ColumnConscious life, hear me roar.

I think the first time I became aware of trash and the environment was when the Keep America Beautiful commercial of Iron Eyes Cody came out. (As drums pound and smokestacks puff out fumes, Cody looks at a highway coated in debris. A bag of trash is thrown at him. We won’t get into the utter exploitation of Cody’s Cherokee-Cree heritage.) It was the 1970s. Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush included the line, “Look at Mother Nature on the run in the 1970s.” These lyrics I belted out with pride because they mentioned “the 1970s,” the decade in which I was born. Obviously, I hear the song differently now. Cody was a Hollywood talent who signed on for the part and forced that tear to pop out from his tear duct. I’m no actor playing a part, and feel them ready to pop often.

In my small neighborhood here on Cape Cod, I come home with trash in my hands.

Yesterday, while walking the dog, it was a McDonald’s bag with an empty sausage McMuffin breakfast container, a plastic bottle and some candy wrappers. I’d like to say that this was maybe because we had a windy day and somebody’s trash barrel wasn’t secure. That a raccoon found treasure and pulled the bag out for a late night snack, but the truth is, I always find trash. This is a middle class neighborhood, filled with many renters who might care little for place, but if I were to read into who lives here based on the trash I find, I would be more inclined to say: This neighborhood is filled with people who just don’t care at all.

The troublesome part is that this is not 1970. We are so much more educated about the environment, we’ve heard the drills about recycling, and we’ve seen pollution disaster after disaster. If I’m reading these trashy tea leaves correctly, we have many a miserable soul who believes  a Smirnoff nip before going home to the wife and kids can help take the edge off of a biting reality. That oversized styrofoam cups of extra sugared espresso concoctions deserve to pave our way home. That Subway sandwiches are made not only for “healthy” fast food consumption, but also for the wildlife here. That the reason why I daily find a bag of McDonald’s in the same place is because someone likes to live like a hobbit with Second Breakfast and Elevensies.

I remember when our local Wampanoag Indians won federal recognition a few years back (my town is considered “The Land of the Wampanoag”), and I picked up a massive pile of plastic bottles across the street from a house housing three Wampanoag families. All the bottles labeled with their federal recognition.

The tear.

I’m not picking up reusable bags with organic carrot tops inside, or vegan granola bar wrappers. It takes a certain person who just doesn’t care to litter. These are the people who feed themselves garbage, live with garbage, and treat the environment as a garbage can. It’s a cycle of abuse that begins with self-abuse that’s become so regular for so many, we consider it almost normal.

I refuse. So, I will continue picking up this trash. And I will believe there are those who care. I’m not certain this is a good approach at all. Maybe I should make signs asking people to pick up the litter. Maybe I should lead a neighborhood cleanup and have the ones who do care take a stand against the ones who don’t.

But who cares?

Between the Lines, is a weekly column navigating the sometimes-sharp, sometimes-blurred lines of life and culture between city and country.

Image: purplepix

The post Between the Lines: Who Cares? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Like many other young artists and designers (and ironically even Alice in Wonderland), Sarah Barney had to leave the nest before realizing that a place is just a place. It’s all what you make of it.

Growing up on Cape Cod, Sarah’s early career in jewelry started while working in a local bead store after school where she envisioned more than just what the local ladies were buying to string up.

“I’ve always been inspired by found pieces and reworking each element to create something new whether it was in the bead store or throughout my career in jewelry and fashion. There is something very special about searching for each little piece, each with a history of it’s own, and making it into a whole new design. It’s like taking little bits of history and someone else’s memories and recreating it fresh, ready for new memories and sentiments,” says Barney.

In the fall of 1999, Sarah decided to step it up and moved to Brooklyn, New York to study sculpture at the Pratt Institute of Art where she created a tight network of artists and designers who all worked together to build each other up with criticisms and support.

In 2005, she worked as the production manager of the ultra feminine Ginette NY and then joined the Men’s Division at David Yurman as a product engineer.

After 10 years in New York City Sarah moved back to the Cape and is now launching her own line which is greatly influenced by the seascapes of her youth, the gritty industrialism of Brooklyn, and the glamor of New York City.

“I came home for a whole lot of different reasons. The main one being I wanted to spend more time with my son. The thoughts of starting my own designs had been planted a long time before but I had always pushed them back. There were a lot of practical reasons why leaving the city made sense for me and I came to realize that my need to create was getting much stronger. I was terrified to leave the city because Fort Greene had become home for me, but I knew I was ready then to take the jump,” she says.

The first collection of Sarah Barney’s jewelry debuted this past Spring 2010 and now it’s debuting in its first giveaway on EcoSalon.

We love her Alice necklace in all its vintage charm and gold dipped glory. Unscrew the vial with a tag next to it that says “Drink Me,” and you can shrink down into your own fantasy world the likes of which Lewis Carroll would totally approve.

Do you like? Want to try winning? Then leave a comment below.

(Legalese: Contest rules and FTC compliance.)

The post Sarah Barney’s ‘Alice (In Wonderland)’ Necklace Giveaway appeared first on EcoSalon.

Penny Haughwout and her sister Pixie just couldn’t come to terms with throwing away the family boat’s canvas sail. You’ve probably never had that problem but maybe, just maybe, you can understand sometimes that fabrics have meaning.

For the Haughwout sisters, their boat, the Sea Fever, and its trusty sail had been handled for years by their own hands. So when it came time to clean out their deceased parent’s house, they couldn’t just toss it out as everyone told them to do.

From the original sail they made jackets, and now from other sails they create all kinds of accessories including this meaning enriched bag that might have just sailed to exotic destinations or had high seas adventures and now, quite possibly, might be ready for you to tote around.

As the Cape Cod business has grown, the sisters are no longer able to keep up with orders so they’ve hired a network of local independent contractors who assemble the Sea Fever Gear products in their homes. Another American Cottage Industry success story.

Well, now the question is, are you ready to carry the burden of history and of numbers? I mean if one is the loneliest number, then what is four? It’s the number on this bag my friend, the number that you will tote if you win.

Leave a comment below to try and win and for more giveaway guidelines and FTC Compliance (which you want so much to know about) go here.

The post Sea Fever Gear Bag Giveaway appeared first on EcoSalon.