The End of the World or the End of Consumerism As We Know It?

We love finding new soulful quotations which pay direct respect to considering our planet. We recently came across this one:

“Humanity must shift from living on the earth to living with her” – Tiokasin Ghosthorse

Another picture of a hand holding a baby earth. Nevertheless ... the earth is still in our hands.

It’s a profound and eloquent statement which befits our current consumerist culture in the developed countries.

We are less than 9 months away from, according to the people of one of the greatest cultures in the world, the Maya, the end-date of a 5,125-year-long cycle.

According to the Maya December 21, 2012 marks the end of the fourth cycle known as the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar – a non-repeating calendar used by several Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures, most notably the Maya.

Hollywood has cashed in on the mystery surrounding this date, with its over-the-top apocalyptic doomsday disaster movie 2012 which screened in cinemas three years ago. Other theories range from mass alien contact to galactic alignments.

So how do eco plates stack up?

Global green consciousness is on the rise and its time to undo another layer of the green onion.

There is much information on improving the home, office and schools in an eco manner but what about in the kitchen and most importantly, where do we place our yummy organic food on. Washable and disposables plates have been given the eco make-over and many varieties are slowing etching their way into the market.

The Girl Who Silenced The World For 5 Minutes

We found an amazing video on Youtube a few weeks ago. 

In all honesty we’re surprised we’ve never seen it before. 

 

Why it hasn’t come up on our friend’s Facebook page posts or why over the past 20 years we’ve never seen it grace the screen of our television sets.

The video is titled “The Girl Who Silenced The World For 5 Minutes” and is the filming of a speech made in 1992 by then-12-year-old Severn Cullis-Suzuki as she addressed the United Nations and a room full of adults at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

She is the daughter of famous geneticist and environmental activist David Suzuki and in 1999 she founded the Environmental Children’s Organization (ECO).

On this occasion she and her three accompanying friends had self-funded their trip from Canada to make a speech to the international community and country representatives.

Speaking directly and authoritatively she confidently pronounced she had come “to speak for all generations to come” as a girl “fighting for her future”.

She spoke “on behalf of” the world’s starving children and dying animals. She told of her fears about the world’s suffering eco systems and devastating changes to the environment and then she added:

Our take on the true definition of eco friendly party supplies

On a recent visit to our local Spotlight store we came across some Disney-themed plates, cups and cutlery.

They were made from cheap plastic but to our surprise they were labelled "eco friendly". To justify their "eco friendly" claim, written next to those words, were "reusable". 

We scoffed at this claim and a recent post on our Facebook Page found we were not alone in our rolling of the eyes.

Unfortunately though, as we have  found through the creation of Eco Party Box, these types of "eco friendly" claims are not uncommon. 

Many paper plate suppliers are often caught short. Did you know that the majority of paper party plates are coated with a thin layer of wax or plastic to make them more resistant to wetness so they won’t go soggy with tomato sauce? This also helps to preserve the images printed in ink on the paper.

Just recently we got in touch with another party supply company overseas to see if we could stock their products, as it has been difficult to source these types of party products in Australia. 

We were interested to know what their "felt" party hats and party bags were made from. 

Unfortunately the "felt" was actually polyester felt but still carried the claim of "eco friendly" despite being made with a non-biodegradable petroleum-based synthetic fabric. 

Pure wool felt is the better eco choice as it is biodegradble and uses no petroluem in its manufacturing.

But their justification again was it could be reused or regifted - thus making it "eco friendly" too.