From Voice of America: “Born in Brussels, Sister Emmanuelle lived and worked with a scavenger community in Cairo for more than 20 years. She founded an association that built a school and provided trucks for the Zabbaleen community there, which has become internationally known for its recycling practices.”
Via FP Passport. Photo ripped from the Washington Post
One of the places I visited while taking a short vacation in Bali last weekend was the Ubud Monkey Forest. Overall, the visit was more upsetting than pleasant. Vendors sell bananas and sweet potatoes inside the park, a practice that encourages tourists to get very close to the animals. While I was there, I saw monkeys steal other food from careless people who had stupidly brought in bags of chips and juice boxes, which the monkeys made little work of snatching and opening. I saw lots of groups getting monkeys to climb all over them by dangling oranges and bananas in thier faces. I also saw one crazy monkey fight and a couple of sickly looking moneys I wouldn’t want to touch. It was all very sad. Still sadder was the fact that there was also a lot of trash in the ravines of what might have been a beautiful park. I wasn’t able to capture the bulk of the human arrogance and monkey aggression I witnessed, but here is a short clip of a monkey digging through fruit peels and trash in the park.
This just in from Dumpster Taoist: the internet debut of a film he made about the lives and views of dumpster divers. Thanks for sharing, DT!
Vodpod videos no longer available.
I’m not big on product pimping here, but among the flood of supposedly eco-themed press releases this week was one from a company selling seltzer bottles and soda syrups. The eco-pitch: use fewer plastic bottles by making soda at home. Scanning the site made me nostalgic for a) the old fashioned CO2 cartridge selzer bottle my grandparents kept on the bar for mixing with whiskey and b) the similar bottle we had at home, which I used to mix up raspberry shrub.
Photo via Soda-Club
“Just as the layout of the village reflects the grand order, so too does the layout of the family compound. The Balinese believe each part of the house corresponds to a part of the human anatomy: the head is the family shrine, the sexual organs are the gates, the arms are the bedrooms and the social parlor, the navel is the courtyard, the legs and feet are the kitchen and granary, and the anus is the backyard garbage pit. In each corner of the yard are temples dedicated to guardian spirits.”
Quote via Kinaya tour and travel; first read about the anus of the home in Lonely Planet’s Best of Bali. P.S. Trash hiatus is nearly over, I’ll be home Tuesday.
Thanks to an ecogrant used to buy a “waste digestor” food from a British primary school is now churned directly into compost.
Via the Clitheroe
The Washington Post offers up some trash-reducing tips today (photo ripped from article). Apologies if posts are lazy this week. I’m in Jakarta for the day job. Will attempt to find some Indonesian-themed tidbits for you.
Dumpster Toaist just shot me this amazing tip, a trash-themed game called Gomibako was debuted for Playstation at the 2008 Tokyo Game Show.
Here’s what the Gamespot review had to say: “Think Tetris, but with garbage. That’s the simplest description of Gomibako, a PlayStation Network puzzle game we found in the Sony booth here on the show floor of the 2008 Tokyo Game Show. It’s a bit early for proclamations–we’re only halfway through day one of TGS–but we can safely say that Gomibako is one of our favorite games of the show so far.”
What do you do when your trusty Rocinante kicks the bucket? Perhaps not a great concern for Brooklyn-based readers, but in Colorado and other rugged places, apparently dead horses end up in landfills. Or rendered, which sounds like made into glue but does that even happen anymore? Anyway, the best way for green riders to honor their fallen companions is to cover them up with a 50/50 mix of hay and manure and let them disintegrate into usable soil.
More on horse composting can be found at the Denver Horse Examiner. Or if you live in Oklahoma, you can attend this how-to seminar. And of course, the more common link between horses and compost is that their poop is an excellent ingredient to a good pile.
This reminds me, has anyone seen Harry Potter in Equus yet?
Horse silhouette via Karen’s Whimsy
Strapped for travel cash? Follow this British couple’s lead and redeem cans for miles.
