Author Archive
Oh yeah
Wednesday, April 22, 2009Original Good
Tuesday, April 21, 2009As you know, everydaytrash.com is not a product pimping site. Of course, every once in a while we come across something made of trash with such a good story behind it, we just have to share. This evening, it’s these colorful bags made of old plastic bags by Conserve, a collective of women living in the slums of Delhi.
Sling Bag
Given the tabloid coverage of the little girl from Slumdog Millionaire this week, it’s refreashing to see a skills-building, income generating, women’s empowerment program from India with such bright and hopeful products.
As the worm turns
Tuesday, April 21, 2009Brooklyn Based digs into worm composting. A practical read for those of you who live in (sniff) North Brooklyn. And a short and sweet justification for urban composting for the rest of us.
End of the world postponed until June
Tuesday, April 21, 2009A while back I mentioned the End of the Waste World Supermarket hosted by New York’s trash worshipers, the Yanbukis. Please note, the universe will carry on for a few extra weeks before this apocalyptic celebration takes place. The new date is June 12th, details to come. In the meantime, local trashies/yankubis should commit the following occasions and locations to memory, starting THIS WEEKEND:
Yanbuki flyer
On Sunday, April 26th and starting at 3pm: A “To Waste or Not to Waste” forum followed by a live audiovisual performance. Yankubis are instructed to bring big ideas and slow food to La Plaza Cultural Garden (one of the most wonderful venues/spots in New York; attending events at La Plaza is a real treat you should take advantage of if you’ve never done so before).
On May 1st (aka Decorative Dumpster Day),there will be a Mayday Trash Worship Gathering—to include “waste instrumentation”—honoring “Anuki, god of all tides, from 3pm until nightfall at Grand Street Ferry Park in Williamsburg.
Check in with Viatico Art Magazine for future updates.
But is it doing any good?
Tuesday, April 21, 2009Elizabeth Royte covers the “Zero-Waste Zealots” in the trashy new issue of MoJo.
Hope you’re having a Trashtastic Tuesday!
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Victor, The Lorax, Leila - photo by Nina Brenner http://www.ninabphoto.com
The War on Pirates
Monday, April 20, 2009…is rooted in trash. Nuclear waste to be specific. So reports Al Jazeera.
Somali pirates have accused European firms of dumping toxic waste off the Somali coast and are demanding an $8m ransom for the return of a Ukranian ship they captured, saying the money will go towards cleaning up the waste.
UPDATE: I’ve been reading conflicting things about pirates and trash. One camp thinks they’re eco-warriers or robin hoods, the other side thinks they are making it all up or selling Somali people an underdog narrative that sugarcoats the darker side of, well, piracy. Everyone seems to agree that pirates do bad things and that Somalia’s particular misfortune is the root cause of piracy. This freshly posted AP article gives some background.
Analysts blame Somalia’s nearly 20 years of lawlessness for fueling piracy’s rise.
Years ago, foreign trawlers began taking advantage of Somalia’s civil war to fish its waters illegally and dump toxic waste there. Vigilante Somali fishermen tried to defend their shores, and later morphed into full-blown pirates.
Attacks have risen markedly in recent weeks, and brigands hold at least 17 other ships and around 300 crew.
Origin Myth
Sunday, April 19, 2009Hey there, new readers. Everydaytrash.com has had a bit of a growth spurt recently and it occurs to me some of you might be wondering what this site is all about. While we champion happy confusion, here are some bits of historical and autobiographical information for the unsatisfied among you.
- Everydaytrash.com is a blog about the art and politics of the world through the lens of garbage.
- I started everydaytrash back in August of ’06 with a post entitled “This is a blog about trash.“
- I like to make up words. Like “garblogging,” “garblog” and “garblogger”.
- A Short History of Garblogging can be found here.
- Last November, I recruited my friend Victor to write for everydaytrash.com from Stockholm. Last month he moved to Brooklyn.
- Now there are two of us and everydaytrash.com is growing from an extension of my trash-obsessed personality to a multi-voiced conversation about art, power, people, politics and waste.
- We love comments.
- And trash tips. Send us your story ideas!
- We are on Facebook and Twitter.
- We are part of a larger online community, as evidenced by the ever-growing side bar list of Garbloggers and Greenloggers. We encourage you to check them out as well.
xoxo
Leila
Jersey rules!
Sunday, April 19, 2009We had the BEST time at the Hopewell Valley Green Market yesterday and collected many story ideas and photos to share with you in the coming weeks. Before we dig into that juicy green goodness, though, I’d like to send a special shout out to Tom Adelman for organizing an amazing event. Thanks for having us, Tom! And thanks for planting this blush-worthy description of everdaytrash.com in the local paper.
Major players in the green movement have been booked for the market, such as clean power provider Sterling Planet, recycled product masterminds Terracycle and EverydayTrash.com’s Leila Darabi of Brooklyn, a revolutionary in the “garblogging” world who will be discussing interesting uses for trash and who Adelman says is “an Internet legend.”
See you in September at the next green market!
