Recycle Your City

(NOTE: More info to come about Mawakeb Al-Ajr)

According to Dia Diwan:


Finally, a decent recycling initiative in a city that desperately needs an eco-friendly clean-up.
Yes, we all care about fashion, art and where to buy the latest delicious cupcakes – but there is an area of utmost importance that doesn't seem to mobilize us as much, and that’s making our cities cleaner and greener places to live in.

Now, a group of environmental activists operating with the support of Jeddah’s Chamber of Commerce and Municipality has launched a citywide recycling campaign.
Under the name Recycle Your City, the group aims to establish recycling in offices, schools, public buildings and eventually of course, in homes across the city. Did you know that 62% of all waste in an average office is paper that can be recycled?

The idea for the this long awaited recycling campaign originated with Noura Alturki, a young Saudi employee at Jeddah’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who connected with an online group of environmental activists led by Nour Fityani. Together, they organized a recycling program at Jeddah’s Chamber of Commerce under the umbrella of the Environment Committee (hooray for them!). The campaign is now comprised of seven founding members who work for different companies and also represent two environmental organizations: Mawakeb Al-Ajr and Annabta Association.
Their Goals:

* Solve urban solid waste problems by promoting recycling as one of the alternatives to dumping, burning and burying practices.
* Support organizations and individuals who want to recycle.
* Create awareness amongst people on how they can protect the environment and promote a healthier, greener and more sustainable lifestyle.

H&M in Jeddah

Okay, so it's been open for a while, but I doubt that anyone knows just how awesome H&M is. Not just for your closet, but the planet.



H&M has been green for a while now. They've been supporting UNICEF in Uzbekistan to help children and prevent child labor in the cotton industry since July. They also use organic (no pesticides) cotton in a lot of their products (the labels on each product indicates if it's made of organic cotton). As if that wasn't enough, every year they publish a report with information on how they're being responsible. Check it out here.

Ferragamo Goes Green

According to FashionWeekDaily and FabSugar:

Ferragamo has gone green. In an effort to preserve the Earth, the luxury brand has created a line of eco-friendly handbags named Eco Ferragamo. What makes this collection special is that the bags are made from a nontoxic tanning technique, are lined in handwoven hemp, and use dyes from natural elements such as tree bark. The results, seen below, are luxurious, biodegradable, and water-resistant bags. The Eco Ferragamo collection ranges from small totes to maxi hobos made in hues of tobacco brown, lemon yellow, and grapefruit pink. The bags retail from $1,190 to $1,890 and will be available come February.

Masdar City

Masdar is a definite thing to know about for anyone in the Middle East hoping for big-scale change in the region.

Masdar is a government-funded initiative to bring future clean energy to the region. The city they're building is one that finally caters to all those saying "we're in a desert, why aren't we using solar energy?!". Not only is it apparently going to be the world's first carbon-neutral, zero-waste, car-free city in the world, they're also planning on building the Middle East's largest solar power plant (I wonder where the others are, if any?). Planned to be producing power by the end of 2009, they're currently testing out solar energy options from U.S., Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and German companies to see which products will work best in the desert climate.
The city will be able to house residents! I'm SO buying a place there. By September of this year, 100 students and professors of the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (developed in cooperation with MIT) will be moving into the residences.
The frosting on the cake is that Abu Dhabi hosted the second annual World Future Energy Summit where this was all announced.

Masdar itself is BUSY!
They've already signed a contract with the TDIC to develop a sustainable system for a nature reserve and resort. TDIC are the ones developing Saadiyat Islands which will have a number of iconic museums including a Louvre.
They also invest in a lot of foreign projects, including offshore wind parks to be built in the UK.

The Green Family of Macs

It was just a matter of time until I mentioned it. Check out the greenest family of notebooks.

The longer video.