Author Archive

Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste

Monday, July 26, 2010

This intriguing CALL FOR ACADEMIC TRASH is making its way around the internets…

Greetings,

We are inviting academic editorial contributors to a new reference work on consumption and waste, or the social science of garbage.

Archaeologists and anthropologists have long studied artifacts of refuse from the distant past as a portal into ancient civilizations, but examining what we throw away today tells a story in real time and becomes an important and useful tool for academic study. Trash is studied by behavioral scientists who use data compiled from the exploration of dumpsters to better understand our modern society and culture. Why does the average American household send 470 pounds of uneaten food to the garbage can on an annual basis? How do different societies around the world cope with their garbage in these troubled environmental times? How does our trash give insight into our attitudes about gender, class, religion, and art? The Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste explores the topic across multiple disciplines within the social sciences and ranges further to include business, consumerism, environmentalism, and marketing. Each article ranges from 600 to 3,000 words. We are now making assignments due October 1, 2010.

This comprehensive project will be published by SAGE Reference and will be marketed to academic and public libraries as a print and digital product available to students via the library’s electronic services. The General Editor, who will be reviewing each submission to the project, is Dr. William Rathje, emeritus University of Arizona, the top scholar in the field.

If you are interested in contributing to this cutting-edge reference, it is a unique opportunity to contribute to the contemporary literature, redefining sociological issues in today’s terms. Moreover, it can be a notable publication addition to your CV/resume and broaden your publishing credits. SAGE Publications offers an honorarium ranging from SAGE book credits for smaller articles up to a free set of the printed product or access to the online product for contributions totaling 10,000 words or more.

The list of available articles is already prepared, and as a next step we will e-mail you the Article List (Excel file) from which you can select topics that best fit your expertise and interests. Additionally, Style and Submission Guidelines will be provided that detail article specifications.

If you would like to contribute to building a truly outstanding reference with the Encyclopedia of Consumption and Waste: The Social Science of Garbage, please contact me by the e-mail information below. Please provide a brief summary of your academic/publishing credentials in related issues.

Thanks very much.

Joseph K. Golson

consumption@golsonmedia.com

The Beat Waste Start-Up Challenge

Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Beat Waste Start-Up Challenge is offerin a 25k prize for the best idea—in the form of an elevator pitch—to reduce waste in an innovative way. Check out the finalists here. Rooting through now for future posts, there are some great ideas here. Which is your favorite?

Replayland

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Just discovered the nifty site Replayground, the trash biz of designer Tiffany Threadgould who packages instructions and base materials for DIY upcycling kits as gifts for kids and families. She also leads corporate events and community workshops on upcycling. As regular readers are probably aware, I am quite skeptical of trash for sale. What I like about this venture though is the DIY section of the website. Free ideas! And some good ones at that. Also, redefining corporate skills and teambuilding events as an opportunity to discuss waste is ingenius.

Check out the Replayground blog for more free project ideas, some shared through adorable videos like this one.

Thanks for the tip, Aaron!

Lixo extraordinário (Waste Land)

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Attention New Yorkers: As part of its annual festival Premiere Brazil! MoMA will be screening a film called Lixo extraordinário (Waste Land) next Saturday, July 24 @ 2:00 p.m.in theater 1. Thanks for the tip, Shanti!

Lixo extraordinário (Waste Land)

Check out the provocative description:

2010. Great Britain/Brazil. Directed by Lucy Walker. Co-directed by João Jardim, Karen Harley. This documentary follows celebrated contemporary artist Vik Muniz on an emotional journey to the world’s largest landfill, Jardim Gramacho, outside Rio de Janeiro, and explores his three-year collaboration with the catadores, who inhabit the “trash city” picking recyclables. It tells an immensely powerful story of people at the end of their rope, using art as a means to “recycle” their own lives. In Portuguese; English subtitles. 90 min.

And here’s a trailer off of YouTube:

Edmonton Composting Facility

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Just catching up on the third installment of City Room’s “Ask a Garbologist” feature from last week. In particular, I was selfishly pleased to see my own question answered—what are some model policies from other cities that New York could learn from?

Dr. Nagle’s response:

New York’s garbage footprint would shrink significantly if we could build a large-scale composting facility like this state-of-the-art example in Edmonton, Canada. That city, like so many, once consigned all its household waste to landfills, but now 60 percent of it is recycled or composted.

Edmonton’s plant, which takes up about 60 acres, is the largest in North America. The city proper has a population of about 750,000; the larger metropolitan region has approximately one million. A similar facility in New York would have to be a whole lot bigger if we intended it to serve the entire city. Unlike Edmonton, we are not surrounded by open space, so an immediate problem would be finding a place to put it. Edmontonians claim that their facility emits no odors (and no odours, either), a fact verified by a friend who toured it a couple of years ago. Even a stink-free plant in New York would bump up against NIMBY issues, but if we had the political will, the patience and the right spirit, I bet we could build something similar.

Edmonton Composting Facility

Thanks, Robin, for taking the time! And thanks, City Room for the trashtastic feature! Readers if you’re just tuning in, I highly recommend sifting through all three installments of answers from a garbologist. Each is riddled with interesting facts and handy references to trashy resources.

Empire of Scrounge

Friday, July 16, 2010

In part II of garbologist Dr. Robin Nagle‘s entertaining and informative answers to the public’s burning questions about garbage (posted today over at City Room), she reccomends Jeff Ferrell‘s book and blog “Empire of Scrounge.” In Googling, I see that the subtitle of the book is “Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving, Trash Picking, and Street Scavenging.” Sounds like our cup of tea. Has anyone read it? Blog link here.

