Undercover writer Louise Lagosi helps us track our cast-off clothing.

Ever wonder what happens to your clothes when you just have to let them go? Maybe you were kind enough to spare them from ending up in a landfill by donating them to a thrift store for a tax credit; maybe you were even clever enough to “new-life” them into cut offs, a mini-skirt or something else relatively simple to make.

There are many ways to keep our clothes from contributing to landfills and pollution, and according to Dr. Jana Hawley, whose focus is on finding solutions to textile waste in fashion, “Our clothing are 100% recyclable.” So why then, according to SMART, a textile recycling organization that partners with Goodwill and The Salvation Army, do roughly 75% of our discarded clothes get put in the trash and end up in landfills?

Clothing has an enormous, toxic, environmental footprint, one that gets bigger when it is unnecessarily wasted and not given the opportunity to live up to its fullest capacity through multiple lives, multiple owners or textile recycling.

While we may never consider our clothes after we’ve discarded them, our cast-offs go on exciting adventures around the globe. Thrift stores are simply the first of many depositing and sorting grounds. Which part of the world they land in really depends on what shape and quality they are in when they leave your hands.

When your clothes arrive at the thrift store they get sorted, and provided they’re not terribly damaged, they are put on the racks. The premium grade used clothing has several possible fates in the drop-off store, one of which is purchase for resale at international vintage shops.

Vintage store owners around the world have been mining American thrift stores for cheap vintage, only to resell our cast offs back to us at premium vintage prices. Americans in particular get rid of some of the nicest digs in the world. In Paris you’d never find designer vintage on sale anywhere outside a pricey vintage shop. But here in the States, mint condition, vintage Gucci dresses on Salvation Army racks sell for $19.99. It’s no wonder that the world comes here for it’s vintage. At $5-$10 a pair, beat up old Levi’s might collect over $500 by a vintage dealer in Japan. And the hat your grandmother painstakingly hand knit you could easily end up in a Swedish or Dutch vintage boutique.

“We get all of our vintage from the States. The store owners take a 4-6 week long summer vacation in the U.S. visiting the same favorite routes to thrift stores year after year. Within a few weeks, they’ve more or less made the annual store inventory,” says an employee from Zipper, a vintage shop in Amsterdam.

Of course, all of this can be found on thrift store floor racks, where meticulous and discerning shoppers have the opportunity to snatch up the premium second hand at thrift store prices before they reach the vintage dealers provided they are willing to dig through racks. Sometimes, this pursuit can seem more like archaeology than shopping, sifting through cross sections of society’s discarded duds to find the rare diamonds in the rough.

A slightly rarer fate for some of our clothes are landing in the hands of crafters and upcycling designers, like JoAnn Berman, Dominika Naziebly, and Lu Flux, all of whom choose to pull resources from thrift stores and used markets, upcycling finds into new one-off designs. These designers choose to make couture out of our rags.

Lu Flux

Lauren Lawson, Goodwill’s Media Relations Manager, says an item has about a month’s time to prove its worth on the floor before it is removed and redistributed to lower income sales channels; first at the Goodwill’s most affordable stores, where they provide clothing sold by the pound in American low income communities. If still not sold there, the clothing will get passed onto Goodwill’s partners over at SMART, who help divert two billion pounds of clothes from landfills annually through worldwide distribution and textile recycling. In the SMART sorting facilities, the clothes  are sorted into many different categories: tropicals, cold weather, denim, cotton, mixed rags, A grade and B grade.

While a sliver of thrift store leftovers get cut into rags and sold to mechanics, window washers and the likes, the bulk of all of our discarded clothes get shipped to third world countries for resale. These clothes are sorted, bundled and sold by bale or by the shipping container by companies like Transatlantic Mixrags, who export American used clothes in an effort to reduce post consumer landfill mass, to provide affordable clothing to the poor in developing countries’ markets, and all the while making a pretty penny selling our trash.

The international customers take a gamble on what they are getting however. Unable to see the product until their package has landed and is paid for, they must accept whatever they get. The product is then distributed in street markets across the countrysides of impoverished nations and will be consumed and absorbed by people looking for any clothing they can afford.

