13th Avenue Map
One of my favorite NYC blogs, Ephemeral New York, has a great post up today about Manhattan’s ill-fated 13th Avenue. Like so many things in this city, the history of 13th Avenue has a lot to do with trash: it was built on a landfill and, while it existed, was frequented by trash pickers.
Check out this Treehugger slideshow. My favorite are these Peruvian shoes, which I saw for the first time on Art for Housewives.
Plastic bag shoes by Camila Labra
Little Shiva, http://www.visibletrash.net
Little Shiva‘s trashtastic ensemble for Copenhagen next week.
Figures from the Swedish governmental institution tasked with keeping track of all possible statistics, Statistics Sweden, show that refuse collecting/recycling is the most common profession among people who divorce. In 2007 (the latest year for which we have complete statistics), over 7% of Swedish married refuse collectors/recyclers divorced.
Not much analysis has been presented with this news, but it is noted that among the top ten, nine professions are blue-collar jobs, with pilots and captains as the only white-collar profession (claiming the runner-up spot).
What we all crave to know of course is what it is about trash work that puts such hard strain on marriages. If anyone knows, do share!
Tis the season of excess in America. Depressed about mass consumption in the name of yule?
Never fear: for your enjoyment, an early roundup of seasonal upcycling and DIY initiatives and ideas:
Picks for Sundance Twentyten have been announced and among the many independent films set to be shown, this entry in the World Cinema Documentary category caught our eye:
Waste Land » (United Kingdom) Director Lucy Walker (“Blind Sight”) chronicles what happens when art star Vik Muniz collaborates with trash pickers in Rio de Janeiro’s landfill, the world’s largest.
Couldn’t find much on the project online, but hopes are high considering Vik Muniz‘ past work with trash.
And Lucy Walker’s amazing work on past documentaries, which you should look up immediately if you haven’t already seen them.
DSNY
NYC is rolling out hybrid garbage trucks. -via The L
While in Ethiopia last week, I stopped into a silver store to check out trinkets, including antique Coptic crosses. The Ethiopian cross, if you haven’t seen one before, has a distinctive elongated shape and cross hatch pattern, so abstracted from the traditional European kind of cross that you can’t always tell immediately that that’s what they are.
Austrian coins, Ethiopian cross, coin cross
In Addis, I learned that these shapes vary by region and era and that collecting examples from around the country and throughout its history are a popular hobby among people interested in the country—expat bingo if you will (just kidding, I am sure collecting crosses reflects a deep interest in Ethiopian history and culture). Anyway, it wasn’t the traditional cross that caught my eye, but some examples of crosses cut out of old Austrian coins from the Colonial era. It seems Ethiopians more interested in the Colonialist’s religion than his currency “upcycled” old Austrian silver coins into silver crosses. As you can see, the coin cross is shaped more like the Western shape we are used to. That’s because this upcycling was done by Protestants rather than members of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Of course, I couldn’t resist picking one up as a souvenir, which as a non-believer and non-Christian may not be put to much use, I just had to have a 200-year old sample of upcycling!
everydaytrash 