The Sunday Paper

Quick Eco Fact - If every one of us in the USA recycled a Sunday Newspaper over 550,000 trees would be saved every week!

In fact - In 2000, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) said that pulp, paper, and paperboard mills account for 12 percent of total manufacturing energy use in the U.S.

I continue to say that print media is dead (perhaps dying is a better assessment) and can't remember the last time I picked up a newspaper other than being bored in the airport and perusing the bookstore. Otherwise I prefer to get my info online...

By the way, a quick plug for the Maku Ecoshop, we have lots of cool recycled items like Bucky and Fred that come shipped in recycled packaging!

Rainy Night in Carlsbad = Earthopoly on the Maku EcoShop

There are not many nights living in Carlsbad that could be considered blustery and on the chilly side. But as the first solid storm of the season rolls through, not only are we on Storm Watch 2009 (LOL!) but we decided to break out the newest addition to the Maku Furniture EcoShop - Earthopoly.

Earthopoly is a game celebrating Earth, one turn at a time! Players become the caretakers of wondrous locations around the planet, then increase their property value by collecting Carbon Credits and trading them in for Clean Air. AAHHHH!

It’s all fun and games until someone gets sent to the Dump! So choose your token, (all made by nature of course!), and advance to Go Green.

EARTHOPOLY ROCKS!

Measuring the growth of your Keiki

"Keiki" in Hawaiian means child and the Ecotots Surfboard growth Chart on the Maku EcoShop is a super cool accessory for any growing Keiki.

Measure your Keiki's growth by recording his or her height within the two stripes (which are intentionally left unfinished) for easy marking.

Like all ecotots products, the growth chart is made from 100% formaldehyde-free, FSC Certified real wood and has a non-toxic, water-based finish.

This eco-friendly longboard hangs on the wall and also doubles as a coat hook when rotated 180 degrees. It’s certain to become a cool keepsake when your ecotot becomes an ecoteen.

Available and in stock at the Maku EcoShop in 4 different colors and is a great way to bring a little beach lifestyle to any room during a long winter!

Meet "Fred" from the Maku Ecoshop

Check it out, one of the coolest new products we have on the EcoShop is "Fred" by Cardboard Safari. Fred comes in 3 great colors including "Camo Fred" so he can hide on your walls...

Cardboard Safari’s Moose Trophy “Fred” is laser-cut for precision fit and easy assembly using slotted construction. Fred is available in native brown, bright white or camouflage and can be decorated with paint, glitter or other craft material.

Fred is a fun accent for home, office or kid’s room and makes a great gift for dad.

Each trophy is made in the USA from non-toxic, environmentally friendly recycled cardboard. Fred measures 24" wide by 20" high by 19" deep.

Check out Fred and all of his Friends on the Maku Furniture EcoShop and get something cool for the holidays!

The Maku EcoShop is now OPEN!!

Check it out, The Maku EcoShop is now open. Featuring the finest in sustainable and eco friendly products for your household, pets, and lifestyle!

EcoShop represents the next level of our commitment to living a sustainable lifestyle. The products represented within EcoShop not only follow the same mantra and philosophies of Maku Furniture but more importantly are products we believe in and use.

Keep checking the site as we are adding new products daily. And if you have any product suggestions let us know by emailing to - info@makufurniture.com

http://ecoshop.makufurniture.com/

Summer time summer time sum sum summer time...

sorry for the lack of quality updates, summer time is go time for Maku furniture and there just doesn't seem to be enough time in the days lately. An NO we are not surfing the summer away, if there were waves we probably would be but it looks like the worst winter for waves on record could turn into the worst summer. The water is a chilly 58 degrees and blown out... BRRRR!

So I'm on my way to NYC for some east coast luv and meetings on various projects. And as I sit in the red carpet club at SFO waiting for my red eye to take off I found some interesting facts regarding purchasing habits and eco friendly product that I thought I would share with you.

- 28% of Sports participants say they would be more likely to buy a product if it "Stated" it was sustainble... (sounds like a greenwashing opportunity)

- 27% women vs 21% men say they would buy a garment that is made of sustainable fabrics. Come on guys get with it! One of my favorite pairs of shoes is the Grun by Adidas that is 100% recycled materials.

47% of the population said they would buy a green product if they also liked the style and function of that product.

Off to NYC I go, more to come from the road and don't forget to check out Maku Furniture on Twitter.

Sherman Poppen, The Snurfer, and the History of Snowboarding

let me introduce you to the Grandfather (or maybe Godfather) of Snowboarding Mr. Sherman Poppen.

In 1965 Sherman invented the Snurfer for his daughters to go out in the backwoods of their Muskegon Michigan home. As we all know from there on out the rest is snow sliding history with the likes of Tom Sims, Jake Burton Carpenter, Dimitjrtie Milovich, Chuck Barfoot, Mike Olson, the list goes on as the founding fathers of snowboarding.

