In recent years, many consumers have been moving away from gifting newly made items to ‘experiential’, upcycled, second-hand and eco-friendly gifts. 

Take the example of London lawyer Alex Law, 29, who dubs himself an ‘ethical non-consumer’. 

“I think so much stuff just gets chucked into landfill and I do my best to ethically reuse things already around: buying a picture frame to customise for a friend, for example.” Law adds that consumer ethics and a heating planet are informing what he sees as a generational shift. “My friends and I are keenly aware of the carbon that’s gone into any product we buy as well as the risk of factory exploitation in the manufacture of cheap goods,” he says.

A 2017 report by Goldman Sachs Research, the Millennial Spending Survey, highlighted three consumption trends we are likely to see more of as millennials reach their peak spending years, around the age of 40. Alongside a more pronounced migration to online purchasing, which was super-powered during the pandemic, the report predicts a growing demand for markets for ‘efficient exchange of pre owned products’. Attendant to this growing demand for pre owned items is ultra-low environmental impact, or planet-positive or environmentally friendly gifting.

Buying gifts can almost feel like a formality one needs to fulfill, but there are examples where people are finding alternative paths to navigate this situation. 

Rachel Mills, founder of ecological education charity Buttercup Learning stopped buying Christmas ‘stuff’ for adults in 2019, although she does buy her daughter material goods she needs second-hand. “I now go product-free with gifts for friends, visiting (charity listing site) workforgood.co.uk and picking a charity that matches the recipient’s values, be it concern for animals, deforestation, or homelessness, and making a donation in their name.”

Aimee Higgins, co-founder of grassroots climate action charity Every One Of Us, is also trying to go ‘planet positive’ in her giving following the dramatic picture of the world’s plight reported in the recent CoP 26 climate change conference. “I choose either ‘experience’ gifts that will give the person I’m gifting to a lifetime’s memories or something that supports an organisation that’s doing good. This year I have funded tree planting for one friend and sponsored an elephant in an African sanctuary for my business partner Sonia.”

New York-based Alex Sands, 35, gave up presents last year after being overwhelmed by the number of plastic toys sent to children over a Christmas in lockdown. “I hid some of the presents away because they were given so much” she says, adding that for years she feels that Christmas prompted her to “panic buy” and spend far too much. 

A 2018 study by the University of Lund in Sweden found that a seasonal spike in heart attacks during the Christmas period might be caused by increased emotional stress, including the pressure to excessively give gifts.

Now Sands donates to charity instead and this year is sending chickens to a community in rural Africa through the Send a Cow charity on behalf of her family. A chicken costs US $10, she says and a cockerel costs $7. Sands’ gift recipients can follow the progress of their avian friends on the charity’s site. Sands admits that not giving material presents is something of a relief. “We can just enjoy spending time together as a family,” she says. 

And maybe that’s the best gift of all.

Gift planet-positive this year by buying a Sacred Groves Cluster for friends and family.

Author: Sally Howard, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves

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Those familiar with the 2013 Oscar-winning film Gravity have some idea of how desperate a space debris crisis can be. It’s known as Kessler syndrome, the hypothetical event by which Earth’s orbital space becomes so crowded with junk that orbital impacts are inevitable. Such an event would mean nothing less than the end of space exploration and satellite coverage on Earth for thousands of years.

Debris can be formed of anything from whole derelict craft to millimetre-wide chips of paint. No matter its size, this waste orbits the Earth at hundreds of miles an hour. In 2020 alone, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Aeolus craft had to dodge a Starlink satellite after SpaceX declined to adjust its trajectory.

It’s no wonder policymakers are being pressured to impose tougher restrictions on space businesses to ensure de-orbit procedures (policies of bringing space technology back to Earth) and measures to rein in violations. Thankfully, innovative companies are also coming up with measures to mitigate the issue.

Founded in early 2018 and originally a Swiss state project, ClearSpace SA has developed Clearspace-1, a demonstration satellite which captures and de-orbits dead satellites using four spider-like robotic arms, which close like claws over derelict space technology. They plan to launch in 2025 with the help of the European Space Agency.

