KOR ONE Hydration Vessels

The hottest eco friendly water bottles to hit the market have just landed on Maku EcoShop. KOR ONE Hydration vessels are not only cool but eco friendly and motivational at the same time.

Made of Eastman Tritan™ copolyester, the KOR ONE is completely BPA free and offers beautiful glasslike clarity with excellent impact resistance

Customize your vessel by inserting an inspirational KOR Stone™ message into the top; KOR Stone messages are visible when the cap is flipped open

KOR donates 1% of all sales to a select group of non-profits that focus on water-related issues and we do to so that is 2% of sales on this bottle going to help make the world a better place!

Available in 4 cool colors all with their own Non Profit



- Orchid Pink sales benefit Blue Planet Run, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing the global community together to provide safe drinking water to people in need around the world

- Sunrise Orange (my favorite!) sales benefit The Container Recycling Institute, a nonprofit that studies and promotes policies and programs to increase recovery and recycling of plastics

- Sawgrass Green sales benefit The Wetlands Initiative, a nonprofit working to sustainably restore wetlands in order to improve water quality and increase wildlife habitat

- Ice Blue sales benefit one of our favorites the Algalita Marine Research Foundation, a nonprofit focused on the protection of the marine environment through research, education and restoration, in particular studies of the North Pacific Gyre / Blob of Floating Trash...

Happy New Year - Make '10 your "Greenest" yet!

Happy New Year and welcome to 2010! As each day, week, month and year pass since we started this little journey of putting a little more eco friendly style into peoples lives, the "Green" movement continues to grow.

Of course this is not only great for people that have always taken an eco friendly approach in their lives but it is even better for Mother Earth! Yet as "Green Living and Lifestyles" grow so does "Green Washing" and we all need to be even more vigilant on assuring the products we use in our lives are truly making a difference on this planet.

Daily we are bombarded with terms and catch phrases like - Eco Friendly, Green, Sustainable, Organic, Okeotex approved, Fair Trade, Reduce - ReUse - Recycle, etc etc etc. The cool thing is that there are so many stories beyond the "Green" stories and even when a product is not "100% Green" it still can make a difference.

Products that give back to the community in which they were produced. Building Schools, supporting the people that build their products, water conservation, sustainable farming, community planning, etc are all things that we feel are just as important as being an "Earth Friendly" product.

At Maku Furniture you probably know we work with 1% For the Planet. We donate 1% of our total sales from both Maku Furniture and Make EcoShop to The Surfrider Foundation and the East Bali Poverty Project.

But beyond this we continue to help educate the communities in and around our Javanese manufacturing facility. For example, taking the sawdust and reclaimed scrap wood leftover from manufacturing and selling at the local markets for livestock bedding etc. With the proceeds used to buy school books and supplies or take the manufacturing staff on eco trips to the Rainforest, Jungles, and Beaches of Java. Most of which have never left the 10 or 15 km radius of their local village but now have a more broad understanding of how their lives in the village may affect the beaches and ocean thru inland stream runoff or burning of toxic materials affecting the canopies of the rainforest.

With this philosophy in mind, you'll be seeing some cool products coming up on the Maku EcoShop that we feel make a community difference in the manufacturing process and of course have a sustainable and eco-friendly vibe.

Don't forget a difference starts with One person and when we each do a little bit BIG things happen! So take those Eco Resolutions, make them realistic and set a base to build from for many years to come.

From the crew here at Maku Furniture we wish you a Great and Green 2010.

Surfrider Foundation SD Chapter - 9th Annual Art Gala

The 9th Annual Art Gala benefiting the San Diego Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation is this Thursday May 21st.

As you have read in the past, Maku is a proud supporter or 1% For the Planet and part of our donation goes to the Surfrider Foundation San Diego Chapter.

This year we are also donating and Maku Lounge Chair and a Maku Side Table to the Art Gala at the Powerhouse in Del Mar. Check out the online Auction too for some really cool stuff!

Plastiki

From JUNK to PLASTIKI, the voyages of these courageous captains in an effort to raise awareness on plastic in our oceans is nothing short of spectacular!

I've made a few posts in the past about JUNK's travels across the pacific from So.Cal to Hawaii. Now David de Rothschild is going to sail a boat made entirely of plastic bottles with a P.E.T. outer shell 12000 nautical miles from San Francisco all the way to Australia! The voyage is taking inspiration from Thor Heyerdal's 1947 expedition - Kontiki.

PLASTIKI is set to sail in April of this year!

Butts at the Beach

One of my biggest pet peeves is when people throw their cigarette butts out the window. Be it on the highway, in a neighborhood and especially on the beach.

Cigarette butts are the #1 item found in urban run off pollution throughout Southern California. If you smoke, hold on to your butts. If you don't smoke, even better!

As a member of 1% For the Planet we donate a portion of our total sales to our friends at The Surfrider Foundation. They just came out with a cool little PSA on you tube about cigarette butts.