Ask a Garbologist

Thursday, July 15, 2010

The fabulous Dr. Robin Nagle, Anthropologist in Residence for the Department of Sanitation of New York, is taking trashy questions over at City Room. I posted one about waste policies. Got burning quesitons of your own? Here’s your chance to ask an expert!

Dr. Robin Nagle

For more on the woman behind such a cool job title, check out the Trashtastic Tuesday Q&A she granted everydaytrash.com back in 2008.

World Cup upcycling

Monday, June 28, 2010

Hello from Bloemfontain,  stop #2 on my World Cup tour of South Africa. I had the amazing opportunity to see Brazil and Portugal play in the group rounds. The brand new stadium where that game took place was BEAUTIFUL. However, after reading about Greece and other host countries of large sporting events going broke building stadiums…and after driving from posh Durban through South Africa’s poor neighbor Lesotho to my next game in Bloemfontein, all these new venues started to seem excessive. So it was with great joy that my friends and I discovered that our knock-out round tickets to see Germany blow England away was in a spruced up EXISTING stadium.

Bloemfontein aka Manguang stadium

See for yourself, it was a lovely place to watch and EXCITING match.

Germany v. England in the round of 16

Fans (it was Germany's day)

After seeing a nil-nil game in the opening round, I was dying for goals…and got five (well, six but one was unjustly thrown out) for an end score of 4-1 to take Germany to the quarterfinals (next stop: Capetown to see the Germans and Argentines take their age-old rivalry to the pitch).

Cute Canadian campaign

Friday, June 18, 2010

Checkout Vancouver, BC’s “Watch Your Waste” campaign, complete with short, informative videos from Vancouver residents on how the cut back on the trash in various ways from composting doggie-do to using reusable coffee mugs.

Les Balayeurs

Friday, June 18, 2010

There are many days when I wake up wishing I lived in Paris, especially when I see things like Facebook updates from artist Douglas Brodoff announcing a new expo of his paintings on display in the 2nd. It’s called “Les Balayeurs,” which means “The Sweepers.” You may recall from past posts that Douglas has an ongoing series featuring the green-clad garbage men of Paris. Another interesting fact about Douglas is that he is trained as a professional clown. Perhaps that’s why the children and trashmen visiting in this photo appear to be so charmed by him and his work: he’s clearly an expert with a crowd!

Douglas Brodoff with French kids and trashmen

This and other photos of the expo made my day. And made me seriously evaluate how long it’s been since I’ve visited one of my favorites cities.

What’d I miss?

Friday, June 18, 2010

Apologies, trashies. I didn’t mean to go so long without sharing neat garbage-related stuff with you. It’s been a wee bit hectic lately: I’m changing jobs, I spent a week in Burkina Faso with limited internet access and I’m gearing up to go see a few games of the World Cup in South Africa next week. I share all that not to brag about my awesome summer, but to offer piddly excuses for slow updates of late. Oh, and Victor moved back to Sweden, where he’s been busy with his dream job. Anyway, hiatus ends now. I missed you! Post updates in the comments if there’s important waste news I’ve overlooked in the interim. xoxo Leila

DumpsterVoid

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Attention trashies! Gertrude Berg, whom you may remember as the Pick Up Artist, has just completed a gorgeous and clever new project called DumpsterVoid. The idea is this: take all those strangely-shaped scraps discarded by the garment industry and, without cutting them, sew them into fresh new designs.

DumpsterVoid

It’s a treat for the eye, a challenge for the designer and a fantastic reuse for all those identically cut scraps generated by the mass production of clothes. Click through to see more of the collection and creative process.

AVAC Memories

Thursday, May 20, 2010

I’m finally going to see the Fast Trash exhibit on Roosevelt Island this weekend. Sadly, my Saturday schedule does not allow time for this TRASH THEMED MUSICAL THEATER. Sigh. Next year.

Roosevelt Island trash tubes

Saturday, May 22, 5pm

Live musical theater “AVAC Memories” in Gallery RIVAA: “AVAC Memories” tells the story of five pieces of household waste who are tossed into a Roosevelt Island garbage can and, together, go on a thrilling journey through the AVAC sanitation system. As they are dropped down garbage chutes, sucked through pneumatic tubes, crunched in a compactor and shipped off to the dump in a garbage barge, our grimy heroes learn some valuable lessons about friendship, courage and perseverance in the face of adversity. Please join us for this short live performance followed by a Q and A with the creators.

“AVAC Memories” was written by Frederick Alden Terry (music) and John Herin (lyrics). The original production was directed by Dev Bondarin and produced by the Prospect Theater Company in April 2009.

Freshkills trash talk

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Mark your calendars, NYC trashies. Freshkills Park is sponsoring a series of talks this summer. Here are details on the next one. And you don’t even have to go to Staten Island to hear it.

Freshkills Park

The Design of South Park, Phase One at Freshkills Park
 
Tatiana Choulika, Senior Associate at landscape architecture and urban design firm James Corner Field Operations, will present the first phase of design for South Park, one of the five sections of Freshkills Park. At 425 acres, South Park comprises some of the most varied and scenic landscape within the extraordinary Freshkills Park site.  It is envisioned as a connected series of overlooks, meadows and recreational facilities including walking and biking paths, softball fields, play areas and event spaces.  This phase of South Park will also be the first project allowing public access to the top of one of the mounds, with expansive views of Staten Island and beyond.
 
Wednesday, May 26th, 6:30 p.m.
@ The Arsenal, 4th floor
830 Fifth Avenue, Manhattan
Free. No RSVP necessary.

Haute Trash on Facebook

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

I’ve long been a fan of the Haute Trash collective, but my appreciation has grown since joining their Facebook page and becoming privy to a daily curation of the goings on in trashion. Social mediaheads are encouraged to “Like” this page as well.

trashionista