Astroscale, a Japanese company with branches in the UK and US, has a similar mission, though with a much smaller craft. Astroscale’s Jason Forshaw, Head of Future Business Europe explains: “the two-part mechanism is made up of the docking plate and the robotics which extend and engage a magnet to dock onto the associated plate and allow separation from it. After docking, the craft and its target can de-orbit, burning down into particulate in the Earth’s atmosphere.”

Astroscale’s demonstration, ELSA-d, is launching from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in March 2021, on an Arianespace Soyuz, a Russian rocket. Smaller, smaller and therefore cheaper, de-orbiters like theirs could corner the market for orbital sustainability, if effective.

Though debris mitigation is smart, it requires advanced technology and a launch capability that’s not currently widely available. With sizable price tags and no regulation in the offing, cynics doubt space businesses will be willing to pay the bill to clean up after themselves.

With academics suggesting that nets, harpoons or even high-powered lasers could also offer results, the field of debris removal remains a lively concern in space science. It only remains for earthlings to take their conservation impetus to the final frontier.

Author: Laurence Russell, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: banner image of ClearSpace-1 – ClearSpaceSA, images 1,2,3 – ESA, images 4,5 – Astroscale

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It is estimated that 20 billion shoes are produced every year. Of these, about 350 million are thrown away every year in the US alone. And they are non-biodegradable. In 2014, athletes Shriyans Bhandari and Ramesh Dhami considered the several pairs of expensive sports shoes they had to discard every year and came up with an idea. Why not recycle the soles of their discarded sports shoes into new shoes? While they were no longer optimum for running, they would do nicely under a pair of slippers… Without any background or experience in shoe manufacturing, the duo probably didn’t even realise that their idea was novel and audacious. Soon, they were able to patent two of their industrial designs and roll out their first line of recycled shoes in 2015. This is how Greensole, a social startup that not only recycles old shoes into new footwear but also distributes them to the barefoot in 13 Indian states, was born.

“Going barefoot exposes people to injuries, parasitic infections and worse. Yet, while food, drinking water and shelter are considered basic to their well-being, wearing shoes is often overlooked,” says Bhandari. “Our retail business and corporate funding ensures that we are able to put shoes on the feet of countless people in the country.”

Here’s what happens to old shoes, once they reach Greensole’s manufacturing unit in Navi Mumbai. After a thorough wash, their uppers and lowers are separated. The lowers are resized; uppers cut for use as straps and laces used in shoe packaging. Even the shoe recycling has a low carbon footprint as it is manually done. The shoes, sold online with minimal advertising, have developed a cult following in India. They’ve featured twice in the India Fashion Week – last in 2019 in collaboration with noted fashion designers Abraham and Thakore.

Partnering with heavyweight corporates such as the Tata Group, Rolls Royce, international shoe brands like Adidas, Crocs and Skechers and over 60 others, Greensole organises old shoe collection and new shoe distribution drives across the country.

“In 2020, we distributed 400,000 shoes to those in need, including returning migrants at Mumbai’s railway stations,” says Bhandari. Corporates front the approximate US$2.7 needed to recycle a single pair of shoes, to be distributed in communities of their choice. Many of them have also organised shoe collection drives with their employees. Meanwhile, Greensole’s retail sales also contribute to their charity work, with a percentage from every shoe sold going into their charity arm. In 2018, Bhandari and co-founder Ramesh Dhami were listed in Forbes’ 30 Under 30 list of Asian social entrepreneurs. The same year, they inaugurated their first skilling in Jharkhand, to train women to recycle shoes.

The Greensole model is replicable in countries where low cost manual labour is easily available. Most of all, it is timely. Not only does it reduce the load on the planet’s overflowing landfills, it makes for the barefoot and fashionistas alike, shoes that truly have a soul!

Author: Geetanjali Krishna, The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images credit: Greensole

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In 2005, when Dhammalangkaro moved to Bangkok to teach Buddhism and manage Chak Daeng’s temple grounds, he found it full of garbage. Back then, plastic waste there was either burnt or thrown in River Chao Phraya. Sadly, this resulted in severe pollution in the river, contributing to the loss of marine life, poisoning of aquifers and the uncontrolled growth of algae. Burning plastic also resulted in severe air pollution. About eleven years ago, he visited Tzu Chi Foundation in Taiwan to study plastic recycling and saw how they were able to make shirts, trousers, bags and more from recycled plastic. Thus, the idea of making monastic robes from recycled plastic was born.