Photo ripped from Metro.co.uk
This week in trash news:
Photo of Texas beach debris ripped from the A.P.
Check out these trash bags shaped like kids to raise awareness for street children. PS posting may be light this week, I’m in Zambia with iffy Internet.
Last week I had catch-up drinks with Erica Dolland, an old friend from high school who just returned to New York after a couple years working in Ghana. I told her I now have a trash blog. She told me that among other amazing activities she had undertaken since we last hung out, she taught Ghanaian kids to fashion handbags out of the plastic bags water is sold in throughout Africa. And so another trashtastic tuesday was born. Expect to see much more everydaytrash coverage on the privatization of water in the coming weeks. I’m all riled up and have some cool stuff to share.
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everydaytrash: How did you get the idea for the project?
Dolland: It was a two-fold interest from needs I identified in the community: environment preservation and income generation. Running water is not accessible in many of the rural areas of Ghana, and its not distilled. Therefore, Ghanaians resort to purchasing water bags to consume drinkable water but then dispose the bags on the ground when finished. I’m a huge environmentalist! One thing that is so captivating about Ghana is that the country occupies a beautiful, serene, lush green landscape. But there are minimal efforts and initiatives dedicated to environmental conservation.
In Ghana, women are also severely marginalized and their employment opportunities are scarce due to a myriad of social injustices. You have a segment of population that can’t participate and is impoverished. I wanted to create a project that would generate income for women and their children, as well as improve environmental conditions.
everydaytrash: Who participated?
Dolland: I opened the workshops to people in the community who were interested in learning how to make the bags to generate additional income for themselves. I had a lot of receptiveness to the project from Ghanaian youth in the community. I don’t think a lot of adults were keen on carrying around former trash, but the kids thought it was cool. I really only expected girls to be interested, since they are groomed at a young age to take interest in catering and sewing activities. Much to my surprise though, boys expressed the same level of interest. I ended up conducting several workshops in the local elementary and junior high schools. The younger students definitely had a harder time, since they weren’t as adept to using a sewing needle–that’s right, no sewing machines here, way too expensive–but they ended up creating a functional bag to carry school supplies in. Their teachers even loved the idea and participated in the workshops.
everydaytrash: Is it ongoing?
Dolland: I was sent to Ghana by an organization called The International Foundation of Education and Self-Help. The over riding mission of the organization is to “help others, so they can help themselves.” When I conceived the project I wanted to make sure it was sustainable after I left. It was mandatory that anyone who participated in the workshop was required to to teach someone else in the community. When people would come to my house asking for one-on-one lessons, I’d say “Nope, find so and so, she’ll teach you how to make it.” It is my hope that people will expand on the basic construction that I taught them to create even more unique bags.
everydaytrash: Sweet. We’ll look out for them!
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Workshop photos supplied by Erica. Photo of Erica tutoring ripped from her Facebook page.
Happy Friday. In lieu of a weekend news roundup, I give you an article so ridiculous it stands on its own. According to this dubious report in Pakistan Daily, Chinese companies are recycling used condoms into colorful hair ties. Now I’ve heard of creative reuses for EXPIRED condoms that have NEVER BEEN USED. Fair enough. But used condoms? While I know the claims that a recycled latex hair tie could give someone AIDS are totoally bogus, the psychological factor is just a little tough to get past. For the same reason I would rather wear a sweater knit from sheep’s wool than dog’s hair and would rather fertilize my garden with animal poo as opposed to human manure. It may not make sense—color me urban and sheltered—but I am not in control of my personal ick factor. But I tangent. The whole reason I was googling condoms and recycling and coming across articles like this little piece of comedy is beacuse I’ve been thinking a lot about green sex this week. It’s an uncomfortable reality that latex condoms add up and end up in landfills. The alternatives aren’t great. There are less convenient methods and less effective condoms. In discussing this with a friend this week, we agreed that there’s a real need for biodegradable condom. You know, one that actually works.
[The photo is one I took at the Toronto AIDS Conference in 2006, a close-up of a very fabulous dress.]
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