BAN THE BAGS!

Earlier posts on this blog talked about the bag mania that came in around 2007 when the Anya Hindmarch bags, made of cotton, were outed as being made in Chinese sweatshops...we then made a plain grey hemp bag which was the real thing, and held them up in protest outside the Hindmarch shop in London. Cotton, being a worldwide destructive monocrop, was used in those and other ecologically deastructiv bags worldwide. Here in New York these trendy bags are being recalled, as such bags, usually made in China, have been found to contain lead. Michael M. Grynbaum writes in yesterday's New York Times that consumers, such as Jen Bluestein, are finding out that it is fraud. Bluestein notes: "Green is a trend and people go with trends...People get them as fashion statements and they have, like, 50 of them. I don't think people know the real facts."

Duh. People don't, and the cotton industry is not letting on. So we now have these dangerous and idiotic bags when we could have had the real thing: Hemp. Plain hemp bags. Grynbaum notes, ironically, that "climate-change-conscious shoppers at one of Manhattan's culinary meccas on Sunday said they were chagrined that yet another good intention had gone awry." Shelley Kempner says "Bummer! We're still not doing the right thing", and asks if we might have to start using string bags. Actually, this is a good idea, less is more; we used these in Istanbul in the 1960s, and they were great. They were also biodegradable. But the problem with them is that no trendy lefty idiot shops get to print their name on them, so they are overlooked. Wholier-than-thou-Foods for instance has a big bag of its own, with its logo on it. But it is not hemp. Oh no, it is ecologically destructive cotton. Bluestein and Kempner were right. So when are we going to get it right?

HOMER GETS A BAG OF HEMP

A recent Simpsons episode included a new character who gets burned at the end - a hemp bag inherited by Marge from her aunt. The bag meets its fiery end near a missile launching station, causing the guards to lose their alertness.
OK, whatever. I'm not going to burn my hemp bag, it won't get me high. It has lasted well over a year, saving the use of 400 plastic bags. Hemp bags are not just catching on with Homer and his brood, there are lots of companies now making hemp bags, including Bags of Change in Richmond. BoC come in different colours, including pink, which I am sure would please Marge immensely. She just has to keep Bart and Homer from playing with matches.

A MARCH OF HEMP

April showers looming, and March is now behind us. It was not a bad month, unless you were a British sailor caught up in an international struggle between some total idiots. Hopefully they are not being hooded, tortured and treated to other nasty things which the US likes to do to its defenceless captives...so far the worst thing to befall the 15 was the ugly head scarf the woman sailor is wearing! And it's not even made of hemp. Perhaps we can send a hemp scarf to the Iranian Embassy here in London and explain that we are now all eco-conscious and hemp is what we prefer to wear. I suggested this to the Yanks, but I think they just ignored it, as all their orange jumpsuits and other bondage gear are all still made of cotton.

As was the Anya Hindmarch 'eco-bag', and not even organic cotton at that. Previous posts show us on the march outside her shop in, um, March; with a hemp bag.

Thousands of miles from London Paul Benhaim spent the month working out details of his new company, Zelfo, nice logo there Paul. He did not let the ides pass however without a visit to his homeland, and after convincing airport security he was not a tourist, he made his way to Essex to discuss the future of hemp plastic with Bobby Pugh and an unnamed financier.

In California Mina Hegaard and Edie Marrs geared up for the season of outdoor festivals, the two having teamed up earlier this year. Bamboo and possibly ramie and jute will also be available from these two, along with hemp. They are branching out a bit not only into other fibres, but into carrying a few more hemp products, including books. Hemp for Victory, A Treatise on Hemp, and Building with Hemp will be available from their sites later this month.