Ethical gear, ethical job opps
Vegan-friendly accessories, made out of 95 per cent recycled (and 99 per cent locally sourced) materials, by an ethical fashion brand. Sound good? It gets better.
Not only are slow-fashion advocates What Daisy Did helping the planet with their latest range of Wayfarer backpacks, the company is also making an effort to directly help vulnerable people, too. WDD is teaming up with homeless charity the Northampton Hope Centre, to offer employment to homeless people. A liaison officer will help those using the Hope Centre move into the role, where they can learn new skills. A percentage of the sale from each Wayfarer bag will also go to the Hope Centre.
The Wayfarer bags themselves are made mostly from ex-military canvas tents, meaning that the material is durable and water-resistant, and the manufacturing process has a low carbon footprint. They also look pretty smart too.
What Daisy Did have now launched a Kickstarter to get the project running and employ another machinist from the Hope Centre. You can get your ethical kick on right here.
Repurposing Rio
As the Rio Olympics draw to a close this weekend, a thorny issue rears its troublesome head, as it does around this time during every Olympic Games: what happens to all those specially constructed buildings in the host city?
Often, cities will utilise or repurpose some of these structures, but there are almost always others that lie dormant for years afterwards.
We’ll have to wait to see the long-term results of Rio’s post-Olympic restructuring, but there’s reason to be hopeful with the news that at least some of the buildings will be repurposed for schools, community projects and public parks.
The Olympic handball venue, boldly named Future Arena, will house four primary schools, and the International Broadcast Centre will be transformed into a high school dormitory.
Meanwhile, the Olympic Aquatics Stadium will be used for two public swimming complexes, and the 300-acre Olympic Park will apparently be used for a mix of public parks and private developments. You can fit a lot of lovely public parks into 300 acres. Just saying.
(Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
Easy autonomous rider
It’s been way too long since we brought you the latest driverless bus news – almost a whole month, in fact. Wait no longer, friends, as we can now fill you in on the EZ10.
Manufactured by EasyMile (nothing to do with easyJet, though we can see why you might think so), a series of EZ10s have been cruising Helsinki’s roads, minus driver, in a pilot project (there’s no pilot either, just for clarity).
Previous trials with the EZ10 have taken place, but this is the first time the buses have been allowed to burn it up on public roads. Although ‘burn’ is probably a little strong, since the buses are limited to a speed of 6mph. But hey, that’s good enough for us. It’s still a driverless bus and it’s still basically The Future that we imagined after watching all those sci-fi movies as kids.
Now someone just needs to make the buses fly as well and we’re pretty much there.
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