Scientific American reports that despite an increased interest in recycling plastic, most Americans have to hunt around for places that will take back hard plastic items like ski boots.
Ski boots - photo via bumps.com.au
Click through for a list of resources on where to recycle at the end of the post—handy for anyone getting rid of equipment as the ski season draws to a close.
Don’t know what to do with your career come August? Why not sign up to a 1-year program in upcycling design? Can’t believe I haven’t seen this before:
In the fall of 2008, Eskilstuna College started a course on sustainable development and recycling technologies. The course runs over two semesters and is intended for students who wants to work both theoretically and practically with the creation of new products from recycled materials.
You will have to work with practically everything from furniture restoration to the jewelry manufacture and use your imagination and creativity and you will certainly gain new insights into what sustainability really means.
This is really as cool as one thinks. [Apply here.] The work of this years trashtastic students can be followed at their blog, and their flickr. Personally, I’ve got my eyes on this vinyl record fruit bowl:
Vinyl record fruit bowl
The student will stage an end-of-the-year exhibition, open 27 May-20 August, at the college in Eskilstuna, so if you pass through Sweden, be sure to make a detour. In Stockholm, creations can be purchased at swop:art.
A team in Somaliland built this helipcopter out of scrap metal and an old van engine. AfriGadget has the scoop (and points out that there is no footage of the thing in flight). This new one isn’t as cool as the Nigerian one AfriGadget posted on a few years back, but is still pretty rad.
Rob Walker has constructed a “monster post” on “The idea of the cassette” over at MURKETING. Go. Click through. Get lost. It’s rich and entertaining and full of creative upcycling and recycling project ideas.
Related: This summer Walker and co posted a series on music on unconsumption that also featured neat cassette-themed links. That series coincided with the immediate aftermath of the contested presidential elections in Iran and inspired this everydaytrash post on technology, human rights and creative resuse.
Semirelated: Awesome Tapes from Africa is a site worth following (the name says it all). I discovered it via my friend Erica. Thanks, Erica!
Not that related but also awesome: There is a kid on YouTube who calls himself CassetteMaster. He is obsessed with collecting vintage tape recorders and making videos about them. He has a bit of a cult following. I am trying hard not to get sucked in, but these videos kind of lull you into addiction. Especially ones involving other people interacting with the awkward CassetteMaster. Like all things to do with audio and the absurd, this link came to me via Flex Unger.
Check out the winners of Instructables’ Dead Computers Contest.
Crane game
I wish I had a dead computer so I could make my very own crane game. I’d charge 25 cents a go and use the money to fund trashtastic reporting field trips. via MAKE
Another gem from the creator of The Story of Stuff. via EcoLibris.
The Etsy Trashion blog has a handy pair of posts up about eco-friendly business cards up. The first covers how to make them yourself, the second how to get them printed.
DIY businesss cards
Several years into garblogging, I still don’t use a card. It’s a waste issue that’s had me conflicted for a while. Maybe this year I’ll get it together and make a snappy set of DIYs.
Plos One
The average American tosses 1400 calories worth of food every day. That’s enough to sustain one skinny American or a whole developing country family (my calculations). Freshkills Park Blog has more scary food waste stats here. They come from this report, originally posted on Treehugger.
“It’s the dawn of a new decade! The economy is in trouble & we still have too much garbage! Your art could be part of the solution!!! If you make art from things that would have been thrown away – broken stuff, old stuff, burned stuff, torn stuff transformed into art- 2D & 3D in any media rescued from trash, your art is eligible. It’s happening again! The exhibit “Art of Detritus: Recycling with Imagination” features fine art from cast-off materials created by professional artists from throughout the country. The heart of this exhibit is the message of the three R’s: Reduce/Reuse/Recycle. The 2010 Art From Detritus Exhibition is a juried international art competition for dynamic, inventive and provocative work created from a multitude of materials that would have been discarded if not rescued for artmaking. The exhibit will occur in spring 2010 at PureLight Gallery located in a recycled building in Turner’s Falls Massachusetts.This show will be curated by Vernita Nemec, artist/curator, former director of Artists Talk On Art & Viridian Artists in New York City and currently on the Board of Directors of Soho20 in Chelsea NYC. She conceived the first Detritus Exhibition in 1993 & over the years has received funding from The Puffin Foundation, the Kaufmann Foundation and the National Recycling Coalition. Since then, there have been more than a dozen Detritus exhibitions through out the U.S. You can see images of and information on past Detritus shows here. Submit your best work now! Email 3-6 jpegs of work no larger than 500 dpi in either direction. Include in your email an Artwork List with size, materials used, title & date, plus an artist bio & statement. Submit by April 1, 2010 to: ncognita at earthfire dot org. There is no submission fee, but accepted artists will make a small contribution towards the exhibition expenses.”
