Passengers push their bus up a slippery steep slope near Nalae in Luang Prabang Province Laos. The Namtha (River Tha) can be seen far below. Having made it through the greasy mud into the District Center, Nalae, Sack finds these young Khmu boys eager and proud to show a Nature Bag made by their family. That's Sack in Nalae talking with a local woman about bag crafting villages in nearby mountains. She knew where they were and how to contact them to help meet future global demand for Earth’s Greenest Bag™. Bokeo Province villager uses 2 Nature Bags. The heavy load of corn looks like a pain in the neck, but she's...
The early morning Northern Laos sky was a brilliant blue as an European, an American and 10 Lao gathered on a point of land at the base of the massive Kuang Si waterfall for a workshop on using nearby forest products to add color to Earth’s Greenest Bag™. After exchanging greetings and sharing fresh organic coffee grown 500 km south in the landlocked Southeast Asian nation, the group moved into the surrounding jungle to find the bark of a special tree that would be the source of the color for the first natural dye. The temperature was comfortable thanks to a thunderstorm an hour earlier. The smell was sweet from a multitude of Lao jungle flowers. As the roar of...
Be careful that your cloth bags actually are eco-friendly. Cotton bags (unless they are organic) have a much larger carbon footprint than "disposable" plastic because of the intensive agriculture and manufacturing they require. Even hemp bags, because they are made from cultivated hemp and usually in factories, have significant carbon footprints. The Nature Bag Khmu/Lao Poverty Reduction Project, sharing Earth's Greenest Bag globally, is truly eco-friendly because of its hand-harvested naturally-growing fiber, in-home crafting, long life cycle & minimal weight allowing delivery anywhere with almost no consumption of fossil-sourced energy. It's socially sustainable, too, being a tool for thousands of years for the ancient culture that makes it today to provide income without wasteful commuting & allowing traditional child nurturing. ...
