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Plant Plastic: Drinking soda is bad for you, yes, but petroleum-based plastic bottles bad for everyone. In 2012, Pepsi will drop the world's first fossil fuel-free plastic bottle, made from 100% plant-based materials like switch grass, pine bark and corn husks. Bike Share, Yo: Inhabitat reports that Brooklyn will join Washington D.C., Boston, Denver, and Minneapolis as the first cities in the......read more
The murky depths of Brooklyn's highly polluted Gowanus Canal conceal the remains of its industrial past. Now, having recently been listed on the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund National Priorities List, it looks to a clean future ahead. The best part? Restoring the canal will be paid for by polluters, not taxpayers....read more
New York's Macro-Sea invades underused urban spaces and reenergizes them with creative projects and happenings. Like Glassphemy!, a 20x30-foot "visceral and psychological recycling center" erected in a pre-gentrified lot on the Gowanus Canal. In a violently fun take on recycling, participants were invited in the structure to smash empty beer bottles against the bulletproof glass. The shattered......read more
Brooklyn's Big Sue, LLC is a veteran of New York City's sustainable building scene. In this episode of Brooklyn Informed, we talk to Big Sue partner Susan Boyle about one of the company's cooler projects: a Prospect Heights brewery icehouse they bought in 2004 and converted into a six-unit residential building. The structure is an excellent portrait of sustainable construction, with two green......read more
Our good friend Isa Brito is the herbalist behind Isa's Restoratives, a line of wildcrafted, organic concoctions that we fully endorse (hot tip: try the Blue Chamomile Face Cream ). In this episode of Gardens NYC, we explore the Williamsburg garden where the lives of Isa's tinctures begin. But healing plants aren't the garden's only residents; Isa is down with weeds as well.......read more
Food doesn't get any more local than when you can plant, pick, cook, and eat it all within a space of about five feet. That's the exactly the situation that building manager Peter Malerba finds himself in. The longtime Brooklyn resident takes advantage of having open access to a vast rooftop by growing a variety of organic delights every summer. But like a good Brooklynite, Malerba......read more
This week on Brooklyn Informed, the BKI team hooks up with Brad Estabrooke, owner and founder of the Breuckelen Distilling Company in Sunset Park. The 31 year-old native of Maine bailed on a career on Wall Street to open the small-scale distillery near the Gowanus waterfront, where he crafts farm-to-bar gin from organic raw ingredients sourced around New York state. With a grain mill, a......read more
Compositions or decompositions? You be the judge. Either way, Andrew Casner's compost paintings are nothing if not captivating. In this episode of BKI, the Brooklyn resident and urban farmer discusses his unusual artistic practice, which involves placing a canvas under a compost pile, then uncovering it a month later to reveal an abstract, agrarian piece of art. Originally inspired by the......read more
The way we see it, growing food in cities is a great way to address some of the social, environmental, and health problems faced by urbanites. Derek Denckla agrees. The Brooklyn-based green visionary helped launch the Farm City project (named after Novella Carpenter's excellent book on adventures in city farming) to explore and promote the practice of urban agriculture. Our intrepid Brooklyn......read more
Andrew Casner, Brooklyn resident and urban gardener, is also an artist. But his workspace isn’t splattered with paint and brushes. Instead, it’s covered in dirt. In this episode of SHFT‘s Brooklyn Informed series, Andrew takes us through his non-traditional artistic process, which involves placing a canvas under a compost pile, then uncovering it a month later to......read more