Bill Byrne BBPR extrodinaire

Bill Byrne or BBPR the Numero Uno PR Agency to budding Furniture Guru's, Actions Sports Brands, Men of Style, and All Things Project Blue just had some amazing coverage on Good Morning America.

Project Blue is an Eco Awareness program supported by our friends @ Dakine, Billabong, O'Neill, Electric, Reef, and Nixon. As they say "it's not a charity, it's a plan of action!"

As you know we get stoked on anything that helps our oceans and Project Blue as well as the brands I mentioned above are all about bringing greater awareness to the peril of our oceans through the Surfrider Foundation which we support as part of our partnership in 1% For the Planet. Support these brands and they will support mother earth and her vast waters! Check out the coverage here!

http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=5758062

Happy Holidays from Maku! (don't forget to recycle)

it is estimated that between Thanksgiving and the New Year an extra million tons of waste are generated nationwide each week. In fact, 38,000 miles of ribbon alone is thrown out each year--enough to tie a bow around the Earth!

As we all prepare form xmas day here are a few tips to lower your impact on the earth

• Use old newspaper to wrap gifts. Not only is it a unique look, you can recycle it!
• Switch over to rechargeable batteries for all those new toys. Here is some great info on rechargeable batteries. (from the state of CA no less!)
• According to the National Christmas Tree Association's website, "There are approximately 30-35 million Real Christmas Trees sold in the U.S. every year." The website also notes that real trees are a renewable, recyclable resource. Try and replant or better yet recycle your tree for mulch that reduces the need to water all the time, it's a double winner!
• If you are lucky enough to get a cool new 46" Plasma flat screen from Santa this year but aren't sure what to do with your old TV, PDA, IPOD, or computer check out these guys Erecycle.org

Happy Holidays and wishes for a happy, healthy, prosperous and green 2008!

Trash Blob 2X's the size of Texas

So I talked about this trash blob in the December Newsletter to our awesome retail partners and to update everybody on what's new with Maku.

While eating breakfast this morning, I happened to flip past the "Fair and Balanced" news channel as they were doing a story on this issue which you can check out here. It's good to see the mainstream media starting to take notice to things like this!! And here is a report that the ever progressive (insert sarcasm here) CBS news did on this issue almost 4 years ago. You can also check out up to date info on this by clicking on Capitan Charles Moore's website The Algalita Foundation

Long story short, there is this blob of viscous trash floating in the North Pacific gyre where all the currents meet and the trash collects. It's twice the size of Texas and floating just beneath the surface. Made mostly of decaying plastics, it's pretty knarly. The thing is plastic does not Bio-degrade, it Photo Degrades meaning it just breaks down into smaller and smaller pieces yet never totally diminishes. Despite this area being a veritable oceanic desert the few Fish, sharks, birds, whales, and dolphins basically all parts of the food chain in this area of the North Pacific have been affected by this mess. Birds mistaking the small pieces of plastic as bait fish, bigger fish eating smaller fish, sharks eating bigger fish you get the picture and it's ugly! How long until this affects the dinner that end up on your table? Truth be told it probably already is...

The solution to keep this blob from growing is simple RECYCLE. The solution of how to clean up this blob is not so simple.

For more ideas on easy eco living check out our buddy Josh Dorfman's book "The Lazy Environmentalist" and his website Vivavi.com for some excellent sustainable products including Maku!

Do something good for yourself and the environment this holiday season!

Check it out, our good friends at 1% for the Planet are having an online auction featuring all kinds of cool stuff from a Maku Limited Edition Lounge Chair to Surfing with Eco Warrior and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and a bitchen bike from one of my favorite breweries New Belgium and the home of Fat Tire!

You can take a look and bid on all the items here

Make somebody's xmas that more special by taking a vested interest in our environment!!!

Global Warming, hot or not?

At the risk of taking a minor political departure from the melding of passionate lifestyle enthusiasm and contemporary furniture I submit 2 articles for your review.

The First article is from NASA saying they have overstated the rate at which the earth is warming. Click Here

The Second article I found while perusing the BBC news website talking about the alarming rate in which Arctic Sea Ice is shrinking. Click Here

It's no secret that I have long been a fan of taking care of our environment. From growing up in the mountains and joining the Sierra Club at the age of 14 on through moving to the beach and being a longtime supporter of The Surfrider Foundation (and more recently 1%FTP) I have seen firsthand the effects we as humans can have on our environment and the blatant disregard that many people take towards their surroundings.

Mind you I am not an overzealous "eco-nazi" or anything but it's not that hard to do little things like recycle or turn off a light in an empty room. If you get a chance, grab a copy of "The Lazy Environmentalist" written by the ever passionate all around nice guy Josh Dorfman.

To see "Green Products" continue to infiltrate mainstream life and media is great and only good things can come from added awareness.

My take, we are seeing a pattern of global warming that modern society has never experienced. Has this pattern taken place in the past before meteorological records were kept or are we going down a path that Mother Earth has never seen, we will never know...?

But one thing is for sure - Each and every day people across this planet take a new interest in our environment and what they can do to make a difference and thats a good thing!