Today, he and other monks in the monastery sift through all the plastic waste they receive from neighbouring areas. This plastic is compressed into bales and shipped to the factory where it is converted into fibre and eventually woven into monastic robes.

Monks attest that the fabric is easy to wash, doesn’t smell or crease and is light on skin. Their novel recycling enterprise has employed over 30 local villagers, including some that are differently abled. Most of all, it is keeping some plastic from being thrown in the Chao Phraya river, one of the most polluted water sources in Thailand. For the monks of course, their clean up and recycling project has a spiritual aspect: “We need to clean material waste out, as well as cleaning the waste in the brain, and then, we will find true happiness,” the abbot says.

Image Story

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Luke Duggleby

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“How many lives has this purse saved?” says Isatou Ceesay, 48, toting a pretty, pale blue woven handbag.

Raised in Njau, a humble village in The Gambia, from a young age Ceesay was struck by the environmental degradation caused by the overuse and poor disposal of waste. The rivers in her rural region of the West African state were clogged with plastic bags, with the burning or dumping of toxic waste leading to a host of health implications for her fellow villagers, from respiratory illnesses to cholera, as well as sickening the livestock communities depended upon.

“The idea of recycling came to me very young, when I looked at the environment I lived in and people didn’t have the idea of taking care of their waste, “Ceesay says. “People were simply not aware of what I was talking about.” But Ceesay had social barriers to overcome in making the villagers understand the benefits of good environmental custodianship. “I was very young, I lacked money and I was uneducated,” Ceesay says. “But one thing I did have was commitment.” Plus, she adds, with a smile: “I wanted to prove them all wrong.”

What a difference two decades make. Today Ceesay’s revolutionary community recycling project, Njau Recycling and Income Generation Group (NRIGG), employs 1,100 people in four separate communities in the Gambia. The project proceeds on the basis that many of the items that are poorly disposed of by Gambian communities have reuse value. Using novel crafting methods, NRIGG employs marginalised women to make recycled bags, mats, purses and jewellery for resale at markets or via the charity’s site from reclaimed items, including plastic bags, and the plastic bottles that are the scourge of local waterways. The organisation also trains unemployed women to be community waste and recycling experts, training villagers in composting and recycling, kitchen gardening and the societal benefits in planting trees. This advocacy work, Ceesay says, has improved child and maternal weight and wellbeing in the communities her organisation works with. “When I return to a village and see there are vegetables growing, the environment is clean and nutrition has improved, that’s the best thing for me,” Cessay says.

NRIGG is now turning its attention to forest preservation, perfecting a simple method of making compacted cooking fuel from discarded kindling and coconut shells to prevent deforestation for charcoal. “This is important,” Ceesay says. “Without forests we cannot have a healthy life.”

For Ceesay, social justice goes hand-in-hand with good environmental stewardship. “If women and young people are not part of this work it will not have a future,” she says. She has recently launched a project that gives recycling work to disabled Gambian women who otherwise have little option but to beg. “They are some of the best workers we have,” she says, “but society sees them as having no worth.” Now Ceesay’s dream is to see more women taking leadership positions in African countries. “That is something we are really lacking,” Cessay says.

Apart from Ceesay, of course. In 2012, the environmental trailblazer was recognised with an award at The International Alliance for Women Difference Maker award in the USA. In her homeland, she’s popularly nicknamed the Queen of Recycling, a moniker she doesn’t mind one bit. “When I wake up every day I still have the heart to deliver a better life,” she says.

Isatou Ceesay was photographed for Climate Heroes, a documentary series about the women and men around the world who fight to protect our environment and mitigate climate change, climateheroes.org.

Learn how to recycle plastic bags into purses with Njau Recycling’s technique: Watch Here
Buy their creations at  One Plastic Bag

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves

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