The Need to Know List: Van Leeuwen’s Got a New Ice Cream Shop

Someday I’ll have an intern. For now, I just like to gather up all the good, sustainable-ish news and throw it in front of you to pick through and read at your own pleasure. xo

Fashion

• Sustainable fashion blogger friend Emma Grady of Past Fashion Future gave out tips on an online radio show recently. Go Emma!
• I wrote up this post for The Distillerist on the best sustainable designers in NYC. Even as I wrote it up, and I was like, “Damn, this actually is impressive. Want, want, want.”

Food

• Van Leeuwen, that delicious truck serving organic ice cream, opened up a shop in Williamsburg.

Beauty

• If you’ve been duped by these five brands that claim to be eco-friendly, you are certainly not alone. Read and educate thyself!
• Finally got around to reading my Elle, and stumbled upon its Green Beauty Product Awards. Some lovely finds in there! And also, Aveda. (Mentioned in above greenwashing article.) Oh well, Elle, you are getting closer!
• You should also read The Distillerist’s interview with the founder of the Cali-based, non-toxic skincare line Beija Flor Naturals.
• So pretty, Miss Juliette! I love her little editorial roundup of spring finds on spades + siLK.

Fun

• The Oatmeal comic guy is obsessed with his Tesla.

NYC

• Good news: if you live in certain neighborhoods, you can call up the city and request a big composting bin for your building, which comes with lots of little baby bins for all the tenants! Plus, you can throw bones and dairy and other stuff like that in there and they’ll take it. (Usually you can’t because of that pesky dead animal smell that crops up in gardens.)
• New York City is looking to Sweden for tips on road safety. But as some commenters point out, Swedes are just nicer people in general.
• These itty bitty curbside gardens could keep poop out of the Gowanus.

News

• The Masters of the Universe over at Goldman Sachs have figured out that millennials aren’t into processed foods and soda anymore. Cue selloff of Coca-Cola.
• I like John Oliver’s new show already! He did a great segment on why climate change “debates” on cable news are so stupid. Watch! 
• Speaking of climate change, I spent a half hour researching whether my new apartment will be underwater soon (it’s surprisingly hard to find good sea elevation data on Brooklyn!) because of this report by scientists on the rapidly melting Antarctic ice sheet. I’m pretty sure that my apartment will be OK until I die, which is sort of comforting, I guess.

Thoughts

• Somebody called me a fascist in my article about how incredibly annoying smoking is. Well, I don’t feel chastened, because cigarette butts are a huge litter problem. Here are some ideas for dealing with them.