Which would explain this how this t-shirt landed on this Sierra Leonean.

This can cause quite the controversy. Some believe that exporting westerner’s discarded clothes to poorer developing nations is the same as exporting our consumer culture. The point has been wrestled with over and over by human rights activists and fair-trade advocates alike; hand made, traditional indigenous dress is being replaced by cheap western rags as capitalism spreads across the globe like a rash.

Whether or not we should be passing off our waste products to third world nations is debatable. The devil’s advocates of Capitalism will argue that the poor people in third world nations cannot afford new clothing and want cheap clothing available to them.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure, and for some in countries like Mexico, Jakarta, Brazil, and Bangladesh, landfills provide a meager income to garbage pickers sifting through trash in search of items that are reusable and recyclable. If old clothes are too ragged to wear, they might make good pillow or mattress stuffing. In countries where resources are scarce, even garbage can be valuable.

Which brings up the second most common use of our discarded clothing: recycled, post-consumer waste products. Forthcoming, green-minded entrepreneurs, like the geniuses behind Bonded Logic, a company which makes insulation out of recycled materials sees the issue of post consumer waste as opportunity.

Bonded Logic’s claim to fashion-reuse fame is Ultra Touch denim insulation. Made of 90% domestically sourced post-consumer, recycled content, it is processed and manufactured entirely in the USA, and diverts approximately 300 tons from landfills monthly.

“We’ve been using recycled paper to make a cellulose insulation for over 35 years, and we wanted to make a batting form of insulation out of some post consumer fiber. When we researched the amount of waste available in the garment and textile industries, and especially with the abundance of waste denim available, it just seemed like the perfect solution,” says Sean Desmond, Bonded Logic’s Marketing Manager.  “If you go back even six years ago, a majority of textile waste was being landfilled. We saw this as a viable, abundant, resource and thought, why not use it?”

Insulation is just one of many recycling options for clothing. Textiles can be processed into car flooring and seat filler, roofing materials, punching bag padding for boxing, mattresses, and of course cleaning rags.

Before the 1900’s, most households generally had to make the most of the clothes they wore from scratch, altering and handing down items between family members as they grew out of them. They had to manage every scrap of waste they created to save their resources and energy and to prevent the garbage from piling up around them.

Since the Industrial Revolution took it’s hold on society, we’ve become so free with our fashion consumption habits we scarcely know what to do with all the waste flowing through the doors of our closets. Christina Salvi of GrowNYC, a group that organizes weekly clothing deposit drop-off spots at the New York City green markets was surprised to see how often people would donate from their closets.

“We weren’t expecting to have people returning every week with clothing deposits, but we have regulars who come with something to donate week after week. We also see visitors who will drop off big loads right after the spring cleaning,”says Salvi.

Since the launch of their clothing recycle program in 2007, GrowNYC has collected over 1 million pounds of clothing. With New York City’s annual post-consumer garment waste estimating at around 193,000 tons per year, New Yorkers have their work cut out for them to find alternative ways to divert their “trash.”

One thing is for sure, no clothing should be going into a waste basket.

Images: Brad K., Yikes Machine, Boardroom Eco Apparel, 1900s.org

Trashion. If you’re green and fashionable, you’ve no doubt noticed it’s everywhere you look these days. And this “creative reuse” in fashion may have finally gone too far. It’s time to question, for the sake of eco fashion’s future viability, the plethora of “trash to treasure” initiatives touted as sustainable fashion genius.

It is time to do more with less, and this includes reducing our predilection for “trash to treasure” designs and stories that glorify less than marketable fashion.

The thing that concerns me as someone who also observes how trash is now utilized in eco-art and gallery installations is the message suggesting that we can increasingly find a tidy place for the trash in our lives. Creative reuse needs to move beyond the glorification of trashion and recycled art projects in order to address long term solutions for waste reduction and sustainable economic development. Our primary focus should be on managing this toxic bloom via critically important economic, environmental, and health initiatives.

