I first heard from trash photographer Nathan Kensinger this summer when we discovered a mutual love for abandoned marine transfer stations. Turns out our friends at Fresh Kills Park saw that post and invited Kensinger to photograph the infamous former landfill and capture its refound wild beauty.
Fancy that, this blog connecting trashies.
It’s been a full year since my friend, Virginia (a.k.a. Jenny) began Italicious, a blog that chronicles the Italian (and sometimes Southern American) cooking that nourishes the charmed life she and her Neopolitan husband seem to lead. My FAVORITE thing about her blog is that she not only shares ideas for how to mix mouth watering combinations of amazing ingredients—sausage, fennel, home made pastas, dark leafy greens, saffron, cheese, etc.—but she’ll often include next-day recipes for how to recycle the leftovers, old school Italian style. And you know how we love to recycle! Recently, she added an entire “Reused, Recycled” page to the site to cull these recipes in one place. Check. It. Out.
Crochette di Riso via Italicious
Pictured above are tasty rice balls made from leftover risotto. You may remember the zero waste pasta pie featured here before. SUCH amazing stuff. Happy birthday, Italicious!
So Laurapalooza yesterday was a big hit. I burned my face in the New Jersey sun again, but not as much as last time. Our flip flop hippo was item of the day, and we got pix with a president (coming soon). Also realized that people in Pennington have the cutest kids in the world. Many of them run around. Some are excellent trashion models:
Trashion poster child 1
Trashion poster child 2
Recent finds from around the garblogosphere:
Earlier this week the everydaytrash.com team was invited to a screening of “No Impact Man,” a documentary about journalist Colin Beavan, a.k.a. No Impact Man, his spouse Michelle Conlin, their cute-overload daughter Isabella and the family dog Frankie. Behind the documentary are directors Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein, and producer Eden Wurmfeld.
For several years now, Beavan has been updating the world on his No Impact Project—his endeavor to spend one year wasting as little energy and as few resources as possible—via his blog, No Impact Man. The documentary follows Beavan, Conlin, daughter and dog over the course of the project, from November 2006 to November 2007. Throughout four phrases, the family gives up more and more, starting with taking non man-powered transport of any kind, buying anything new (including toilet paper), eating meat, using the elevator. Finally, they shut off the power in their apartment and attempt to live without electricity.
The No Impact Project is framed as a family project, but as the movie reveals, there’s no doubt that its really all about Beavan. As Conlin puts it “It’s called No Impact Man,it’s his project, it’s his book and he’s No impact man, but…the project is our family is doing this.”
Without going too much into detail to spoil the movie for those who plan to see it, we can tell you that the documentary is not so much about how to live without causing further damage to the planet (if you already have a flat in a posh condo and have bought all the laptops and bikes you need that is), but about a marriage in which one partner is very driven to embark on something that affects everyone in the family. Here’s the trailer:
And, as there are two of us, please find below two reviews:
Victor:
Why make a documentary about how a family tries to live emissions-free for a year, but not give you the results on screen? The concpiracy theory would be that the team didn’t want to give out spoilers from the coming book. I don’t think so, I rather believe that Gabbert/Schein/Wurmfeld realised that watching people live eco friendly isn’t terribly exciting on screen (the most action-ridden moment being when the family tries and fails to build an Nigerian pot fridge). What is exciting is the struggle with the contemporary context they’ve locked themselves into. In the end, it boils down to how much of a crazy person you are ready to be percieved as. Easier as freelance writer (Beavan) compared to Business Week writer (Conlin). The message we are left with from No Impact Man is that you probably need very supportive friends.
Leila:
As a documentary about a marriage, “No Impact Man” is pretty entertaining. As a lead-by-example environmental statement, it’s a bit muddy. The film skips along, touching lightly on some of the quotidian debates of the green movement: are cloth diapers really better for the environment than disposable? What are the outer limits of eco-chic (yes to reusable shopping bags, no to no toilet paper), without really saying much. If anything, it’s a nice ad for biking and eating locally. The Union Square green market features heavily and the family spends enviable amounts of quality time scooting and biking around town. Conlin’s transformation from a Starbucks-addicted shopaholic to sustainable supermom is the real story. As she whines then copes and decides what she can and can’t live without, we make the same assessments about our own lives. How embarrassing would it be to mooch ice from the neighbor because you are consciously living without a fridge; or if the whole office knew your husband air dried his bottom as an attempt to save the trees?
Remarkably, there is very little trash in “No Impact Man.” Right away, the family stops creating waste, so little time is spent tracking where waste goes when it leaves the 5th Ave co-op and what impact the family is averting. Aside from some arty close-ups of trash bags and a brief cameo by Sustainable South Bronx founder Majora Carter, trash plays a small role in the film.
Anyway, as someone constantly asked “but what should I do about it” I admire the notion of living out one’s own ideals and the attempt to make personal the huge and often eye-glazing topic of lessening our impact on the environment. But there is a difference between personal and personality-driven and I found Beaven’s project off-putting in its self-absorption. Kudos to this family for eating locally, biking everywhere and spending lots of quality time together not watching TV. At one point Beaven says that when people ask what one thing they can do to make a difference, he says volunteer at an environmental organization because the erosion of community is what is killing us all. THAT point should be better underscored on his blog and in the film. A first step might have been calling the film “No Impact Family”.
