Here is a set of toy trees from a green-themed toy company called Gween:
Gween represents growth. The growth found both in a child and nature. Gween toys bring the two together. We believe that the future of the planet is in children's hands and that is why it is important to catch them young.Is there any eco-related bar lower than "pigments found in nature" and packaging that "has a coloring activity inside and is 100% recyclable"? Or any green-themed toy more green than a tree? Yes, a windmill. "Gusto: the windmill that fuels the imagination." Wait, "catch them young"?
Gween is based in Bangalore. It's part of a what-do-you-need-outsourced-sure-we-got-that web of companies with edgily misspelled names: there's also a design firm called ReZonant and a stop action animation shop called Thinkxworks. Unless it's a stock photo, here are their "eclectic mix of designers, artisans and managers."
It's like America's circa-2005 tech-hipster, indie eco-etsy culture passed through the Uncanny Valley and re-emerged in India, where it's being used to market the boring, local lathe-turned lacquer toy industry, which is being revitalized and retooled by NGOs after yeras of exploitative peasant and child labor practices that contributed to the depletion the local hardwood supply. Actually, it's not like that; it is that.
The Future is now, and it is a slightly off-kilter simulacrum of The Present.
Gween [gween.net via publicist/spam]
Gween Gwomies tree stacking toys are $25 on Amazon, or about 2 weeks' wages for the typical Channapatna lathe-turner [amazon]