For sure, timeless design has a transcendent and culturally revealing quality, particularly when it comes to the innovative reuse of materials and cast-off bits. Are we currently aiding or hindering the sustainable fashion movement if we do not make a distinction between designs that measure up as genuine fashion innovation and those that are clever, eye-catching creations that make “trashion” seem fashionable?

Junky Styling‘s recycled men’s suit coats: an empowering approach

Creative reuse projects can be large or small. In the case of fashion, several bold designer initiatives have genuinely overhauled the industry’s patterns of waste and excess via the resourceful recycling of textile surplus and unsold stock. Standout labels like From Somewhere, Junky Styling, Goodone, and Reet Aus, to name a few, effectively take yesterday’s unwanted goods and artfully re-shape them into tomorrow’s covetable items. This design strategy is genuinely empowering for the fashion lover who is investing in environmentally sound and fashion-forward design.

From Somewhere‘s upcycling of Speedo’s LZR Racer designs

The recent collaboration of From Somewhere with Speedo to create a capsule collection upcycled from unsold and obsolete Speedo LZR Racer designs might seem like an odd pairing to some. However, an industrial fabric challenge like this clearly demonstrates how unwanted waste can be transformed into eco-luxe couture.

Recycling should and must be an engaging activity, particularly when it comes to labor-intensive DIY projects. Some of the most rewarding fashion moments are definitely those where something useless or outdated takes on new life with imaginative tinkering and whimsy. As Kate Black of Magnifeco recently shared with us:

“When it comes to recycling, we have obviously been doing it for years, in all cultures. Textiles that can no longer be used as garments are incorporated into household items like quilts and pillows and now it’s not just recycled textiles making the news in eco-fashion: candy wrapper handbags, pull-tab accessories are front and center, too.  When recycling or upcycling in fashion falls short, though, I generally find that it is from a taste perspective, not necessarily a design perspective.”

I wholeheartedly support projects that provide fair-trade jobs to artisans who create one-of-a-kind accessories and art-objects out of dumpster and landfill pickings, so I am certainly not attacking these folks for the honest craft and handwork that they do.

Ecoist ‘Botero’ handbag crafted out of candywrappers

I do think, however, that we should exercise caution regarding what is an increasing inclination to sanitize and incorporate trash into art, fashion, and design projects for our own aesthetic amusement. Let’s not forget that this everyday refuse should not exist in the first place, at least not in the volume that we are now grappling with. We need to ensure that we do not become de-sensitized to just how out of control our garbage epidemic is. It is one thing to source from surplus textile stock, recycle trash in the waste stream, and get one’s hands dirty with some gritty DIY projects, but not at the expense of garbage becoming a part of our ongoing design lexicon, much less the focus of our attention.

Via Trendhunter: A condom hat may be great for ginning up clicks, but it’s bad for eco fashion progress.

‘Trash to treasure’ is a dangerous term, and one that might soon need to be upgraded or upcycled within the sustainable fashion glossary. Our long term efforts should continue to be focused on cradle-to-cradle design initiatives, zero-waste garment production, acknowledgment of indigenous technologies and crafts that actually aid specific regions, and sustainable economic development that improves the lives of people everywhere so that they can move beyond having to rely on garbage as a means of livelihood.

Chris Jordan photography

The ready-made object is a surrealist phenomenon. Fashion is about personal expression and the ability to be transported to new layers and states of being. Let’s not allow ourselves to get swept up by “quirky” design projects that demonstrate how clever we can be with Coke tabs, Barbie doll heads, condoms, or heaps of televisions and computer monitors, all in the name of recycling – but in reality only keep our movement one step further from legitimate entree into mainstream fashion or, worse, from being taken seriously by leaders in the fashion world.

‘Household goods’… deceased Estate by Claire Healey and Shaun Cordelro

This is not meant as an attack on the resourceful re-purposing of waste materials for home, fashion, and personal use. Recycling is definitely a significant part of the sustainable fashion story, but recycling without an ability to edit is doing us no good.

