Green Thing Blog

Last week when we decided to run a competition to swap Marina's Saved T for something, we expected to get some interesting offers. And we did. After a week of hilarious and bizarre offerings we're pleased to share with you some of the tendered items and who is the winner of the Marina T.

An invisible Liger, a Lady Gaga T-shirt, a magic wand, an invisible coat worth 100,040 euros and a 35mm camera were some of the gems people put forward to swap.

We were also offered swaps of the Canadian kind, including Look Magazine offering an entire Celine Dion music collection and someone willing to share 100% pure Quebec maple syrup.

Honourble mention goes to a a group of our Twitter followers who decided we wanted cash and had a eBay-esque auction amongst themselves.

@MarinasDiamond1: If you get no offers,im willing to pay a £1 :)

@TheMoylocks: £2 from here lol

@MarinasDiamond1: @ £2.01

@TheMoylocks: Damn you got me with that one, im actually offering them a bunny i got out of a cereal box lol

@MarinasDiamond1: haha,it might appeal to them.think they want hard cash tho,my £2.01

@paulhoggett: haha here we go again £2.02 lol

@TheMoylocks: If thats the case then i'll offer £2.02 and throw in the bunny for free :D plus im tired, goodnight :]

@MarinasDiamond1:  haha £2.09......< Auction is now closed. Highest bidder wins! :)

We were also offered people. @Hannah Atkinson: I'll swap you Joanne Griffiths for it. [This is my housemate, offering my other housemate]

And then we were offered non-monetary things such as pledges to do a green thing each day and write guest blog posts for us.

After a lengthy and rigorous judging session, we've decided to give the T to @josi who left a comment on our site. Josi has pledged this:

My mate is a big fan. I have convinced him to do Meatless Mondays for a month for the shirt. He is an even BIGGER meat-eater then he is a fan!

Huge thanks to everyone to entered! Stay tuned for the next giveaway.

SHARE THIS

More to our Saved Campaign is the story behind the packaging. We love spotting brilliant packaging ideas and it was important for us for Saved to reflect the purpose of the campaign which is rescuing things from waste. We were very lucky to have Daniel Weil, a partner at Pentagram, design our Saved packaging. We caught up with him for some tea not so long ago so he could share more of the Saved story with us.

KH: Why did you chose this material?

DW: It was important that the Saved packaging matched the expectation of saving things - and the bigger objective. The cardboard material used was salvaged from Grace Martin printers, who generously gave us their run offs. When a printer is changing the work being printed, hundred of papers are needed to put through a machine to clean it between jobs. These pieces of run off paper get discarded once on side of the page is completely saturated with colour.

KH: Talk me through the design.

DW: The design of the packaging is simple. No adhesive is needed. The interlocked band means it can be used multiple times. The beauty in this is the crisp new white side of the paper as the outside so when people open their Saved shirt they are pleasantly surprised by the inside. This theme is also present in whole idea of Saved, and that is look beyond what is outside. The width and height of the packaging was specifically chosen to comply with a size prescribed by the post office. If it is of a certain size, then the package can be posted as a letter rather than a parcel.

When a Saved T is put in the packaging, it's put in a small clear bag. This is to negate the need to have waterproof packaging. These bags came from a retail packaging supplier near Spitalfields market. This particular supplier used to be the main supplier to almost all off the green grocers. Over time as green grocers started fading away, so did the supplier. It was a 3rd generation owned old shop. So we helped 'Save' the shop in a way as they had a lot of stock but little business.

KH: Did you find it restrictive the idea of coming up with packaging for a purpose?

DW: I understood that there would be restrictions but saw these as opportunities to make something appropriate and life enhancing. To make something with a purpose is adding a new sense of value, one which is around perception and cultural things rather than material. To have value things don't need to be expensive, it's more about an enhanced experience. The packaging gives the message that you can be good and look good.

---

If you'd like to see our Saved packaging in the flesh why not order a T.

SHARE THIS

(Image: Etsy)

Jenny Jo Allen is the lady behind T-sKirts - that's skirts made from old t-shirts. Jenny began making baby clothes for her own kid from unwanted, shrunken sweaters as well as adorable monster baby caps from smaller pieces of fabrics. Why? She just couldn't bear buying new stuff when she could make her own cool clothes from older pieces.

