected: the pair of gloves I was viewing was made from 100% Recycled Polyester. Now, I know Patagonia lays some heavy claims to being environmentally friendly and ecologically oriented, I couldn't believe that a luxury retailer like Patagonia would actually find it possible to do this. This made me realize that I don't really know much about actually recycling fibers and fabric. Recycling until now has always to me, meant using found fabrics in sewing. But the gloves I was viewing are not cut out of any vintage polyester garment, they are post-consumer polyester fibers reformed into new recycled, even moisture-wicking material.

I suppose it never occurred to me that this could happen because fabric doesn't exactly melt down, the way I think of recycling bottles and cans and that sort of thing. But then I looked around a little, and there are lots of organizations (that don't even tout themselves as particularly green) who make a business of recycling fibers in one way or another.

Martex Fiber Corporation, for instance, is a company that imports and exports industrial textile wastes, and then sells products for use in spinning yarn and papermaking and several other things that I don't completely understand. They also have sales offices right here in our fair Philadelphia. This strikes me as interesting because I always sort of assumed that transnational corporations like this would work their darndest to make recycling and environmental conservation economically inviable. But they aren't. In fact, it is the substance of their business. And I've never heard of them, which makes me feel out of the "loop".



Related to all of these considerations, this article by the organization Waste Watch in the UK had lots of interesting facts about the fiber recycling industry. I feel like I want to copy and paste the entire thing into this post. But just take my word for it and follow the link, if you have any interest in this subject. We feel proud for our recycling of car seatbelts, which would otherwise end up in landfills. And since Fluff waste is the bulk of post-consumer automotive waste in those landfills, I'm glad we can reduce that even if in a very small way. And these other, larger companies, are undoubtedly helping us in ways we didn't even quite appreciate.

Maybe you already knew all of this. Or maybe, like me, you assumed fabric recycling only extended to the reuse of vintage or discarded fabrics in artistic business endeavors like ours. It is a comfort to know that our collective environmental imagination extends far beyond what I already know and understand. Maybe we aren't as doomed as I thought.

And if you have any additional advice on great winter gloves out there somewhere, I'd love to hear it. Recycled, if possible.