I had the distinct pleasure to meet Sherman in the early / mid 90's in Banff Canada during a Transworld Snowboarding Industry "Conference". (Which was basically a big excuse for key snowboard industry "execs' to get together and get our shred-on.)

Since then I have ridden with Sherman a few times in Whistler BC and his home mountain of Steamboat. Believe it or not, Sherman did not start "Officially" snowboarding until his late 60's and I can't think of a person that exuded more stoke and excitement to slide sideways than Sherman.

To this day after 25 years of snowboarding, countless EPIC powder days at some of the best resorts and backcountry around the world, the times I was able to ride with Sherman are at the tops of the list. (Right along with teaching my son and daughter to snowboard and watching them link up their first turns. Then a first decent of an amazing chute in AK that myself, Billy Anderson and Wooly from Volcom all enjoyed and aptly named Lil' Bitch afterward)

So sit back and check out this killer little video and here is a link to Sherman's Snurfer induction to the Smithsonian Museum in DC.

Greensburg Kansas - the Greening of Middle America

2 years ago today the little town of Greensburg Kansas was devastated and totally destroyed by tornadoes. Virtually every building in the town was leveled. Those that weren't leveled sustained some serious damage...





The next thing that happened is nothing short of SPECTACULAR! The towns goverment decided this was the perfect opportunity to build the countries first green town. A showcase for eco friendly and sustainable building. Very cool indeed! From a wind farm to Silo Eco building, and even a TV show on Planet Green, Greensburg and it's fine citizens are truly eco heroes!

Kudos and congratulations to each and every member of Greensburg Kansas, I'm for sure stopping by and throwing out high fives the next time I happen to be in Kansas. And if anybody in Greensburg Kansas wants some Maku pcs for their outdoor space just let us know and we'll hook you up!

Vivavi sale this weekend!

We have been getting a lot of web traffic from the NYC area, not to mention some good orders (Thanks to all in NYC who have ordered some Maku Furniture for your Penthouse, Terrace, or outdoor space so far this year!)

This weekend is a great opportunity in NYC to get some really cool furniture at a great price.

The Lazy E himself will be having a clearance sale at the downtown Vivavi showroom located in the Riverhouse.

Stop by throw some high 5's and check out the latest and greatest in Eco friendly living. Vivavi has it all!

Dates: Friday, Saturday & Sunday (April 24, 25 & 26)
Hours: 10am to 6pm

Location: Vivavi at The Riverhouse (in Battery Park City)
Suite 11N
2 River Terrace
New York, NY

(Cick Here for Directions)

Sustainable Furniture Council - SFC

Maku Furniture is now a proud member of the Sustainable Furniture Council (SFC for short)

In SFC's own words - "The Sustainable Furnishings Council is a non-profit balanced coalition of industry players created to promote sustainable practices among manufacturers, retailers, and consumers alike with a public tagging program to identify good choices. We are over two hundred and fifty members strong and growing fast. The solution starts with you."

I have been closely watching SFC develop over the past 18 months before joining because I wanted to see if there were any "teeth" in the projects and movement of the group. Certainly any group of manufacturers that are as passionate about Sustainable Practices as we are is a good thing. And to take it a step further the SFC really helps bring truths and realities to those brands which are doing a good job in creating sustainable products vs. those that are "Greenwashing".

Jeff Hiller and the B.O.D. are doing a great job and I think the future is very bright for the SFC and it's members! Maku Furniture is stoked to be a part of this great group!

Welcome Bambeco.com

A quick high five to the crew at Bambeco.com! Check out the site and products, they are just starting to ramp up for the spring / summer months and will be adding new products weekly.

Of course they have a bunch of Maku Furniture ready to go!! Check out the Maku Coffee Table, Maku Side Table, and Maku Chaise Lounge that are featured front and center!

Plastic in the Pacific

As you have read before on my Blog, I have talked numerous times about the North Pacific Gyre and the HUGE blob of trash floating in the pacific ocean.

I found this article is in Today's Wall Street Journal, page A14. It is nice to see more broad based media outlets covering this potential disaster in the Pacific Ocean.
---------

WSJ
MARCH 25, 2009.

How Big Is That Widening Gyre of Floating Plastic?

In the Pacific, Ocean Flows Sweep Litter Into a Flotilla That Could Be the Size of Quebec or Maybe the U.S. -- No One Knows

By CARL BIALIK

A soup of plastic debris floats off the coast of California, a testament to humanity's reliance on plastic and the failure to dispose of it properly.

