A colleague placed a collection box for used glasses in the kitchen at my office. Her son is collecting them for New Eyes for the Needy, an organization that recycles eye glasses in the U.S. and overseas.
Let me know if you have an old pair to spare. Or start a drive yourself.
This week in trash news:
The nytimes.com blog Green Inc. reports that:
Enerkem, a green energy company based in Quebec, has developed an alternative approach to mining the carbon out of non-recyclable plastics, construction waste and other materials found in the municipal waste stream.
The company says it has pioneered a gasification technology that processes waste into a synthetic gas that can be converted into liquid fuels and biochemicals, and it has entered a 25-year deal with the City of Edmonton to purchase the trash left over after glass, metals, paper and recyclable plastics have been removed.
This Thursday, October 8th, Seattle-based trashies should check out Kuros Zahedi‘s work @
OFFICE NOMADS
Thursday, October 8
6-10pm
1617 Boylston Ave., Second Floor
There will be drinks, food, and great people. This date syncs up with the Blitz! Capitol Hill Art Walk – so if you’re planning on attending the art walk, make Office Nomads a stop for sure!
Zahedi's "The Garden of Hope"
A statement from the artist on his work with trash:
Behesht is the Farsi word for Paradise. It refers to a place that is full of happiness, peace, and beauty. In common speech, it also refers to where the soul goes after dying. Humanity is at a fork in the road. Looking at the injustice, war, and escalating ecological calamity in our world, it is easy to become disillusioned and to conclude that we are headed for the latter.
I am interested in exploring the possibility of beauty within everything. The works in this series offer a vision of hope for the future of humanity. Directions can change. We can compost the rotting fruits and plant new seeds. We can heal what we have hurt. We can use the very detritus of our blundering to rebuild a society which provides the conditions in which the creative nature of humanity can thrive in safety, peace and beauty.
These works are created using trash collected from streets and waste generated at my home. I use these materials because of the powerful symbolism of transforming the trash into something beautiful. I use natural glues, beeswax and a bit of paint to finish the work. The imagery is inspired by the Persian miniatures and carpets I grew up with, 20th century Austrian painting and the textures and processes of nature. I want to capture the feeling and passion of rebirth from the ashes and the joy and exhilaration of creating beauty out of ugliness. Behesht is here; we must only clear away the garbage.
via Neatorama
Plastic Bag poster
Filmmaker Ramin Bahrani‘s short film Plastic Bag, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival, is now playing at the New York Film Festival and will soon be available online. It’s 18 minutes long and features narration by Werner Herzog.
From Flavorwire:
Here lies the increasingly apparent message (Herzog: “I wish you had created me so I could die”) of an ecological PSA that’s still poetic and quite potent, one bolstered by Sigur Rós keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson’s lush score. Happily, you’ll be able to watch it online in the near-future since it’s one of the 11 films that make up Futurestates, a new series commissioned by The Independent Television Service (ITVS).
This project adds to my ever-growing collection of evidence that Iranian-Americans love trash.
Having lived in the US for six months now, I’ve learned that one of the big things people do here is debt, which for many leads to bankruptcy. It seems that the turn has come to the advocacy agency National Recycling Coalition (NRC, the major umbrella for people in trash and recycling), which must be in financial peril I guess, reading a report from Waste & Recycling News.
Apparently, a vote to file for Chapter 7 has been temporarily suspended, while developing a reorganization plan and negotiating with creditors. Consolidation plans and ideas for restructuring however, seem to have been going on for some while, but without success. Just a month ago, a membership vote rejected the plans to merge with Keep America Beautiful (KAB). Two weeks later, KAB announced that they had hired three former executives from NRC.
What lies behind all this we don’t really know, but if anyone does know, feel free to tip us of, in open or behind the curtains…
…and her visual columns in the New York Times. This is especially true of her recent piece on trash and sewage.
via nytimes.com
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
We’re headed to Jersey today to take part in Laurapalooza. In preparation, I am finally read this New Yorker article about Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter, Rose that everyone keeps talking about (kind of dark); and asked friends to share any anecdotes they remember about the Ingalls family reusing things and making things from scrap. Hands down the most vividly recalled example was Laura and Mary making a balloon out of a pig bladder and playing catch. Things made from scrap fabrics was a close second. What do you remember from the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and Little House on the Prairie the TV show?
Project Kaisei, a recent expedition to further test the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, is complete. Mother Jones has the story. Thanks, Alexandra, tipster of the month!
Artist Maya Lin’s “Recycled Landscapes” is showing at Salon 94 in Manhattan through November 13th. Yay trash art. Thanks for the tip, Alexandra!
Toy Astroids: Girl by Maya Lin, photo via Salon 94
I am behind the trash times, people, I hope you’ll forgive the lag in posts and subsequent flood. During the hiatus, an exciting thing happened, trash artist Kuros Zahedi finished his long-awaited installation “Finding Away” using the trash blogger Ari Derfel collected over the course of one year. Here’s a snap, courtesy of the artist. Look out for it at the Green Festival in San Francisco in November.
Finding Away installation
According to Zahedi: “Everything except the reclaimed doors the mural is on and some non-toxic glue is Ari’s Trash.”
More images available here. Kudos, Kuros! It looks great.
everydaytrash 