Can a disposable fashion garment, or footwear material made from mushrooms/mycelium have a second life as an organic nutrient?
Research Mycelium, its fascinating!
Five years ago I also wrote about BioCouture and clothes made with kombucha.
https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/biocouture-grow-your-own-clothes/
…yes, microfiber from the clothes we wear is a significant contaminant..It seems now that recycling plastic after its end life can only be part of the solution, because enough plastic particles also fall off during the life of an object.
A few years ago I introduced the environmental threat of man made synthetic dust as a contaminant.
https://74fdc.wordpress.com/2015/04/29/man-made-dust-as-a-contaminant/
But it just occurred to me that textiles also shed tiny fibers like dust, so the impact of synthetic particles to the natural environment will go way beyond the dust created by car tyres.
So what can be done? If only I knew! There are front end and back end solutions. Change the make-up of material, or develop ways to contain the dust particles it becomes.
When possible, I lean toward front end proactive solutions. Imagine if garment materials could be organic with a second life as nutrients to the soil we farm on, or the wildlife that eats/absorbs it. Imagine taking your old clothes to a feedlot to be processed into protein supplements for cows?
If it must leak into the natural environment, why can’t we make pollution a nutrient?
How about biomaterials as nutrients!
Introducing the úkata+ Oaxaca Supernatural, because footwear doesn’t come much more natural than this.
I source only best materials myself, from the bouncy 10mm natural crepe rubber sole which is made from thin layers of dried organic latex harvested directly from the rubber tree, to the leather that is vegetable tanned in a drum with Acacia tree bark extract, making it exceptionally natural and soft.
The shoe/Huarache last was designed for an anatomical barefoot fit with no heel, its unique shape also allowing the soft weave to expand evenly to accommodate even wide feet comfortably with no pressure spots.
The environmentally friendly Hevea brasiliensis rubber tree creates not only biodegradable rubber which can be used to make shoe soles, but the tree can also stock large amounts of carbon in its biomass.
Its calculated that annually rubber trees absorb 363 Million Kg of Carbon dioxide, a high carbon sequestration which is calculated to be greater than that of a rainforest (Variation of soil fertility and carbon sequestration by planting Hevea brasiliensis in Hainan Island, China – Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing). The increased use of regularly harvested rubber trees in the world could potentially also alleviate the greenhouse effect and global warming (Handbook of Elastomers, Second Edition, by Marcel Dekker Inc 2001) .
By using more natural rubber products, we can essentially return some of the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere back into the soil where it existed in the form of oil and coal. We can contribute towards recreating the sustainable and natural carbon equilibrium that has existed on earth for thousands of years.
Rubber plantations already exist in Mexico and Guatemala and could probably be created in Florida, Alabama or Louisiana, not need to source as far as Asia, local manufacturing is possible.
While cultivating the Black Wattle tree used for vegetable tanning leather, can provide US degraded agricultural farmlands with much needed natural nitrogen fixation and soil rehabilitation.
Buy them at MY STORE on the top right of the page, or CLICK HERE
For more info visit Huarache Blog HERE
My goal is to one day also use natural colour dye’s for the leather, but so far I haven’t found any commercially available, and my tannery partners won’t even consider changing their process unless I guarantee large orders and even then I’m not sure it will be affordable. But first I would like to meet someone who can help me with the science of natural leather dyes and sourcing the natural ingredients.
Lastly I should mention its incredible how new natural/crepe rubber smells similar to cheese and crepe rubber processing plants smell like cheese factories. Though a little strong, its a wonderful reminder (if you like aged cheese) that rubber can be such a natural product. And how cool and sheltered a rubber plantations feel. I don’t think I have ever experienced a similarly peaceful industrial environment, but maybe its comparable to a winery.
Its incredible to see something so delicate and visually intricate.
If we could just add such fine detail to our work.
Indonesian surfer Dede Surinaya
Photograph: Zak Noyle
Cymatics is the science, or art of turning sound into form, “a looking glass into a hidden world”.
Cymatics is mostly done through a Chladni Plate, which is a speaker like device through which various sound frequencies are passed. With every change in pitch a different and often detailed pattern is naturally formed in the medium which happens to be placed on its surface. Be it sand, a single liquid like water, oil, or a mix of various density liquids, every medium creates unique patterns to sound, like the images below (also known as Chladni Patterns after German physicist and Musician Ernst Chladni).
