EARTH DAY IS EVERY DAY #1

Ruth Sandra Sperling
RSS Designs In Fiber - Internet Shop of Handmade Things
RSS Crochet Thread Plus - Internet Shop of Crochet Threads

Earth Day is every day in my life -- and over the days I will be posting about how taking responsibility for healthy living on our planet is part of my life.

I have mentioned it before - but I want to focus on it here again.

I joined Etsy and started selling there last fall - then I eventually found their Street Teams and I discovered Eco Etsy Street Team.

Etsy has an e-zine, "The Storque".

As part of Earth Day, "The Storque" is having a series of articles called "Earth Tones" in their craftivism section.

One of the articles is "Why We're Green" and it is here: http://www.etsy.com/storque/section/craftivism/article/earth-tones-why-were-green/1587/

In the article is mentioned Ruth of RSS Designs In Fiber - and that is me!!

As I do very frequently, I am quoting Aldo Leopold, my favorite philosopher on the environment.

Here is the section of the article from me:

Words speak volumes for some people, as is the case with one Etsy seller,
Ruth of RSSDesignsinFiber. She chose this quote from Aldo Leopold's
"Land Ethic” to make a point:

"To sum up: a system of conservation based solely on economic
self-interest is hopelessly lopsided. It tends to ignore, and thus eventually to
eliminate, many elements in the land community that lack commercial value, but
that are (as far as we know) essential to its healthy functioning. It assumes
falsely, I think, that economic parts of the biotic clock will function without
the uneconomic parts."

Ruth relates Leopold’s message back to Etsy, saying that, "[as] makers
of hand-made goods in a 'Do It Yourself' environment, we are those private
owners at Etsy — we need to take responsibility for our whole community
including the planet, in how we conduct our lives and our businesses."

A whole bunch of us sellers on etsy.com strive to do our businesses in an ecologically conscious manner - we reduce waste, re-use, recycle, precycle, upcycle - a lot of us do it all we can -- and we dicsuss how we can best do it.

Some of the items sold on etsy.com are made of salvaged, re-claimed, repurposed, recycled, upcycled materials - and many of us re-use packaging materials as part of our business practices.

Some of us make things that are re-usable for many years in materials like cotton and wool and other fibers- handmade using minimal amounts of energy - and because they last and can be reused for many years, they reduce waste over time.

Keep up on the "Earth Tones" articles in "The Storque" on etsy.com!!

Check out the Eco Etsy Street Team profile page (http://team.etsy.com/profilest/eco.shtml), their blog (http://ecoetsy.blogspot.com/), and our Eco Etsy Website (http://www.ecoetsy.com/).

You might find some interesting things that are truly eco-friendly in the shops of our Eco Etsy Street Team - the individual shops are listed on our profile page on etsy.com http://team.etsy.com/profilest/eco.shtml.

Some of my favorites are eco-friendly dish cloths and wash clothes, items made from recycled circuit board (check out Debby Arem Designs) and hand-made paper items made from recycled papers of all kinds (check out Penguin Love).

Lets all work to make our planet healthier!!

Ruth