Chris Brown has been sentenced to pick up trash in punishment for beating up Rihanna. My guess, this will be decidedly less funny than when Michelle Rodriguez or, my favorite, Naomi Campbell got assigned the same chore.
Archive for September, 2009
Trash detail
Thursday, September 3, 2009Greening your game
Thursday, September 3, 2009Peter Lehner of the NRDC wrote about recycling at the US Open on the Huffington Post yesterday. His article and these promo videos highlight some nice steps the event is taking, namely using recycled and recyclable disposable products in the food court and recycling the thousands of tennis balls and tennis ball cans it takes to put on the tournament. Makes me wonder: why do tennis balls come in plastic cans?
Slow wear advisors
Thursday, September 3, 2009Rewardrobe is a London-based consulting firm that advises clients on “slow wear” and the sustainability of their wardrobes. The idea, I think, is that they advise people how to pick items that last and revamp what they have so it reads fresh and fashionable in a modern environment. I wonder if the amount of shopping offset by this firm offsets the amount of energy generated to earn the cash to pay their fees. What do you think?
Save Canvas
Wednesday, September 2, 2009As part of a piece installed in a series of vacant buildings in Minneapolis, artists Aaron Bickner and Andrew Shannon created a walk-through pop-up book of fantastical urban scenes. They called it “Save Canvas.” The idea: make use of a bunch of prime real estate scheduled for demolition and rebirth as a fancy condo, but which has been sitting empty for several years as redevelopment projects are put on hold in this bad economy. Temporary upcycling, if you will.
Save Canvas
Here’s a video and a comprehensive post from the blog eyeteeth, which is also where I ripped the photo.
According to the site, “Save Canvas” ran for the month of August, so I sadly will not get to see it when I visit the Twin Cities in a couple weeks. As an aside: I found out about this supercool initiative via an alert from the Walker Art Center Teen Arts Council, of which Bickner and I are both alum. The idea behind the council is to involve young people in planning and programs at the Walker to ensure that the center is an inviting place for the next generation to appreciate modern art. As a founding member, it’s nice to see that the WACTAC is still going strong and that its alum are involved in such innovative projects as this one. You can fan WACTAC on Facebook here.
Weekly Compactor: Blogroll Edition
Wednesday, September 2, 2009Recent finds from around the garblogosphere:
- A woman in New Dehli uses art to combat trash in a local park;
- Some guy hands out video cameras in the Nairobi slum of Kibera to help locals capture first-hand their trash-strewn environs and daily existance; and
- Boing Boing profiles a trash to treasure guru from MAKE.
PET pouffes
Wednesday, September 2, 2009Keith R. over at The Temas Blog has been periodically updating a series of trash photos of amazing things made from garbage in Latin America. The latest installment features sofas and pouffes made from PET bottles in Brazil as part of a project called Reciclagem e Cultura or “Recycling and Culture.” Apparently what began as an upcycling (thanks for the shout out, Keith) endeavor blossomed into an income-generating business program.
PET pouffes
I highly recommend clicking through to read the whole story peppered with photos and video clips, here’s a teaser:
In part to get the waste collection going and get the raw materials they need, and in part to gain community acceptance for their Cooperativa Usina de Reciclagem, [local foundation] Onda Azul offered favela residents an exchange: bring in 75 to 250 empty two-liter PET bottles, and get a chair or pouffe (what some may call a tuffet, hassock or ottoman) made using PET bottles
….
The program proved so popular that they had to restrict the exchange to one pouffe per household. Even so, nearly every house in that favela now has one of the so-called pufes ecológicos (“ecological pouffes”).
I’m headed to Rio tomorrow night for vacation. I wonder if I’ll meet anyone with an ecological pouffe!
The most carcinogenic place on the planet
Tuesday, September 1, 2009Via Unconsumption, found this well produced news piece from CBS 60 Minutes on global tra$h. Among other interesting details, I recommend it for the tracing of high-lead monitors from supposedly super ethical US recycling company Executive Recycling, via the Hong Kong harbour, the Hong Kong mayor and into gangster tra$h land, where the local industry has transformed the community to the most carcinogenic in the world.
As the piece concludes however, Executive Recycling are not the only ones in this dirty business. Apparently, the feds are on the case. Tra$h Cops, gotta love them!
Oh snap!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009Elizabeth Kolbert digs into No Impact Man as only she can.
via unconsumption
The Daily Ocean
Tuesday, September 1, 2009Most mornings, Sarah Bayles spends 20 minutes collecting trash around the same spot at her local beach in Santa Monica, weighs and photographs what she finds and blogs about it on her site The Daily Ocean. For more on why she does this, check out LA Green Girl’s interview with Bayles here.
Lighter via The Daily Ocean
Bayles plans to keep up the trash pick up for 365 (non-consecutive) days because you know how we love to conceptualize our environmental impact in terms of years. What I like about this project is a, there’s a new garblog in town and b, it’s a personal but not personality-driven project. The blog tracks the impact of everyone who uses that patch of beach as well as the reverse impact of the one person cleaning it up.
The photos on The Daily Ocean are a bit like a West Coast Version of Last Night’s Garbage and remind me of Any Hughes’ amazing beach debris photography.
everydaytrash 