June 12, 2010 by guyhutch
Recycled Materials Hotel
As any beachcomber will tell you identifying the flotsam from the jetsam is the least of your worries. The world’s oceans are becoming choked with assorted debris that has roughly the same half life as plutonium.
Naturally the way to highlight the woe’s of the world’s ocean’s was to build a pop-up hotel from 12 tonnes of rubbish, including plastic bottles, cans and even car exhaust pipes collected from Europe’s beaches. This astonishing building is the creation of Hans-Jürgen Schult .
But the real achievement is that Hans-Jürgen went on to get the Danish supermodel Helena Christensen lined up as their first guest.
I mean the dude looks like Kim Jong-il’s aryan half-brother. If this guy can get Helena Christensen to come back to his place then I’m going to reappraise that career as a beachcomber.
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February 7, 2010 by guyhutch
It’s not like passing through airports became a more elegantprocess over the last decade. Jacket off, metal detector sweep, pat down, shoes off, jacket off, laptop into the ‘sniffer’ etc…. . It’s a little bit like having your pockets checked for chewing gum at school – but without the thrill of having a genuine chance of winning the game of deception.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I love an ethically sourced product as much as the next eco-junkie. Nearly any kind of recycled produce is good and from my side the more weird and wonderful the better. Although I suspect this one might be a step too far.
But hats off to the guys at neomansland.fr for offering this travel case made from a recycled jerry can. Available in a range of funky colours so that you wife and children can also enjoy freaking out airport security the world over. They even credit the idea to German designers. Although in the context of all the trouble this product going to get you in that’s a little like thanking the designers of the Panzer for ‘testing’ the Maginot Line.
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November 21, 2009 by guyhutch
Sometimes I just type a seemingly random word into Google, not because it is a search engine but because it is a marketing machine – a roulette wheel for businesses seeking punters. I’m not searching for anything in particular, just curious about who would want to pay for that query.
Provoked by that mornings java I ended up with Colombian. Well it turns out that Colombias premier online service is colombianbride.com – tagline, ‘Colombian Brides make the best latin brides’ (wow – how did they make it sound so wholesome?). Although somehow I doubt that there is a JD Power survey to back this one up.
But all this aside those resourceful colombians are taking an interesting tack to all the wasted glass generated when car windscreens are replaced. Their recycled windshield wine glasses even retain the tint included to reduce driver glare. Not that I’m oftened dazzled by the viognier sloshing around in the thing – but a nice touch none the less. Now available at uncommongoods.com
http://bit.ly/1yY9up
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BA Baracus
I was somewhat surprised to see last year that knitting was back with the cool young things of London (the chicks at least). I realise the credit crunch is bringing a little austerity chic back into vogue but it’s hard to know if the act of knitting or the final product is the most annoying. Actually, thats nonsense, they are both equally annoying – like being trapped in a lift with Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gwynth Paltrow.
But what are the boys to do? Well taking a leaf out of the note book of one Sargent BA Baracus it’s got to be welding. I mean in the 1980’s hardly a week went by without a tractor being converted into a tank. Yes – time for us men to getout there and weld stuff to stuff. Alternatively you could check out the gear available from The Weld House.
www.theweldhouse.com
They take all kinds of cool stuff and weld it into something that looks vaguely like it’s forebears. I for one love the 1970’s sedan hoods converted into tables. And what little lady wouldn’t want her hubby to come back from a $3,000 dollar shopping spree with a bed assembled from beautiful raw steel?
Posted in Welding, recycled materials | Tagged ethical materials, recycled cars, recycled materials, Welding as art | Leave a Comment »
March 31, 2009 by guyhutch
It’s hard to place where Latin America comes into the American psyche. I mean on one hand you have the Ugly Betty toying with the perennial cliché of the downtrodden second generation immigrants. On the other that super hot piece of arse Nadine Velazquez who gets at least 15 seconds of screentime per episode and single handidly makes the show completely watchable. Maxim USA certainly get it – although I’m not sure why the shoot seems to depict her escaping through a Texas cornfield. Perhaps they are making a push for realism.