Decorative Dumpster Day Details
Friday, April 17, 2009
Decorative Dumpster Day is fast approaching, so let us know if you’d like to participate. The rules are simple: Post a photo of a decorated dumpster or other trash receptical and link back to the three host blogs: Olympia Dumpster Divers, The Visible Trash Society and everydaytrash.com. In return, we’ll be linking to ALL the participating sites to create a giant web of dumpster images.
To get the party started, Ltttle Shiva designed this trashtastic logo for the event, please feel free to use it. Text to accompany your images is entirely up to your own discretion/imagination. Can’t wait to see what you’ve got!
YTLiveGreen
Wednesday, April 15, 2009A whole bunch of companies—The New York Times and nytimes.com, Grist, PlanetGreen, GreenCar, Rueters, mkd, eHow, Better, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and HowCast—teamed up to make this snazzy YouTube channel on living a greener life. What do you think?
Ngorongoro crater, Tanzania
I have to say, National Geographic is good with the ads. The Sun Chips contest linked from YTLiveGreen is ALMOST as compelling as the Waste Management ads on the Garbage Moguls page alerting us to the fact that their Florida landfill with soon be an ELEPHANT RESERVE. As a New Yorker whose landfill was closed only to be replaced by a tax hike to pay for expensive waste hauling contracts to drive my trash to other states, I find it very hard to praise ANYTHING the WM conglomorate does. But on the issue of elephants, I might just have to waver and say hells yeah.
The Bay vs. The Bag
Tuesday, April 14, 2009May 1st is Decorative Dumpster Day
Monday, April 13, 2009Ruby Re-Usable, Little Shiva and I are having an online party on May 1st to be hosted by our blogs Olympia Dumpster Divers, The Visible Trash Society and Everydaytrash.com as well as other neat locales in the garblogosphere. Stay tuned for a fuller list of participants. And in the meantime, if you’ve been decorating your dumpster/other trash-holding container or seen a neat one in the NYC area that deserves a day in the spotlight, let me know.
Eco-capitalism
Saturday, April 11, 2009“We take waste, we add design and produce mass merchandise,”says TerraCycle founder and CEO Tom Szaky in the opening of his new show, Garbage Moguls. “I don’t see garbage, I see cash.”
9pm ET/PT, Wed., April 22nd on the National Geographic Channel
He’s a soundbitey guy, that Szaky, which is probably an element of TerraCycle’s success. The man knows how to bottle charm.
After watching a sneak peak of the first episode—airs at 9pm ET/PT on Wednesday, April 22 a.k.a. Earth Day—I can honestly say it’s a show I would watch [If I got the National Geographic Channel. Which I did, until this week when my sister and I decided we couldn’t afford cable anymore]. It’s like Ace of Cakes, if you’ve ever seen that gem about a punk rock baker running a fancy cakemaking service with his friends. Only better, because this reality show is about a guy and his employees making neat stuff out of garbage and selling it to huge companies like Wal-Mart and OfficeMax.
Garbage Moguls is a flattering look at the TerraCycle crew. Szaky is the executive producer and in the show boldly refers to his company as an eco-revolution. But oddly enough, despite my own bias against anything profit-driven, the project doesn’t come off as entirely self-serving. They’re a cute bunch and all clearly dedicated to the TerraCycle cause—eco-capitalsim, which is just what it sounds like, in equal parts.
Episode one includes a brianstorming session about plastic cookie wrappers. First, they discuss the strengths of the material: very strong, waterproof. Then they toss out ideas for what could be made out of this product and sold commerically: poncho, hot air ballon and place mat are among the ideas rejected in favor of a flying kite.
“There isn’t’ any kind of waste that can’t be reinvented,” declares Szaky.
Which, when you think about it, is a rad concept to have aired on television, even if it’s being said in the context of personal profit. Still radder is the fact that TerraCycle collects the cookie wrappers from schools accross the country. Students and teachers gather up the trash from their institutions and mail them in to the company. In return, TerraCycle donates two cents per wrapper to the school it came from. My favorite scene is one of a couple staff members opening boxes of used Oreo wrappers and reading out the different states from which they came. It’s an all-American upcycling venture and a beautiful business model.
Anyway, enough of the spoilers. Watch for yourself and report back. I will say the most surprising bits are scenes of Szaky on the phone with buyers from large companies straight up lying that he has prototypes ready or is sure he can meet an order on time when he doesn’t and isn’t. The sense of do or die urgency lends the show some adreneleine, but isn’t the best ad for best business practices. I guess dramatic tension, good design and the fact that the company always delivers in the end overshadows this little detail.
At any rate, it’s the most entertaining Earth Day event I’ve ever come accross and sure to become one of my favotite shows. Trash! On TV! Perhaps we trashies can find a bar that gets the National Geographic Channel and organize weekly viewing get-togethers the way sports fans do for football and lesbians do for The L Word.
Update: Sorry, having issues with embedding video lately. Teasers for Garbage Moguls can be viewed here, here, here and here.
Walking on plastic
Saturday, April 11, 2009I’ve seen fused plastic dresses, messenger bags, tote bags, kites and belts, but I’ve never seen shitty old plastic bags transformed into something as practical as Cobble Stones. That’s exactly what they’re doing in Mopti, Mali as France 24 reports in this clip. Yay Africa.
everydaytrash 