Green Girl Blog

Everything changes, time moves forward, night turns to day. History changes the future. People change. Thoughts change. Change brings change. This has been shown repeatedly throughout life. Technology changes with the times. Technology is something that is never stagnate and constantly moving forward with the times. Technology is also something that many of us have become very depend on. I spend hours a day on my computer and cell phone for basic necessities of running a business, connecting with family, friends, and colleagues, doing research, and personal enjoyment. I would say that technology is positively assisting me in many areas of my life. But is it all positive? What are the negative impacts of this ever changing industry? Most of the time change can be great, but it is important to be conscious of the negative repercussions.
Being informed is the biggest step in living an eco-conscious life with all the advances of modern day. To break it down in a simplistic way, think about how fast the turnover is on computers. Every year there are advances made in the filed, therefore, many consumers and businesses choose to upgrade there equipment frequently. When all those later edition computers and phones are tossed, they wind up in over-saturated landfills or sometimes in Third World countries where they are deconstructed by hand for valuable, yet toxic heavy metals by people that aren’t protected from these toxins. Not good in either situation.
If this motivates you to change this pattern, here are some tips to become a more aware disposer of electronics. Recycle you old electronics. The parts inside your “a day old” electronic can be reused for a newer, faster, smaller model. Hewlett-Packard (HP) has been receptive to the concern for our environment and in response has started collecting older machines (even coming to your house to pick up) to collect heavy metals and recycle parts. There are other companies like Electronics Recyclers (www.electronicrecyclers.com) that keep you informed with this major issue as well as help you in recycling items such as computer monitors, plasma screens, TV’s, printers, faxes, calculators, keyboards, cell phones, speakers and much more. Another important action to take is encouraging technological companies to advance and change the manufacturing of there electronics making them more recyclable, contain less hazardous waste and more energy efficient.
There is a large amount of money and energy spent in the technology industry, so there needs to be changes and advances in this field for it to stay with the times. For many years people neglected to see the negative impact on the environment that spawned from the industrial revolution. But now that we are more informed of the consequences, we can change that to create more benefits. The environment is something that unites everyone, in every country. It is good to know that we can agree on one thing, we need a healthy functioning environment to have healthy happy people. Can we agree that we need change in order to keep that in balance?

Lots of Love,
Collette and Natalie McGuire
Small Axe Clothing

We have been really excited, as of late, at the abundance of green products that are being offered in the most random places. That was until we started taking a closer look, not only at the products themselves, but also more importantly at the labels. As an environmentalist, it is of the utmost importance that we are educated and don’t just take things at face value.
There seems to be a large amount of “Green Wash” going on, at least in Los Angeles. This is a term that describes how everything becomes green/eco friendly because it is what is selling right now. It seems that “An Inconvient Truth” struck a cord with many people and now everyone is trying to make a buck off of people’s emotions. What makes a tee shirt that says “this is a green tee shirt” eco, when it’s made out of 50% polyester 50% cotton? What…. the fact that it is made in the United States? This was really disappointing to us, because the company that made this tee shirt produces organic cotton tee shirts within their line. Not to say that ALL green companies are guilty of this, there are so many amazing, genuine, creative companies that produce not only eco products but live the eco lifestyle. They are built from the ground up with good intention and healthy, well-chosen ingredience. Which isn’t always the easiest or most inexpensive path to go down.
As a people who realizes that this planet doesn’t just belong to our generation or us for that matter, we feel the only way to run a company is with everyone’s best interests in mind. Every choice that is made for Small Axe takes into account the environment, everyone making and wearing our clothes. We believe that the positivity that we put into our products has an affect on the people wearing them. We have built this company from the ground up, knowing that the only way we could do this was if we could stay true to all of the things we started out saying. We can proudly say that we aren’t doing this because it’s trendy or because everyone else is doing this. But because it is our goal to prove you can be a fashionable environmentalist.

Collette & Natalie McGuire