There is a time and a place for trashion and art of this nature, but we have a responsibility to shift away from scenes that mimic the dying “portraits of global mass culture” (a la work of photographer Chris Jordan) as we look to a greener future.

Lead image courtesy of Goodone; Household goods images via The Sydney Morning Herald.

Ever considered what happens in textile factories when your clothes get made? Most of the textiles that don’t make it into final products simply ends up getting thrown away, with the average textile factory accounting for about 60,000 pounds of waste a week. Portland based company Looptworks wanted to change that, and in 2009 launched with the intent of re-purposing “abandoned materials into meaningful, long-lasting and limited-edition products.”

I caught up with Looptworks’ Scott Hamlin last week at Outdoor Retailer – where they had constructed their booth with all repurposed materials, even the flat screen – to learn a little more about the brand and just what makes their design unique.

EcoSalon Chats Upcycled Design With Looptworks from EcoSalon on Vimeo.

Images: Looptworks, Anna Brones

You’ve no doubt heard the term “man cave,” a place of refuge on the family property (i.e. basement, attic, shed, spare room), where men can go to enjoy solitude, time with friends, and partake in their hobbies. Well, we think it’s time that “woman cave” entered the vernacular, too. Like men, women are constantly juggling countless responsibilities, and females deserve a den to call their very own, filled with all of the trappings that most delight them. We’re inspired by one artist who converted a garage into a woman cave with her own two hands, and outfitted it with reclaimed materials which make her sanctuary green…and us green with envy.

Part of living an eco-friendly lifestyle is changing one’s perspective and viewing what some might deem defunct as a launching pad for opportunity. When Seattle resident and visual and performance artist Michelle de la Vega bought a house with a tiny garage after her divorce, she decided to rent out the house to make an income and turn the garage into her home. She admits she was “coming out of the ashes,” post-divorce, and this is the perfect analogy for the renovation she was about to be at the helm of as her own general contractor.

Taking construction matters into her own hands, de la Vega completed the transformation for $32,000. Costs were kept down by furnishing the 250 square foot space with salvaged goods that boast immense character. She explains to The New York Times, “The garage and the elements in it are all defunct, unwanted things that were reclaimed and given new life. Given where I was coming from, building it was a deeply redemptive experience.”

Some of the offbeat trash to treasure finds she garnered from nearby salvage yards such as Boeing Surplus, Pacific Industrial Supply and Second Use include the metal ladder she climbs to access her sleeping loft, which once called a ship home; and silver lockers from a United Airlines maintenance building that comprise her closet space.

In addition to her interior design savvy, de la Vega digs into the outdoors, where she grows vegetables in raised planting beds to sustain her raw food diet. When can we stop by and unwind, Ms. de la Vega?

Visit the slideshow of Michelle de la Vega’s inspired and eco-friendly garage to house conversion.

Image: Ira Lippke for The New York Times

Lately we’ve seen the mantra “Keep Calm and Carry On” everywhere from T-shirts to chocolate bars. (If your curious about the origins of this now popular phrase, then check out this article in the UK Guardian.) But we love how zJayne on Etsy has taken this British motivational phrase and given it an eco twist: “Keep Calm and Recycle On.”

Each set of three dryer pillows uses upcycled T-shirts filled with organic lavender buds to give laundry a light, flowery scent. They’re reusable and double-secured with a separate interior pouch so you don’t have to worry about the lavender buds leaking out. (“No way, no how!” as the Etsy description says.) These cute little pouches are sewn on a vintage White 1951 machine for a charmingly retro touch and come in several different color combos.

Of course, dryer pillows aren’t the only eco alternative to dryer sheets. I’ve used little rubbery dryer balls to dry clothes more quickly without creating extra waste (like the dryer pillows, the dryer balls are reusable). Air-drying wet clothes on a clothes line is another option if you have the space. The Clean Air Gardening Blog lists several other alternatives to commercial dryer sheets, some of which contain chemicals like Benzyl Acetate and Benzyl Alcohol. Not so great for you, your clothes, or the environment.