Images courtesy of Cymatics.org
Cymatic rockstar Evan Grant is a creative technologist and explains the pattern making process in this interesting presentation below.
To learn more about Cymatics check out Cymatics.org and Cymascope
While on one hand Karl Marx wrote in his “mature analysis of the alienation of nature” about a Metabolic (irreparable) Rift that would occur between humans and nature from capitalist agricultural production and the growing division between town and country (today, 56% of the world’s population, 4.4 billion inhabitants live in cities).
On the other hand the Biophilia Hypothesis by Edward O. Wilson is a theory in Evolutionary Biology which offers us some hope by suggesting that there is an instinctive bond (a Genetic Memorymark) between human beings and other living systems.
Meaning that humans naturally have an instinctive attraction to nature. Think about how many people enjoy gardening, flowers, stray cats and country walks. Supposedly these preferences aren’t cultural, but evolutionary behavior that developed to benefit our survival as a species. For example the love for flowers and plants developed so humans would remember and spot species that provided nutrition.
Also consider how natural environments remains beautiful even on cloudy or rainy days, whereas man made environments don’t.
Via Wikipedia
If this hypothesis is true, then maybe a way to help the transition to a more environmentally friendly culture, could be if outdoor companies and government nurtured that Biophilic bond that already exists. With designs and initiatives that encouraged and facilitated outdoor experiences, contact and connection to the natural environment.
Personally I don’t think it gets any better than doing a sport or pursuit which brings you into nature.
For more on this subject check out a previous post titled “Outdoor Performance Design – The Key to a Sustainable Future?”
On a side note the intro to Björk’s latest music project called “Biophilia”.
The designs can communicate natural beauty like foliage and proud statement to be outdoors.
And marketing can also communicate a soft approach to nature. Because product is not just for consumption, but can also be used for education.
Denali “The High One” is not only the highest mountain in North America, but has the highest base to peak rise of any mountain in the world situated above sea level.
Denali was summited for the first time on June 7th 1913, almost 40 years before the first successful summit of Mt. Everest.
In 100 years since that first ascent only about half of those who have attempted the climb made it to the summit.
The video below celebrates this achievement that took 93 days, climbing in temperatures of -21 F, wearing primitive mountaineering clothes made from gabardine, wool, and tweed and using climbing gear that included ropes made from natural fibers and ice axes made from wood and forged steel.
The expedition remains a precious example of human strength, commitment and resolution.
A first hand written account of the expedition, The Ascent of Denali by Hudson Stuck can be read and downloaded at The Gutenberg Project HERE
“Mens sana in corpore sano (A healthy mind in a healthy body)” – Roman poet Juvenal
Probably over 2 million years old and likely the most ancient form of hunting (before the domestication of dogs and the invention of weapons), persistence hunting is/was done without weapons. This was mainly possible because of the unique human physical ability to outrun an animal to exhaustion. Strange as it sounds humans are the best adapted creatures on earth to run long distances in hot conditions. Because unlike most animals our upright bodies aren’t so close to the hot ground, we sweat to cool down, don’t need to drink as frequently as other animals and our breathing is independent from our stride.
But besides endurance running, another important factor contributing to our persistence hunting success was our unique ability for scientific thinking. Humans had to be able to deduce, predict and theorize where the prey might be or run to (more on this in the videos to follow).
Back in the early 1980’s, 22 year old Louis Liebenberg was majoring in Maths and Physics at Cape Town University. There he had begun challenging the traditional view that the human brain could not be the product of natural selection because of it’s appreciation for art and science (which meant that it far exceeded the capacity of all other animals). However Louis had a hunch that scientific thinking was indeed evolutionary and had developed as a necessity for the survival of modern hunter-gatherer societies, especially from the practice of animal tracking in hunting. So on deciding he would rather research his evolutionary intuition than finish his studies, to prove his evolution theory Louis dropped out of college.
Alone, with no background in anthropology, or wilderness experience he moved into the Kalahari desert to find and study the animal tracking of tribal Bushmen (Bushmen are considered to be of the oldest genetic stock on earth with equally old traditions). Incredibly he was able to live with a group of traditional Bushmen for 4 years and eventually was even taken on more than one persistence hunts.
74 FOOTWEAR DESIGN CONSULTING 