Amazing sculptures made from plastic utensils via renest by way of unconsumption.
Kitchen Utensil sculptures by Sayaka Kajita Ganz
…is now viewable online. Go crazy.
Portia Munson makes plastic pretty by piling it up and placing it in musuems. Check out her stuff at Beautiful/Decay. Hers and other trashtastic work will go on display at the Chelsea gallery P.P.O.W. from March 20th in a show called Debris. More to come when the show opens.
Portia Munson
Thanks for the tip, Douglas!
Saw Five Easy Pieces at Film Forum last night.
Favorite part pasted below (and ripped from here).
It’s the brilliant lead-in to the famous Diner scene.
EXT. BOBBY'S CAR - NORTHERN HIGHWAY - DAY (COUNTRY & WESTERN INSTRUMENTAL OVER:) ON THE CAR moving through the Redwood country above San Francisco. INT. BOBBY'S CAR - HIGHWAY - DAY ON BOBBY bored, as he drives. Beside him, Rayette primps in the sunvisor mirror. ON THE BACK SEAT Terry lights a cigarette while Palm, staring morosely out the window, goes into a soliloquy: PALM I had to leave this place. I got depressed, seeing all the crap. And the thing is, they're making more crap, you know? They've got so many stores and stuff and junk full of crap, I can't believe it. BOBBY Who? PALM Who? People, that's who! Pretty soon there won't be room for anyone. They're selling more crap that people go and buy than you can imagine. Oofh! Crap! I believe everybody should have a big hole where they throw in all this stuff and burn it. Rayette leans around to her. RAYETTE There'd never be a hole big enough. Now took at me, for instance, when I was just one person, before Bobby, I had so much garbage collectin' onto me every day, I was thinkin' about gettin a dispose all... PALM A dispose-all, what's that but more crap? I've never seen such crap. Oofh, I don't know how people get up in the morning. TERRY Mass production is what does it. PALM What do you mean "mass"... I have to come out and tell you, you're not that clean, either. TERRY Wait a minute. I'm not that neat, maybe, but I am clean. PALM Well, you're not that bad, but some people... I mean, people's homes, just filth. I've been in people's homes... TERRY In my personal observation, I think that more people are neat than are clean... PALM In my personal thing, I don't see that. I'm seeing more filth. A lot of filth. What they need to do every day, no, once in a while, is a cockroach thing, where they spray the homes. And uh... can you imagine, if their doors were painted a pretty color, and they had a pot outside, with... TERRY Yeah, it could be adorable... PALM And they picked up! I mean, it wouldn't be filthy, with Coke bottles and whiskey, and those signs everywhere... She gestures angrily out the window at the roadside billboards. PALM (CONT'D) ... they oughta be erased! All those signs, selling crap, and more crap, and, I don't know, it's disgusting, I don't even want to talk about it! Bobby starts to say something: BOBBY Well... PALM It's just filthy. People are dirty. I think that's the biggest thing that's wrong with people. I think they wouldn't be as violent if they were clean, because then they wouldn't have anybody to pick on... Oofh... Dirt... RAYETTE Well... PALM Not dirt. See, dirt isn't bad. It's filth. Filth is bad. That's what starts maggots and riots... She suddenly leans over to the front seat, pointing to a semi ahead. PALM (CONT'D) Hey, follow that truck. They know the best places to stop. RAYETTE That's an old maid's tale. PALM Bullshit! Truck drivers know the best eating places on the road. Rayette turns around, asserting: RAYETTE Salesmen and cops are the ones. If you'd ever waitressed, honey, you'd know. PALM Don't call me "honey," mack. RAYETTE Don't call me "mack," honey. PALM I wouldn't be a waitress. They're nasty and full of crap. RAYETTE You better hold onto your tongue! PALM (giving her the finger) Hold onto this. Terry laughs. RAYETTE Just one minute, you! Don't you ever talk to me like that! BOBBY Shut up! All of you!
Attention NYC: The Parks Department has just announced a dozen opportunities for you to experience a guided tour of beautiful Freshkills Park.
Freshkills Park
Tours in April, May and June are currently open for public sign-up. The tours begin at the Eltingville Transit Center, 90-98 Wainwright Avenue in Staten Island, at 10am and 1pm on alternating Saturdays, and are free of charge. They will run through the middle of November. Here are the exact dates and times:
April 10, 10am and 1pm
April 24, 10am and 1pm
May 1, 10am and 1pm
May 15, 10am and 1pm
June 5, 10am and 1pm
June 19, 10am and 1pm
I plan to attend at least one of these dates myself. Who’s in?
4th RecyclingDesignPrize 2010
everydaytrash 