Just how big is this oceanic zone? Some say it is about the size of Quebec, or 600,000 square miles -- also described as twice the size of Texas. Others say this expanse of junk swept together by currents is the size of the U.S. -- 3.8 million square miles. Or, it could be twice that size.

The debris floating in a large area of the Pacific Ocean usually isn't visible on the surface.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as it has been called, has become a symbol of what some say is a looming crisis over trash. But this floating mass of plastic in the Pacific Ocean is hard to measure, and few agree on how big it is or how much plastic it holds. That makes it difficult to determine what to do about it.

That hasn't stopped activists and the media from using only the biggest estimates of the patch's size to warn of an environmental catastrophe.

"We've found it really captures the public's imagination and its focus," says Eben Schwartz, marine-debris program manager for the California Coastal Commission, a state agency. However, "as hard as [environmental advocates] try to characterize it accurately, it is prone to mischaracterization."

The plastic-rich portion of the ocean is a product of swirling currents, known as the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, that gather and concentrate debris. It captured public attention thanks to the efforts of Charles Moore, a woodworker-turned-sea captain who sailed through the zone in 1997 and was stunned to find plastic debris hundreds of miles from land. "That set off alarm bells and made me want to monitor it, made me want to quantify it, made me want to get a better handle on it," says Capt. Moore, a licensed merchant-marine officer. He dedicated the Algalita Marine Research Foundation that he had founded to studying this region of the ocean and publicizing its plastic problem.

The Numbers Guy BlogTaking the Measure of Plastic Soup.
Researchers at the foundation have attempted to quantify the gyre by sailing deep into the Pacific and trawling for plastic and zooplankton using a contraption that resembles a manta ray. Sifting through the entire gyre for plastic would be impossible, so researchers survey a small sample.

But it is difficult to know how to extrapolate their findings to the entire region, or even what that region is. The borders of the gyre shift between seasons, and some scientists, such as Holly Bamford, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's marine-debris program, argue that the high-plastic area is confined to a relatively small part of the gyre.

"I admire Charles," says David Karl, an oceanographer at the University of Hawaii. But Capt. Moore's estimate of the size of the plastic patch -- up to twice the size of the U.S. -- strikes Prof. Karl as guesswork. "He doesn't know the edge" of the area.

Capt. Moore has relied on models of ocean currents from a retired NOAA scientist to help estimate the scope of the concentrated-plastic zone, with debris lurking, often in tiny, barely perceptible pieces, at or just below the surface. "I just did a very crude estimate, by getting a globe and placing my hand over the area defined by this current, and placing my hand over the continent of Africa" to see how the two compared, he says. "The condensed-soup part may be considerably less than the whole," he concedes, but he is frustrated by critics who play down the scope of the problem without doing any fieldwork.

Even as the debate over the plastic patch's size continues, some of the foundation's estimates have been reported as scientific certainty. For instance, a decade ago, researchers found that the ratio of plastic to zooplankton by mass was six to one. A more-recent visit turned up an increase in this ratio, to 46 to one, according to the foundation's Web site. But that is an average of the ratio at each testing site, which included some very high ratios, probably anomalies. A more comparable figure is eight to one, representing a more modest increase when results are aggregated across all testing sites.

In addition, comparing plastic and plankton weight might not be an ideal way to measure the problem, according to Angelicque White, a biological oceanographer at the University of Oregon who accompanied Prof. Karl on a recent voyage to the gyre. Dr. White points out that many plankton are too small for the nets, and might not have been included in the count. What's more, while the heaviest bits of plastic inflate the measure of the debris patch, those pieces pose less of an environmental threat, because they are too large for marine creatures to mistake for food.

Capt. Moore said that his scientific papers have made these distinctions clear. But news articles generally haven't. Dr. Bamford says inconsistent units of measurement of the plastic problem have impeded research. "We're trying to develop a standardized method," she says of NOAA, "so we can really get a handle on how this compares to various locations around the world." It's possible that consistent measurement will reveal that other parts of the ocean without a catchy name are just as plastic-rich, or more so.

Some misinformation comes from other environmental groups exaggerating the alarming research. Environmental advocate David Suzuki has written of a "massive, expanding island of plastic debris 30 meters [98 feet] deep and bigger than the province of Quebec." Asked whether the high-plastic region could really be called an island, Bill Wareham, senior marine conservation specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation, says, "It's not going to look like island in the context of, 'Gee, I can walk across that.' But it is a very high density of plastic." He adds, "David speaks in a way where he's framing the issue in a way people can understand it."

Other advocates object to such terminology. "The problem with superlative statements that this is somehow a huge floating mass of plastic is that they inevitably lead to desensitizing people when they learn the truth of it," says David Santillo, a senior scientist with Greenpeace.

