Billed as Vancouver’s largest green consumer show, the EPIC Sustainable Living Expo was a must-see from a green branding and marketing perspective. As I wandered the halls, (trying not to collect to much tradeshow trash in my Toyota-branded #5 reusable and recyclable shopping bag) I sought out companies that looked ready to break out with […]

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EPIC Sustainable Living Show 2008 Vancouver – What with energy-intensive cotton farming and sweat-shop labour, shopping for clothes with an eco-conscience can be a depressing experience. The Ecoapparel booth at EPIC offered a ray of sunshine in that world, with clean designs, tasty fabrics and an infectious enthusiasm for their business. Ecoapparel is an apparel […]

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EPIC Sustainable Living Show, Vancouver 2008 – I first stopped by the Bag-To-Nature booth to inquire about how ‘compostable’ their plastics technology was. I soon learned that other municipalities in Canada have a whole different need for such bags. “We took it for granted that the curbside collection of organics is something everybody in Canada […]

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As usual, free food samples called to me, leading to the New World Natural Foods booth. Impressed with the flavour, I ended up purchasing a bag of Tropical Fruit Nut blend. Then I asked myself, why aren’t these local products more available? Speaking with Rajinder Bagga, I learned that the company’s roots go much deeper […]

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One of the friendliest booths I came across at Vancouver’s recent EPIC sustainable living show was the unassuming home of Happy Stan’s Recycling. The Happy One himself, Stan Kaminski, started his journey into the world of recycling by collecting newspapers to raise money for the Gibson’s boys club. Stan then turned his focus to the […]

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EPIC Sustainable Living Show, Vancouver 2008 – Ironic that the styrofoam box that protects your restaurant leftovers for two days will be in the landfill until the year 3000. So who’s responsibility is it to deal with? According to Green Century, business should be doing a lot more. “We took it upon ourselves to educate […]

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Rich colours, subtle organic textures overlaid with bold screenprints, intriguing yet subtle in their interpretation. If this sounds like an art review, it should. Artist Wendy Van Riesen of Dahlia Drive produces her one-of-a-kind pieces from discarded slips and shirts, in her words, ‘Resurrecting the fashion wasteland’, a term which applies not only to the […]

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