Like bell bottoms, leisure suits and The Hustle, terrariums were totally groovin’ in the 70s but seemingly fell off the face of the earth as the clock struck midnight on January 1st, 1980. But if feathered Farrah Fawcett hair can come back, so can these gorgeous gardens in glass – they’re riding a wave of renewed popularity right back into our homes.

What makes the modern-day incarnation of terrariums so very 2010? Upcycling glass containers like mason jars, jelly jars, wine bottles, glass teapots, spice bottles and even light bulbs. There’s virtually no limit to the kind of container that can be used, as long as it’s mostly enclosed.

Terrariums are little worlds within themselves, providing a high humidity environment for plants that might not otherwise survive very long in your home. It may seem strange that plants can live inside glass without constant exposure to air, but when the conditions are right, they actually need very little fresh air. The amount that gets exchanged when you open the lid to water them is enough.

All you need to get started are these materials, many of which you may already have:

• Glass container
• Activated charcoal (the kind sold at pet shops for aquariums)
• Pea gravel
• Potting soil
• Moisture-loving plants
• Decorative stones, moss, or figurines (optional)

Assembling your terrarium is fairly simple. Horticulture expert David Trinklein of the University of Missouri suggests washing your container in hot, soapy water and drying it thoroughly, then lining the bottom with a thin layer of gravel for drainage. Next is a ½ inch layer of activated charcoal, which will filter the air. Add at least 1-½ inches of moist, high quality growing medium rich in organic material and then you’re ready to insert your plants.

For visual interest, choose plants of various heights and colors that all have roughly the same needs. The easiest way to accomplish this? Head out to your backyard and see what you find – moss is a great choice for beginners. Trim off any damaged parts, place the plants in the soil using long tweezers or a stick with a wire loop attached to the end, and gently tamp down the soil. Try to keep the leaves from touching the glass to prevent rot.

Mist the inside of your terrarium and let it sit for a day before misting again. Once the water has evaporated off the leaves, you can cover the container.

Of course, figuring out just how to fit all of these materials and plants into oddly shaped containers like light bulbs and wine bottles can be tricky – there’s an art to it. Check out these tutorials for all the details:

• Mason Jar Terrarium – Craftzine
• Inverted Jar Terrarium – Design Sponge
• Wine Bottle Terrarium – Dr. Vino
• Lightbulb Terrarium – Instructables

Now, proudly put your terrarium on display in indirect sunlight and get ready to ignore it! The best part about these little glass gardens is that you can have the blackest thumb on the block and still maintain healthy plants with just a spritz of water every now and then. The larger the container opening, the more frequent it will require watering – but closed terrariums may not need water for up to six months.

Hopelessly craft-challenged? You can still get in on the terrarium trend. Handmade goods purveyor Etsy.com has a smorgasbord of terrarium offerings, including the moss terrarium by Greenbriar and light bulb terrariums by Tiny Terra, pictured above.

Photos: Greenbriar, Tiny Terra

In the highly ideal world of tomorrow, we’ll have forgotten all about soda bottles.

Oh, we’ll remember they used to exist and what they were for. We’ll know we made and discarded an incredible amount of them. We’ll have finally weaned ourselves off the bottle, so much so that we won’t recognise the name – even though they’re still very much around.

“Soda bottles”? Oh, what they make lampshades from? The same material as greenhouse walls, watering cans and homemade windmills (pictured)?  Like my zip-up purse, then?

You mean…the arms of coat hangers?

(They used to make hanger arms from polystyrene foam? That’s just nasty).

Like all the best ideas, the Rethink Concepts Hanger from designer Xuan Yu seems obvious in retrospect. It tackles our PET infestation by upcycling two of the little blighters into lightweight, well-padded hanger arms. All you buy is the hook – and when you do so, 10% of the sale price goes to helping people slake their thirst in developing nations. (And try upcycling to the max by hanging recycled polyester garments on them).

And to think, these…plastic tube-like things get thrown away. (Whatever they’re called. I forget).

Images: noquedanblogs

We’ve picked out some of the most entertaining and wacky in eco bags for your viewing pleasure. And who knows? Maybe you’re the kind of eco diva who can pull off using one of them!

