Posts Tagged ‘cardboard’

Weekly Compactor: Clever upcycling edition

Friday, March 18, 2011

It’s been so long since I’ve done one that you may have forgotten that Weekly Compactor is our cutesy term for a roundup of links. This week, please enjoy clever upcycling tips recently shared across the blogosphere:

Arno Mathies' cardboard furniture via Curbly

A bunch of people shared ideas on how to reuse old blue jeans. I have to say though, I have yet to see anything cute or stylish made out of old denim. Have you? By all means share links and ideas in the comments. I have a feeling there are far better industrial reuses for jeans than trying to squeeze a second fashionable life out of them. After all, the washes and colors are objectively so universally similar in virgin form, yet subtle differences act as dramatic markers of class, taste and hipness…

 

 

 

Weekly Compactor: Summer Fun Edition

Thursday, June 11, 2009
Cardboard surfboard frame via MAKE

Cardboard surfboard frame via MAKE

This week around the garblogosphere:

The Cardburg500

Friday, April 10, 2009

Check out this inspired event,  an exhilarating way to reuse old cardboard boxes and fashion them into something AWESOME like a windblower-powered vehicle. Rules and regs below. As they say “imagination and embellishment required”.

Wind Dragster Competition Rules and Regulations

Wind Dragster Competition Rules and Regulations

SanFran trashies, please attend and report back. These shenanigans are to be hosted by the Cardboard Institute of Technology, creators of such whimsical projects  as Death Cry of Recyclor and Welcome to Cardburg.

The recession will not be recycled

Monday, December 8, 2008
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Jodi Hilton for The New York Times

Uh oh, looks like trash ain’t worth what it used to be.  The Times reports today that recycled materials like plastic and cardboard, once sold as scap for  a profit, are piling up because no one wants to buy junk anymore.   It’s a development that sadly takes a big bite out of a cost/benefits argument for public recycling programs.  Cities don’t seem to be cutting back on collection just yet, but the figures are dramatic.

On the West Coast, for example, mixed paper is selling for $20 to $25 a ton, down from $105 in October, according to Official Board Markets, a newsletter that tracks paper prices. And recyclers say tin is worth about $5 a ton, down from $327 earlier this year. There is greater domestic demand for glass, so its price has not fallen as much.

Apparently China used to buy a lot of our junk but stopped doing so when the economy turned.  Perhaps the conversation can now turn to reducing the amount of junk Americans create in the first place.


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