Much like socks, gloves have the tendency to lose their other halves. In the spirit of 'waste not, want not', environmental group Green Thing has launched a venture that pairs up single gloves and sells them to new owners. Matched by size but not colour, Glove Love offers unique pairs for GBP 5. Single gloves are washed, repaired and (re)paired by Green Thing, which also adds recycled labels, nametags and letters of introduction.

Last winter's strays were harvested from lost and found boxes through donations from The Natural History Museum, Transport For London and other organisations, and Green Thing is asking people to send in unpartnered gloves to keep its online store stocked. Profits go to Green Thing Trust, which is a registered charity.

As Green Thing points out, each sale keeps single gloves out of landfills and avoids manufacturing a new pair. It's a fun and practical approach to sustainability, and one that Green Thing hopes will be copied by people in other parts of the world. Not just for gloves, but for "all sorts of single things that can be put together in new, creative and aesthetic ways". Get cracking before temperatures drop! (Related: Doing the green thing — Leather jackets remade into designer bags.)

Website: www.dothegreenthing.com/glovelove
Contact: hello@dothegreenthing.com

There are countless brands of jeans in the world, most of them actually *made* all over the world, with components sourced from multiple countries and manufacturing done in others. Aiming to present an alternative at the polar opposite on that scale is Raleigh Denim, a North Carolina company whose jeans are reportedly 98 percent local.

Run by a husband-and-wife team, Raleigh Denim uses nearly all local materials, with everything from thread to denim produced within 200 miles of its workshop. Its distinctive selvage denim, for instance, comes from Cone Mills’ White Oak plant, a 100-year-old local mill that weaves the fabric on the only original shuttle looms still working in the US today. All of Raleigh Denim's design, pattern-making, cutting, sewing, washing and finishing, meanwhile, are carried out by hand in the company's Raleigh workshop. No automated equipment is ever involved; rather, the couple prefers to incorporate traditional construction methods and vintage sewing machines. Every pair of Raleigh Denim jeans is handcrafted and signed by its maker, with unique touches such as an x-ray of the hip joint printed on the inside pocket.

Priced from roughly USD 215 to USD 285, Raleigh Denim jeans are now carried in major retail stores across the US, including Barneys New York and Steven Alan, and have reportedly developed quite a following. Which just goes to show, once again, that even in tough economic times, a heaping helping of (still) made here appeal can help virtually any medicine—that is, price—go down. Time to bring Raleigh Denim to your neck of the woods—or, better yet, create a local version of your own...? (Related: For the first time, jeans to be made in North Korea — Luxury jeans tinted a long dormant blue.)

Website: www.raleighdenim.com
Contact: holler@raleighdenim.com

Spotted by: Cecilia Biemann

New Zealand start-up Your Pure Honey is offering customers the chance to own a share of a beehive in and enjoy the Manuka honey it produces. A basic share costs USD 285 per season (September–May) and yields 2kg of raw honey (delivery costs are included). Those who their own personal colony can adopt an entire hive as a 'Premium Partner' for USD 2,500 and receive 20kg of honey at the close of the season.

Your Pure Honey is keen to establish a personal connection between partners and their hives. Each partner receives a personal link to a website that's updated throughout the season with photographs and videos of their hive, and the material is collated in a photo book and DVD at the end of the season. Like the vineyard shares and adopted olive tree that preceded this venture, it's all about creating a unique story and product that can be shared with friends.

And there's an extra dimension that should appeal to consumers: forest preservation. Manuka trees are often felled to create extra farming land. Your Pure Honey rents land from farmers (one hectare per hive), protecting Manuka forests and providing farmers with an alternative source of income. It's a sweet deal all round. (Related: Remote-controlled farming for city dwellers — Sustainable crowdfunded forest — Rooftop beekeeping at Fortnum's.)

Website: www.yourpurehoney.com
Contact: info@yourpurehoney.com

Spotted by: luxist.com via Chris Turner

Just last week we covered SRS Energy's Solé Power Tiles, which disguise solar panels as clay roof tiles. Now a similarly unobtrusive solution for cloudier climes is on the horizon. RidgeBlade is a wind-power system that can be fitted to buildings with minimum visual impact and maximum energy conversion potential. This micro-generation system employs discreetly housed cylindrical turbines positioned horizontally along the apex of a sloping roof. The slope of the roof naturally channels wind into the turbine chamber, meaning RidgeBlade can "produce electricity under low or variable wind conditions." This high efficiency means that the system could pay for itself within a few years.

Designed by a former Rolls Royce turbine engineer under the wing of UK-based The Power Collective, RidgeBlade is one of six finalists in the Dutch Postcode Lottery's Green Challenge. Director Dean Gregory presented the design to judges today at Picnic '09 in Amsterdam. If they are successful, the team will receive a EUR 500,000 grand prize (or EUR 100,000 if they are one of the two runner-ups) to help them bring the design to market within the next two years. It's a rapidly accelerating industry—one to get involved in now! (Related: Urban windmills.)

Update 25 Sept 2009 | RidgeBlade won the EUR 500,000 Green Challenge Prize! "It's beyond a dream,” said English entrepreneur Dean Gregory when Skype founder Niklas Zennström, a contest juror, announced his name. "This means we can focus solely on bringing this to market." Gregory entered the Challenge on behalf of the English company The Power Collective Limited—after finding out about it two days before the deadline.

Website: www.thepowercollective.com
Contact: info@thepowercollective.com

Spotted by: PICNIC Amsterdam

Mention greenhouse gases, and most people think of cars. The reality, however, is that more than 20 percent of such gases around the globe come not from machines but from cows—specifically, the 500 billion liters of methane gas that get emitted by the world's billion or so cows every day. That's more than what's produced by all the cars, planes, ships and trucks on the planet, but Mootral, a small UK startup, may just have found a solution.

Working with Welsh company Neem Biotech, Mootral (a pun based on "moo" and carbon neu-"tral") has developed a unique feed additive for livestock that reduces cows' methane emissions by at least 25 percent. Methane is a gas reportedly some 22 times more potent than carbon dioxide, but Mootral's garlic-based extract is a natural antibiotic that fights bacteria in the stomachs of cows and sheep to dramatically reduce its production. In fact, Mootral estimates that it can reduce cow emissions enough to generate GBP 30 per cow of carbon credit per year; all together, that would amount to a carbon credit market potential of more than GBP 30 billion per year, it says. Neem Biotech is already producing the additive—based on a substance called allicin—on a commercial scale, which could be particularly useful now that countries including Estonia, Denmark and Ireland are considering or have implemented an emissions tax for farmers on a "per ruminant capita" basis, according to a report in the Financial Times. Mootral was shortlisted this summer in the Financial Times Climate Challenge; more recently, it's one of six finalists in the Dutch Lottery's annual Green Challenge competition, the results of which will be announced this week during PICNIC’09.

Mootral is currently undergoing final dosage tests, with plans to launch a sample test at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Copenhagen Summit this December. One to get involved in early...?

Website: www.mootral.com
Contact: miche@mootral.com

Spotted by: PICNIC Amsterdam