In her bid to continue reducing waste, she started making T-sKirts.

After selling these upcycled skirts so successfully at a local farmer's market, Jenny saw a demand for her All Consuming design and now she wants to sell them at wholesale level.

But she needs to gather up a LOT of old t-shirts to do so.

10,000 to be exact.

She wants to go wholesale so that even more families can have the opportunity to have an accessible alternative to conventionally produced fashion, making REfashion a choice for everyone. To obtain this huge order of old tees, Jenny started a Kickstarter page. Unfortunately it didn't receive full funding but she's still on the lookout for unwanted t-shirts.

Or if skirts aren't your thing, don't forget about our Saved shop on ASOS. Given that t-shirt weather is just about here (well...sort of), breathe life into your old discarded tees by letting us Save them. Just pop them in the post to:

To be Saved by Do The Green Thing
67-69 Whitfield Street
London
W1T 4HF

We will then lovingly hand-stitch 'SAVED' lettering onto them (as per the fetching picture above) and turn your old castoffs into fashionable and desirables once more.

Whether it's T-sKirts or Saved shirts, don't be a binner, be a winner and send either us or Jenny your old tees.

(Spotted on Treehugger)

SHARE THIS

The weather is hotting up and as the jumpers return to the dark space at the back of the cupboards, that can only mean one thing - it's Saved season.

Saved is our anti waste campaign that takes forgotten and unwanted t-shirts and makes them cool and desirable again. By hand-sewing on letters that have been laser cut from old fabric, we re-brand them and make them better than ever.

Perhaps you've discovered a forgotten stash of old, unloved t-shirts under your bed. Or maybe you're hanging onto a Christmas present that you didn't like, that top you loved but you just can't squeeze into anymore, the embarrassing nickname tees you had made up for a stag party or a once favourite band t-shirt that lasted way longer than their career did.

Well, instead of just leaving them for the moths to chew on or chucking them away, send them in to us and we'll Save them.

To check out our current range of Saved tees, head over to our ASOS marketplace. We add new t-shirts all the time and remember, they are all totally one of a kind so once it's gone, it's gone.

Now that's what I call Saving.

SHARE THIS

(Image: Jaredyellin)

Today is the start of London Fashion Week. For many this is a time to lust after and splash out on new clothes. But when you consider that here in the UK, a whopping £30 billion worth of clothes are sat unworn and unloved in our wardrobes (according to a new report by WRAP), do we really need to be going out and buying more?

According to WRAP's report, called Valuing Our Clothes:

• The average UK household owns around £4,000 worth of clothes


• Around 30% of clothing in wardrobes has not been worn for at least a year;


• Extending the average life of clothes by just three months of active use would lead to a 5-10% reduction in each of the carbon, water and waste footprints


• An estimated £140 million worth (around 350,000 tonnes) of used clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year.

After hearing these staggering figures we thought we'd come up with a few ideas to help all of us permanently spring clean our closets.

Stick with what you got and just Buy Nothing
Pretty straight forward really. Just stop buying shit you don't need.

Swap what you got
We've said it before and we'll say it again, swapping is where it's at and there has never been so many platforms for swapping. From organising your own swish to apps that help you swap, swapping is so hot right now.

(Image: Guardian)

Give em away
Share the wealth of your packed wardrobe and liberate yourself from all the stuff you don't really need. Charity shops are literally screaming out for the stuff (well, not 'literally' but they do have signs up). And if you're worried your stuff is too tatty, don't despair, everything is put to good use.

Get creative
Clothes don't have to be clothes you know. Get your upcycling cap on and get inspiration from these notebooks and this laptop cover.

Treat yourself
Instead of buying lots of cheap stuff from places like Primark and H&M save your money and buy less but more well-made pieces. Your clothing will be of better quality so will last longer, look better and be that little bit more special.

Save your clothes
Got any old t-shirts? Then save them by sending them to us where they will be Saved and re-worn and re-loved by someone else.

So now you know what to do, off you pop and get sorting. A calm, tidy wardrobe is within your reach. Promise.

(Spotted on Treehugger)

SHARE THIS