(Paired with the documentary is Beavans book No Impact Man – The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet, and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process. The book and film are to be released September 1st and 1st respectivley.)
Coming back to Brooklyn after a ten day temporary relocation to Kuala Lumpur was interesting. The 12-hour difference in time and 26-hour travel kind of killed any sense my body had of sleep and rythm, with the effect that I woke up at 11.30pm Sunday night, and had to do something until it was time to go to work.
After suggestions from anyone else in the world online and willing to advise on my predicament, a walk seemed to be a good idea. And it was. No matter where you are in New York, a 24-hour deli with coffee can be found. Sipping coffee in a park, listening to nocturnal creatures chirping in sync with traffic lights blinking was very nice. But one factor put a smear on this poetic moment: The smell.
I’ve read about it, I’ve heard about it, and now smelled it. August street trash. Walking ten blocks, I found four piles of putrid trash, some by themselves, some still covered by black bags. The smell emitting from these piles seemed to cover the entire neighbourhood, and having just showered felt less of a bliss, as I felt the stench fly to the fibres of my skin, hair and clothes.
Incidentally, the only other people roaming the streets were trash collectors in their big trucks, and as always I’m in awe of these heroes, whom without our society would be impossible, but seeing them tonight, working in this hellish environment, I’m lost for words.
For people who have lived here longer than I have: How long will this go on?
Swedish Public Radio programme P3 Kultur today broadcasted an interview with me about garblogging, introducing me as a person “living a contemporary Mad Men-life as advocate and zeitgeist surfer in the capital of the World”. In other words, garbloggers are the it thing. We are still waiting to be invited to those rooftop pools though…
Our brief discussion centered around garblogging in general, and the differences in trash culture in the US and West Europe. I would say the most obvious thing is visibility of trash. Back home, our trash is well hidden in facilities that are always in close proximity (if not within) residential buildings. Over here, trash bags are all over the street every night (at this time of year, quite smelly, yes?).
Having lived in both places, I have to say that neither approach seems to make people more or less aware of the problems with our trash, which I must say is a rather intriguing insight. My conclusion is still that while public opinion and individual responsibility matters, legislation and regulation is the way to go. This comes, of course, from a belief that markets and our planet alike will do better while being under certain legislative restraints. In more blunt words, the invisible hand does not recycle. Would love other opinions on this, do comment!
(Also, apologizing for mishearing the program host, I accidentally replied ‘yes’ to the question ‘if I was living in Manhattan?’, I thought she asked were I was at the time. I, of course, live in Brooklyn.)
Katherine Sharpe‘s “A Week Without Plastic” series comes to an end. Check out her reflections on the experience over at ReadyMade.
Just stumbled across this link via unconsumption:
Hello. We are Kept. We’re not selling anything. Just the opposite. We want you to keep the stuff you’ve already got. To use it. To wear it. To celebrate it!
Post your own stories of things you kept instead of throwing away, or tweet them with the hashtag #kept. Supercool.
Katherine Sharpe goes cold turkey over at ReadyMade. Check out Part I of the series. We’re looking forward to the daily updates, especially if they all include neat links like today’s nod to photographer Chris Jordan’s work.
Thanks for the tip, Sarah! I love that the University of Trash workshop last weekend is already yielding new tipsters.
University of Trash class
In case you missed it, the everydaytrash.com team headed out to Long Island City, Queens yesterday to participate in the interactive installation project “University of Trash” created by Michael Cataldi and Nils Norman. Our contribution was a quick overview of some of the ways we and other garbloggers talk and track trash online followed by an informal conversation about trash and consumer culture. It was a fantastic event. We were very pleased by the supportive turnout (just look at how many people trecked all the way to Queens for everydaytrash.com) and thrilled by the contributions everyone made during the open discussion. We learned a lot. Afterward, many of us headed to the new beer garden on the border of Long Island City and Astoria. We learned a lot there, too.
Here are links to the blogs I shared as well as some of the other resources and inspiration points Victor and I mentioned. Thanks again to all who came. It was great to see you IRL.
Garblogging links:
There are many ways to approach trash online. Everydaytrash.com is the broadest of garblogs, posts on our site can cover any topic as long as there’s a trash angle. The following are a few examples of other blogs I love that address trash in a variety of ways.
There are people who track their own waste like Sustainable Dave of 365 Days of Trash. Dave’s 365 days are up, but his blog lives on as a wonderful resource for how to create less trash. For example, take a look at the bag he carries everywhere he goes and the tools of waste reduction within.
There is also a whole subgenre of garblogs focused on plastic. My favorite of these is Beth Terry‘s Fake Plastic Fish. Beth covers all kinds of cool plastic topics and at the top of her homepage you can always find a little chart of her monthly plastic use.