Righteous Fur

Wait… fur is now sustainable? According to designer Cree McCree, it just depends upon whose fur you’re using. In this case, it’s that of the nutria, a large invasive rodent. Native to South America, nutria were introduced to the US in the 30s, but since then have become an invasive species, threatening wetlands. So, buy a rodent bag, save an ecosystem.

Fab Firehoses

These bags (above) aren’t actually all that unattractive, but the material is beyond industrial chic. Elvis & Kresse‘s new Firehose line uses recycled British firehoses, which have subdued flames for around 25-30 years before making it to the purse stage of life. The green aspect of the bags doesn’t stop there; the bag liners are made from old fabric or recycled furniture upholstery and the bag labels are printed on old luggage tags.

Living Plant Bags

Even the greenest thumbs may not be up for  the Woolly Vagabond living handbag, made from reclaimed leather and recycled plastic. The bag doubles as a potted plant, and while we do love most things multipurpose, it does raise the question: would bringing your potted plant along feel like a third wheel on a first date? Not sure it grows on you.

Repurposed License Plates

There’s a lot of good going on in the world of repurposing; what’s better than putting an item that would normally go to waste to good use? This little number – called MiniFlare Bag – is made from repurposed license plates, complete with a recycled rubber handle. But does the Swarovski crystal embellisment make this eco bling or an eco bust?

Haute Hair

For the ultimate in upcycling, turn to Australian artist Polly van der Glas, who made a full line of accessories from human hair and teeth. Careful though – with a purse like this you’ll be styling for two, better set the alarm clock a little earlier.

Killer Keyboards

For your inner eco-nerd there’s the Keyboard Purse, designed by João Sabino of Portugal. This would be my number one pick for the green bloggers out there; write intriguing eco posts by day, sport your trade by night!

It’s a Party!

Balloons aren’t the most eco-friendly (think turtles in the ocean who can’t distinguish between latex and real food), so what better use for them after they’ve turned a so-so birthday party into a killer one than a bag? Okay, maybe not. These balloon bags by designer Krizia Robustella were spotted in Madrid during Fall 2009 fashion week.

A Gorgeous Goal

You’ll be looking sporty and responsible with this reclaimed soccer ball tote. The perfect accessory for a conscious soccer mom? We’ve blogged this baby in the past, and we still aren’t convinced.

All Tied Up

No need for a business suit if you’ve got this clutch under your arm. Made of vintage men’s ties with an organic denim interior, this creative little clutch could be your key piece next time you need to show who’s boss. This one we might actually go for!

Which bag will you be sporting in 2010?

Photo Credits: Core 77, Green Muze, Littlearth, Polly van der Glas, Cree McCree, João Sabino, Fete LA, BTC Elements

Everyone’s talking pops. Maybe it’s because the holiday season and its consequent consumption mania is upon us, but pop up shops are hot.

Gauging the type of brands that are taking part in this pop-up shop phenomenon, however, reveals plenty of great intentions. In fact, vacant storefronts everywhere are being tweaked into creative spaces with a good cause in tow.

Here’s the skinny: a pop-up shop is a vacant space used for a temporary retail setting, a trend EcoSalon has followed in New York where artists are making good temporary use of empty commercial spaces awaiting new tenants. The gimmick is an excellent way to give a high energy consumer shot to jolt this tired economy, but there are also several eco reasons pop-ups rock:

1. Pop-ups allow organizations to spread their message.

At the Environmental Justice Foundation’s pop up shop in London, where the term “pop-up” was coined, EJF is selling preview samples of their organic and fairly traded cotton tee shirts from the 2010 line. The t-shirts make a social statement, and are all designed around the theme of “childhood, lost innocence and hope” in order to represent the million-plus children around the globe who are forced to labor in cotton production.

2. Pop-ups give small eco-conscious brands much-needed exposure.

Portland-based company Looptworks is taking part in the pop-up trend. The brand, which launched in September, makes all of its garments with 100% upcycled garment scraps and is one of the featured lines in downtown Portland’s hip and trendy pop-up shop Flurry.