But one thing you have to love about Mexicanos is a true passion for all things christian and gaudy. And, quite frankly, thats why everyhome needs a Mexican ‘Nicho’ shrine made from recycled fruit tins. Like the priest told me at Sunday School – if you pray hard enough the good lord will send Nadine Velazquez in your hour of need.
http://www.indigoarts.com/store1_recycled67.html
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February 4, 2009 by guyhutch
In great danger of leaping across tangents I happened to watch some of the Nadal v Federer epic yesterday and thought to myself – what happens with all those used balls. I mean isn’t Rafa’s carbon footprint big enough from jetting around the world all year without demanding new balls every nine games.
I couldn’t manage to find anything vaguely useful made from standard tennis balls but the guys at Refinding.com in Kansas City do a funky looking wallet made from giant recycled tennis balls. That is if you can resist that 80’s tinged wallets made of trading cards.
I couldn’t decide if the Dukes of Hazard had more street cred than the incredible hulk. Weirdly this wouldn’t even have been a challenging question 25 years ago.
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October 7, 2008 by guyhutch
I’m sure I’m not the only one spending the long autumn evenings weighing up the best use of grandma’s old fur coat. I mean they don’t quite ooze glamour the way they did back in the 1930’s.
Well our Canadian cousins have found the solution to all those fur recycling issues. Furteddybears.com does exactly what it says on the tin. For only $140 dollars US they will give any dusty old fur a new lease of life as a teddy bear.
I mean surely it’s every young childs dream – a teddy bear composed from the hide of one of gods little creatures.
(The Lindsay Lohan connection is tenuous to say the least but I couldn’t bear to be the only blogger not running a Lohan story – is she, isn’t she etc …)
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August 3, 2008 by guyhutch
Just finished reading Richard Grants new book Bandit Roads. Was fascinated by his tales of the Tarahumara Indians and their ability to run astonishing distances either bare foot or just in tyre-tread huaraches. On a little further research it turns out that long distance runners all over North America and lodged in a hot debate on Huaraches vs Vibram Five Fingers.
But of course these Tyre-tread sandals are a great ethical product waiting in the wings. But, for now, the closest thing are Splaff Flops. They too have soles are made from re-used car tyres, the straps from re-used bicycle inner tubes and the fabric is European grown hemp. All produced in a 100% waste free process.
http://www.splaff.com/
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June 18, 2008 by guyhutch
I happened to come across the clumsily name eco-retailer biomelifestyle.com the other day. I nearly didn’t make it past their home page where they announce (with not an ounce of tongue in cheek) …
‘A home without baltic linen cushions and a recycled frisbee is a home without soul!’
Hmmm … somehow I think these guys might be taking themselves a little too seriously. And really biomelifestyle – I mean why?!?
But to merit them with a little credibility they do stock a range of cookware fashioned by Japanese artisans from recycled iron.
I’m a sucker for a frying pan and these ones look pretty cool on their website. But wait a sec, isn’t Japan the worlds leading advocate of whaling? I’m not normally one for double standards so when they bring out the edition made exclusively from recycled whaling ships I might just be tempted to buy. Besides it would look great nestled between my Baltic linen cushion and that recycled Frisbee.
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April 6, 2008 by guyhutch
One of the great advents of the late 20th century was without doubt the satellite dish. Once Sky et al went head on into the domestic satellite TV market we had a new adornment for the home – and one that made a surprising statement about where you were in life.
Initially subscribers looked to be some kind of technological early adopters keen to make the next step to consuming the world’s media. But in time the dish became symbolic of the householders passion for sofatime. As housing estates started to bristle with dishes it also became the badge for those with too much time to kill. Certainly too much time to be satisfied with the measly offerings of terrestrial TV.
But we could see a new household appendage coming to our streets. This time it’s less a statement about your love for the goggle box and more about your passion for the environment.
A host of companies are now offering domestic wind turbines. They help keep your costs down from drawing on the national grid supply and, of course, it’s totally green. Some of them even provide the potential provide a tidy return on your investment as you ‘sell back’ excess power into the grid.
But the killer question is ‘what will the neighbours think?’. With the UK’s neighbourly spirit of one-upmanship you might initiate a local arms race as the diameter of turbine blades and Kwh ratings increase. Although that really depends on whether your neighbours are too busy shammying down the Prius to notice.
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