Earth Beat, 6 May 2011. Can you be on trend and stay green? Does eco-chic still mean home-made hemp clothing? And just what is going into cosmetics? How to look a million dollars without costing the earth.

Listen here

Download MP3 here (right-click link and "save as")

Strawberry Earth Wonderland
Marnie visits eco-fashion fair Strawberry Earth Wonderland to see if wearing green clothing still means ill-fitting hemp and lots of natural tones. Does fashion have anything to do with sustainability?

Green threads or greenwash?
Berlin-based fashionista Susan Stone helps Marnie sort the green from the greenwash and looks at the challenges that an eco-designer faces.

Zero waste fashion
A small group of designers have been working on ways to lighten the environmental impact of clothing and zero waste is the way they’re going – a design practice that leaves not even a scrap behind in the cutting room. This month, the School of Fashion at Parsons The New School for Design in New York is offering one of the first courses in zero waste design and Finnish designer Timo Rissanen joins Marnie to tell her about it.

A tale of indigo
This week’s envirominute looks to the original, natural dye that should be the jeans' best friend.

Dye job
For ten years Phil Patterson managed the dyeing of textiles at the UK clothing chain Marks and Spencer. Three years ago he left to set up Colour Connections consultancy, advising manufacturers and retailers on becoming more energy-efficient, less wasteful and less toxic. According to him, dyeing is one of the least environmentally-friendly steps in making clothes.

No More Dirty Looks
Is the stuff we slap on our skin and hair safe? The rather long list of mysterious words on the back of bottles often leave us bamboozled. Marnie speaks with Alexandra Spunt, the co-author of No More Dirty Looks about an experience that made her look at her cosmetics cabinet much more closely.

Skin Deep cosmetics database
The Environmental Working Group has put together a cosmetics database called Skin Deep, where you can search for a product, company or ingredients and get more terrifying information than you ever wanted. Leeann Brown joins Marnie to explain how it works, and what to look out for.

(More) No More Dirty Looks
Alexandra Spunt rejoins Marnie to discuss how she looks at cosmetics now, and how her cosmetics cabinet has changed.

Click on image for slideshow