Sweden Opens World’s First Mall for Repaired and Recycled Goods

retuna-mall-repair-upcycle-women-of-green

A new generation of recycling has now gone from local drop-off centers to a shopping mall that sells only repaired or upcycled products. The new recycling establishment, ReTuna Återbruksgalleria, has nothing to do with the fish; instead, it was named after the Swedish town in which the building is located, Eskilstuna, Sweden. The facilities contain both a recycling center and a shopping mall. Customers can donate the items that they no longer need, then shop for something new – all in one stop. Dropped off goods are sorted into various workshops where they are refurbished or repaired accordingly. Products are then sorted into 14 specialty shops that include furniture, computers, audio equipment, clothes, toys, bikes, and gardening and building materials; all garnered from second-hand products.

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July is clean-up-your-act month

Ever visit a landfill? It ain’t pretty. Most of the debris of humanity ends up there. Bottles. Tires. Plastic. Old newspapers that you were suppose to recycle. Well, this month you have a chance to redeem yourself. July is “Waste Less” month and Women Of Green is participating in the GOOD Challenge. A month-long effort to lighten your load (and Mother Earth’s) in any way you can. Here are some ideas to get you started.

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Ladies, the World Needs You To Be Less Plastic, by Mary Clare Hunt

Is this India? Mexico? No, it’s Long Beach, California after a rain. It’s what happens when the 51 miles of LA river channel washes whatever is in it into the Queensway Bay in Long Beach. We don’t have to travel to one of the five ocean gyres where plastic swirls and chokes the life out of our marine animals; we can walk on water right here and spend millions cleaning it up. It gives new meaning to, “What a waste…” The screen shot above came via the live stream of the  TEDxGreatPacificGarbagePatch conference held in Long Beach, CA organized by the Plastic Pollution Coalition. The actual event had limited seating but anyone could attend virtually via house parties. Hopefully they’ll post the presentations for later replay. As shocking as the above is to look at, the statistics on what we are doing to our oceans and LAND by using single use plastics and then throwing it away are scary. You don’t have to believe in climate change to see that we drastically need to change the way we relate to this pervasive pollutant. A few of the not-so-fun facts from the conference: •               Over 2.4 million pounds of plastic are being dumped into our […]

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