Even if scientists and advocates could agree on numbers for the size and plastic concentration of the gyre, it is unclear what they would do with the information. Plastics can harm ocean birds and mammals who eat it, because they carry toxins, can pierce internal organs and can trick animals into thinking they are full. But hard numbers are tough to come by. "It's so hard to say a bird died due to plastic in its stomach," says Dr. Bamford. "We have seen birds mature and live out their whole life, and necropsies show plastic in their stomach."

Though no one thinks any possible benefits of plastic outweigh risks, Prof. Karl did find some positive aspects of the patch -- a high concentration of microorganisms clinging to the debris. "The microorganisms are good for the ocean, because it turns out they're making oxygen," Prof. Karl says. "If plastics were otherwise neutral to the environment, then they'd be helping by harvesting more solar energy." Dr. Bamford says it is possible that a cleanup, even if it were feasible, would do more harm than good, by removing these organisms.

Capt. Moore says quantifying the plastic could provide a starting point for measuring the effectiveness of land-based efforts to choke the flow of plastic to ocean waters. "I would love to have a government agency form a concerted program to quantify the debris," he says. "It's a tragedy of the commons: Nobody owns the problem."

Write to Carl Bialik at numbersguy@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A14

Even more Custom love... - Vernare

Check out this rad little custom dining table that just arrived for our top retail partner in LA - Vernare. As with all Maku Furniture pieces this table and chairs is made from 100% reclaimed / repurposed wood. Meaning no live trees are cut down to make our furniture. The wood we use comes from buildings that are being renovated or torn down. Leaving more trees to clean the air and less junk in landfills. sounds like a win win!




We shot these photos in the garden right outside their showroom in the heart of west hollywood just off Melrose. It's such a cool little tranquil getaway that you would never know you are smack in the middle of one of the largest cities in the world...

What? Reclaimed Wood Candle Holders by Maku...!

The ultimate accessory to your organic living space: Dinner by candlelight, aromatherapy, indoor or out, relaxing transcendence of visual fluxuations...

The Mod Pillar Candle Block and the Obelisk Candle Block are the newest additions to the Maku Collection. Just like every piece in our collection, the candle blocks are hand made of 100% re-purposed / reclaimed teak from Indonesian architecture of yesteryear...

The Mod Pillar Candle Block Set is available as pictured below or with the Maku Frangipani Carving that was found on the Maku Limited Edition Lounge chair from last season.



But wait there's more! the Maku Obelisk Candle Block pictured below is available in 3 different lengths (8", 16", 31") with or without carvings.





Check out the Maku Website to order yours today and be the first on your block to have this very cool eco-friendly accessory! By the way FREE SHIPPING on all Domestic orders!

Custom Projects

Just in case anybody reading our blog is interested in custom sustainable projects / furniture, Maku Furniture can do any furniture for any environment. We recently completed a project at the Intercontinental hotel in Chicago and the Four Season Atlanta has some Maku Benches on order!

You've seen the pictures of the EVO loft in downtown LA and that was a spur of the moment project. So if you are looking for custom 1 off piece or have a larger custom project Maku is your go to brand! We'll get you a great price on or under budget and can react to short timelines!

You can contact us by clicking here

By the way, we have a few new pcs that we will be adding to the collection just in time for the holidays. Why not make it a green xmas!

Welcome Urban Patio!

If you live in Nashville TN , have a design project, or just happen to be cruising through town stop by and check out Maku's newest retail and design partner - Urban Patio. A fresh shipment of Maku Lounge Chairs, side tables and other cool Maku pieces are en route!

Evo Lofts L.A.

Check out these Custom Maku table tops we made for a designer that is showcasing a bunch of product at the EVO lofts in Downtown L.A. If anybody is intersted in custom projects Maku is your go to. We can do anything custom no matter the quantity.

Big thanks to Menzie and Dan for working with Maku Furniture on this project!

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

Date my Ex: Jo & Slade

Looks like Jo and Slade from the Real Housewives of Orange County are back at it again with the ever riveting and always intriguing "Date My Ex" on Bravo TV.

At least they had the good sense to feature the Maku Dining Collection on the show!

Who would have ever guessed that Slade was so environmentally conscious all the while driving that big ole Hummer... :) Good on you Slade for taking the initiative to outfit your styling pad with some stylie and eco friendly furniture!

Here's a vid snipet from the show titled "The Threatening Breakfast!" Wow the tension in the air is so thick you could cut it with a knife. LOL! Anyway, check out this vid with about 30 seconds left and you'll see a great shot of the Maku dining Collection! Thanks Slade you big eco friendly Stud! Oh and tell Jo to call us, she's hot!

http://video.bravotv.com/player/?id=277325

Arbus Magazine

The Maku LE Lounge Chair is Featured in the newest issue of Arbus Magazine. Many thanks to Shaan @ Nest Living for getting some Maku love in this killer zine!