“Most eco-fashion is an attempt to do less harm in the production of clothing,” says Scott Hamlin, co-founder of Looptworks. “Many of the companies in that arena are small and trying to get exposure and sales. Pop up stores help them achieve that.”

Hamlin points out that there’s also an environmental benefit to pop-up shops, thanks to the “reduction of shoppers’ carbon footprint via utilizing empty space in a heavy traffic area.”

3. Pop-ups help spread the word about sustainability.

For beloved eco-clothier NAU, the concept of a pop-up shop is helping the brand spread a general message of sustainability, using the retail front as a vehicle for change. As Mark Galbraith, General Manager of NAU, says, “Our intention is to integrate into each specific community using repurposed and recycled pieces and parts, work with artists, musicians, not-for profits and organizations that allow us to be part of the dialogue for positive change.”

Photo credits: Anna Brones, Anna Brones, NAU

Getting Purelled is the growing phenomenon of sanitizing one’s germ-infested mitts with the alcohol-based, Johnson & Johnson product known as Purell.

What’s in the name, William Safire students might ask?

Pure, I imagine, denotes the opposite of tainted, which in flu terms translates into ralphing, the runs and the unpleasant sensation of having been poisoned by Satan. Elle is French for she, as in, she is cruel that H1N1 Virus, widespread in 47 states now. Elle also is a swank Fifties ad-on, like ette for dinette. It sounds real classy.

I first heard the term the other day after ordering my teenage daughter to wash her hands after school. She’s a nail biter, more susceptible than most.

“I just got purelled,” she explained, exhibiting a jellyfish-like, residue bubble in her palm, which she kept afloat because she was undoubtedly fascinated by its staying power.  She has been studying chemistry in school. And I believe pathogen is one of her SAT terms.

Sydney and her peers happily take advantage of the economy, vat-sized, plastic dispensers of the waterless germ fighter stationed in every nook and cranny of her school, from the bathrooms to the cafeteria, library and gym.

At the campus’s recent Grandparents Day buffet breakfast, I watched an elderly dude mistake the jug O’Purell for carbonated water, carelessly pumping a shot into his cup with a puzzled visage. I gently intervened to set him straight. “You don’t want to drink that, Mister.”

The sanitizer, albeit refreshing upon contact with the skin, is not desirable as a beverage, no matter how much the Dunder Mifflinaholic, Meredith Baxter, of The Office fame ingests it for its alcohol content.

Getting purelled sounds ironically similar to getting paroled. In fact, a link exists when you consider hand purifying might prevent weeks off from school, a form of prison for parents who can’t do squat during the duration of the relatively mild but ubiquitously feared illness. I know as a mom who recently emerged from the trenches with her Swine Flu-infected youngest.

“Mommy, I’m bored! Mommy, stop working, I’m bored! ” I call it Purell hell.

In an aggressive no-tolerance approach, our school armed itself with endless stockpiles of the weapon at the beginning of the year hoping it might slow what it cannot prevent. While the CDC says there are  plenty of the H1N1 vaccines to go around, many parents apparently prefer that surefire killer, Purell.

“I definitely think it has slowed down the spread since contact between these kids is so constant, maybe each child is contacting 20 others throughout the day,”  says Dr. David Abusch-Magder, the head of middle school at Brandeis Hillel Day School in San Francisco.

At least the school, which has an impressive recycling and composting program, is using refillable containers. If you must invest is this much plastic, you might as well maximize its shelf life.

In addition to schools,  I’ve spotted the dispensers just about everywhere these days, from Trader Joe’s checkout counters to business offices, exercise studios and even in the cup holder of my own car.  The truth is there is no place to avoid the risk of contamination. Many organisms continue to thrive in my car despite the Purell.

Another truth is that we are creating a population of Purelled humans immune to the small percentage of bacteria resistant to the liquid. Bacteria that don’t die simply reproduce.

Let’s just hope we can conceive of  a way to upcycle all of those plastic dispensers once we are restored.

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Top image: The Local

Image One:Upyernoz