And of course, there are trash artists who can take a dull dry topic like solid waste management and make something fun and wonderful out of it. I consider Ruby Re-Usable of Olympia Dumpster Divers and Little Shiva of The Visible Trash Society my closest colleagues in the field of garblogging. Their work constantly inspires me and has consequently inspired a number of everydaytrash.com posts. Sometimes we even collaborate. See also Cynthia Korzekwa‘s Art for Housewives.
In addition to artists making things out of garbage, there are also a few photographing trash in its native habitiat. Last Night’s Garbage is a wonderful blog to add to your reader—emphemeral photos paired with found text are uplodaed a few times a week. I didn’t have a chance to share these at the University of Trash, but Gutter Envy and Garbager also post trash photos.
And then there are the Upcyclers, taking recycling to a new level by finding reuses for objects that may be even better than the first use. Victor and I contribute to an Upcycling portal, which I encourage you to check out. Some of my favorite upcycling examples come from the Etsy Tashion street team. I’ve also been transfixed lately by artist Robert Fontenot‘s Recycle LACMA project.
Beyond upcycling there are blogs that focus on our consumer culture and point up the waste chain to ask if we could produce less stuff in the first place. The unconsumption tumblog run by Rob Walker (of the Times magazine column Consumed) and collaborators is full of interesting nuggets that fall under this theme.
And, of course, there are a ton of amazing DIY blogs that discuss and teach you how to make things yourself to create less waste and reuse scraps and trash. Some of my favorties are Instructables (which allows users to upload their own instructions on how to do and make things), the hip sewing blog Threadbanger, the ReadyMade Magazine blog, and the Make Magazine blog.
Which leads me to the scariest subset of garblogs, the green shopping blogs. I have mixed feelings about these sites becuase they all point to things I WANT and feel I NEED and want to HAVE because they are made out of sustainable products and trash. I try hard not to, but sometimes I look at Great Green Goods (which has a series of great green spinoffs for babies, pets, weddings and more). These sites are good to find trashy and geen substitutes for things you would have bought anyway.
I also love to peruse style sites like the wonderful blog Fabulously Green. But again, it makes me want to shop.
Finally, I want to share a few internaitonal garblogs just to point out that these conversations are taking place all over the world. I absolutely adore the site AfriGadet run by Hash of White African, a blogger and tech guru and several collaborators. The tagline says it all “Solving everyday problems with African ingenuity,” which more often than not involves upcycling.
Keith R. of the Temas Blog covers trash in Latin American. And the nonprofit Goods4Good keeps a Tumblog of their work repurposing excess from American companies in Africa and Asia.
There are many, many more links I could include here but I think the list is already a bit overwhelming. Let me just throw in some of Victor and my top recommended trash resources.
There’s the amazing animated video on the consumption chain, The Story of Stuff.
There’s the book Skräp by journalist Mattias Hagberg, which is in Swedish so I’ll share the link to his interview with Victor.
And there are the books Garbage Land and Bottlemania and the blog of their author, Elizabeth Royte, primordial guides for anyone who hopes to understand this massive topic.
Thanks again to the Sculpture Center and Michael Cataldi for making this talk possible. We hope to follow up on the dynamic discussion that took place and look forward to more in person everydaytrash.com events.
To keep up to date on all our trashy activities, fan the blog on Facebook and share the link with your friends!
Don’t forget to come see us in Queens tomorrow from 1-3pm at the Sculpture center.
Blogger Therese J. Borchard published an intruiging post today (also on Huffington Post) about how trash nights equals sex nights in her household (that’s Monday and Thursday). The post could also be seen as a story of how a dinner party gets swamped by discussions on different local policies on when trash is picked up. All in all its a bit weird, but one just have to love passages such as
A year or so ago, I got fed up with my mate’s constant begging for sex, so one night I asked him point blank, “What is the minimal number of times a week that you need sex in order to be satisfied?”
“Twice. Absolute minimum.”
“Fine,” I said. “You get Monday and Thursday. If you don’t beg any other night.”
It then occurred to me that Monday and Thursday evenings were trash night. We drag out all of our rubbish and recyclables from the last few days and leave the stuff on the curb … to be picked up at 5 a.m. the next day, when the trash truck compressors will try to wake up our slumbering kids.
Yes, trash night is sex night in our household. Clearly a “Seinfeld” episode in the making.
This concept … of a scheduled sex session … was so intriguing to the other birthday guests that trash talk dominated the entire conversation for the rest of the evening.
“What about bulk pick up?” one asked.
“And what if you miss a day?” asked another.
“Eric’s lucky,” said the guy crossing his legs. “Our trash is only picked up once a month.”
Next Saturday from 1-3pm, us guys truly will be giving a talk and leading an interactive discussion on trash and the Internet at the Sculpture Center in Long Island City, Queens.
Us
We hope to see all of you in the NYC area there and promise to post links and highlights after the fact. This event is part of the fabulous University of Trash program curated by Michael Cataldi and Nils Norman.
Today I begin informal training in sound recording from an audio engineer friend. My hope is that in exchange for helping him with some projects, I’ll walk away with the skills to record and edit little interviews, thus putting the Trashtastic back in Tuesdays. Stay tuned and feel free to submit trash cast topic ideas.
xo
Leila
everydaytrash 