A weekly roundup of EcoSalon’s top stories.

Ruin porn is a nasty thing and yet our objectification of all thing crumbling and abandoned is strong. Detroit, the largest city in the state of Michigan is the American automobile industry’s main squeeze. How can the home of Motown music legacies and Motor City mechanics be in such decay? You Know It When You See It takes a closer look.

Mobile social platforms are hot right now and a sustainable fashion app? Right up our alley. Writer Rowena Ritchie interviews GreenGlamGo founder, Clarissa Nicola, about her company’s new green fashion finder app in Sustainable Fashion? There’s An App For That.

We’ve seen too much of Charlie Sheen of late, but when it comes to celebrity consciousness, a star can take a cause a long way. George Clooney – who is certainly easier on the eyes – has a long and storied list of social activism. “Despite his involvement in bringing the Darfur genocide to light, he considers it ‘the greatest failure of my life’ – because little changed after he and his father smuggled cameras into a refugee camp to bring to light the horrors committed against an entire nation.” In Katherine Butler’s column, George Clooney Vs. Charlie Sheen: Welcome To Shade Grown Hollywood, we look at Hollywood without the rose-colored sunglasses.

We launched the new series Places & Spaces this week, and they all depict amazing representations of those idyllic places we all dream of and hope to go to. Shelter editor Leigha Oaks takes us on a visual vacation, first stop: Juvet Landscape Hotel.

The Hyde Amendment was passed in 1976. If you’ve never heard of it, Hyde ensures that federal money is not used to fund abortions on military bases, in Planned Parenthood facilities or anyplace else. “Anti-choice politicians and activists have spent a lot of time over the last few months making sure that there’s confusion about how government dollars are used to fund abortions. Here’s the quick answer: they’re not,” explains Libby Lowe. In Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…And Don’t You Dare Get Pregnant, we learn the most intrusive employer of all might just be the U.S. government.

All right, we can’t resist one more…

Has your gardening habit yielded yet another bumper crop of squash or greens you can’t give away fast enough? Plenty of people have the same problem and they’re turning the veggie surplus into a profitable cottage industry. In The Green Plate: Is Urban Farming The Next Green Cottage Industry? we get the update on how the urban farming legalization trend is sweeping the country, and putting green not just in our mouths, but in our wallets.

Image: Michael Ruiz

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An interview with the founder of a hot new green fashion finder app.

As any stylish eco dresser will tell you, it’s all about access. From finding the perfectly cut organic cotton tee, recycled leather boot or that vintage tea dress that makes a modern statement, putting together a unique low impact look is hard. We rely on tips from those style savvy friends who keep an ear to the ground for new designers, sport lines we’ve never heard of and the scoop on that secret vintage store in town that isn’t overpicked and -priced.

And let’s face it, when it comes to nabbing the best items, relations between pals can get decidedly unfriendly. Ever conveniently forgot the location of your favorite eco store when someone asks where you got that incredible recycled jacket? Or felt a sharp pang of jealousy at a friend’s beautiful vintage find?

Thanks to a new smart phone app launched in the San Francisco Bay Area last week, you’ll have access to all the latest insider information right at your very own fingertips. GreenGlamGo is a mobile social platform that offers the ability to search for green beauty products, sustainable fashion and vintage, handmade items from the retailers who stock them.

GreeGlamGo co-founder, Clarissa Nicola, answers a few questions and shows us how simple it is to keep our shopping sustainable and our shopping relationships civil.

What is GreenGlamGo and how do I get it?

It is for consumers who want access to green fashion, vintage, handmade items, Made in the USA, green bridal, and green beauty products. It is also for green brands and etailers who want to participate on a mobile application platform. We wanted to expand the playing field for consumers beyond online. We created a platform using flash lite 4 and adobe on Nokia phones so their products can be browsed easily and quickly.

What personal challenge inspired the creation of GreenGlamGo?

I have been in the fashion industry for 20 years now, and produced  over 2000 fashion shows and trend presentations for consumers and merchants. After my 10th season of telling customers to buy yet another new pair of black pants for their wardrobe, I stopped and thought “Really?  Do these people really need to buy another pair of black pants? How many pairs of black pants does one person need?”.  I looked at my own closet and realized I had about 20 different pairs, all in different shapes and fit and lengths. Then, I thought of the other basics, like white blouses, t-shirts, and I couldn’t help but think of the impact I was making by motivating people to buy more and inferring that what they had wasn’t enough.

Can you give us a run-thru of the process of say, finding a local fashion designer producing sustainable hats?

We  have four main categories: Handmade, Fashion, Bridal, Beauty. If a user clicks on Handmade, then Hats on the top navigation, they can easily find hats. If they want Bridal hats, they click Bridal first, then hats.

Tell us why you decided to include a handmade section, which doesn’t necessarily feature green designers?

We realize the importance of handmade as it keeps production out of factories, which greatly impact the environment.  With sites like Etsy, we felt it was visually cluttered and hard to navigate. We wanted to feature the best of handmade and to raise that bar by keeping it easy to find within the 4 main categories.

Why do you think it’s so hard to find green and locally produced items?

It is hard because they’re not accessible. No one knows where to find these things. People will buy green if it’s easy and they aren’t inconvenienced. The price has to be right, too. While it can be expensive, we built this platform to give small green businesses a chance to go global and expand their playing field. The more people know about what’s out there, the more accessible it is, and the more prices will go down.

How do you plan to promote GreenGlamGo to communities outside of SF, LA and NYC where it’s so much harder to find sustainably made fashion and beauty?

We partnered with Nokia as Nokia smart phones have a stronger market over the iPhone world wide. Their phones are purchased the most in Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Asia, and Latin America. That is one of the reasons why we went with them. Everyone goes to iPhone first with their app because they dominate the smart phone market in the US. We’re looking to reach as many potential green consumers as possible.

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