Archive for the ‘Recycling’ CategoryWould you live in a house made out of hay? In Alabama, a group of professors and architecture students has been devising inspiring ways to reuse materials in homes and community buildings since 1993. The project is called Rural Studio, and was founded by Auburn University professors Samuel Mockbee and Dennis K. Ruth to give students practical experience in the field. Each year the group implements designs for four or five modest (but innovative) buildings in rural Alabama. Hale County, where the studio operates to the west of the University’s main campus, is one of the state’s poorer regions, with a significant proportion of its residents living below the poverty line. The Rural Studio aims to provide affordable yet well-constructed buildings for people in this community and impart lessons of social responsibility and fairness on its student participants, who leave school to live near the studio. To cut costs, many projects utilize found materials such as broken concrete, road signs, hay barrels, and salvaged wood. The Yancy Tire Chapel, for example, features walls made from 900 recycled tires, which were filled with dirt and tied together before being coated in stucco and topped with a roof of salvaged pine from a nearby house. The open-air chapel is built into a bluff overlooking a natural wetland landscape.
Another building, the Butterfly House, was built for Anderson and Ora Lee Harris in 1996 and is now occupied by the couple’s daughter. The placement of windows and walls in the house was carefully calculated so the interior may be heated and cooled passively, without use of mechanical power. Its roof is angled to collect water into a tank that may be used for laundry, and some of the siding was salvaged from a razed church.
Click here to see all nineteen years’ worth of projects!
Nov
21
Art with no limitsSome of the most unique pieces in the world are made by artists that take everyday things, that most people throw away, and make unbelievable art. The artists mind is the only limitation to his work, and these few artists have no limits. Their art enables you to look at things in a much deeper and meaningful way. Ha Schult, a German artists, is world renowned for his work with garbage. He has made “trash people” that have been featured in famous places throughout the world. The “trash people” are life sized and are made from mostly recycled cans and old computer parts, but Shult incorporates anything and everything that he finds. These statues make a definite statement, however, the meaning of that statement is left to individual interpretation.
Dr. Evermor has created the world’s largest metal scrap sculpture as well as an entire park devoted to his creations. The park is located in Wisconsin and it incorporates metal from as far back as the 1880’s. Dr. Evermor’s work began nearly 30 years ago with just a simple exhibition. Evermor always liked collecting odd metals and other objects. As time went on he let his inner child free and decided to make something extraordinary out of his hobby.
Based in London, Tim Noble and Sue Webster have created multiple exhibitions that allow people to see garbage in a beautiful way. They accomplish this by playing with light and shadow. They create art pieces that look like nothing more tha a pile of trash, but all it takes it the right amount of light to be able to see a shadows of the most amazing forms.
There are many other artists such as the ones described above. They all work to bring awareness to the growing problem of pollution and the importance of recycling, reusing and re-purposing your old materials. Along with conveying an important message, the artists are revolutionizing modern day art.
Oct
31
From Trash to TreasuresEco-friendly projects around the world are not only helping prevent further damage to our environment but are also improving the economy. All over Africa there are programs being developed to provide jobs to employe women and even children. The programs are designed to bring awareness to the unimaginable living conditions and the economic situations. BeadforLife is an organization that allows women to work. The women make bracelets, necklaces from recycled materials and even shea butter. The profits made from the sales are used to develop the community and enrich the lives of many women. Since the larger part of the population lives in extreme poverty, new members are always joining. The goal is not to give handouts or aid but to enable the members to live independently.
Fashion, Love, Africa is an another organization located in Kenya. Mothers, grandmothers who can not afford food or do not make a steady income are given an opportunity for work. They make purses from recycled consumer plastic bags. Each bag is unique and varies in size, shape and even color, since it is handmade. The ten dollars earned from each sale is put into a fund that will provide money for loan, child care, and relocation programs.
Programs like, the two described above, are a good way to help the people in countries that are suffering economically. It is also incredibly easy to contribute. You can volunteer, you can donate to the programs, and you can buy the products for you or your loved ones. A small purchase, such as a 5-15 dollar bracelet can change the lives of not only one, but several women in Uganda and other third world countries.
Sep
9
Donate Your Trash!
TerraCycle is a company that has been riding the eco friendly wave since 2002. Today TerraCycle has grown to be an international business. It produces everything from school products to organic soil. The reason this company is unique is for the fact that they use trash donated by people to make most of their products. TerraCycle collects recyclable and even not recyclable products.
TerraCycle not only offers great products but also
Did you know that the average American office worker uses about 500 disposable cups annually? 25 billion styrofoam cups end up in landfills every year, and the material they’re made from – polystyrene – does not biodegrade. Paper cups, due to the plastic resin liner that keeps them from melting makes them un-recyclable at most recycling facilities. What could be a possible solution? Recyclable cups. Companies such as Pepsi and Starbucks are pushing forward with such cups. Pepsi has announced that it has begun offering five options of eco-friendly, recyclable and compostable cups including clear plastic cups containing 20% post-consumer recycled content, biodegradable paper cups and wax cups made with plant-based materials sourced from sustainably managed forests. These fountain cups, printed with green imagery and environmental statements like “Wow, Our Cups are Fully Recyclable”, are now available at restaurants, stadiums, and theme parks. The cups also come with printed messages encouraging visits to Earth911.com to learn about how to properly dispose of waste. Starbucks aims to make all of its disposable cups, approximately 3 billion per year, fully recyclable by 2012. The company held a ‘Cup Summit’ in 2009, discussing ways in which it can improve those statistics, including sorting recyclable cups from waste that can’t be recycled and potentially turning the cups into pizza boxes. In April 2011, Starbucks kicked off a new coffee cup recycling initiative in British Columbia, placing customized multi-receptacle recycling bins at the front of each of its stores. All parts of each cup, including the lid and sleeve, will be recycled.
Jun
17
Toss with Care
From this emerged her ‘Toss with Care’ campaign and its trash can design. Nicole seeks to turn the act of throwing things away into a form of giving to the homeless. ‘Toss with Care’ seeks to “provide hungry and thirsty individuals with the leftovers that would otherwise have been discarded.” Currently several trash cans with this design has been placed in New York City and Nicole is documenting the reactions to the cans. To follow this project check out: tosswcare.com
Toss With Care from Nicole Howell on Vimeo. Check out these amazing homes made from reclaimed materials! Truly beautiful and unique. What to you think? One Man’s Trash is Another Man’s Treasure: From the New York Times
Dec
12
Green Christmas…Rent-A-TreeIf you celebrate Christmas, the Christmas tree is usually a big deal. Which is more eco-friendly–plastic or real trees? What to do with the real tree once the holiday is over? The Living Christmas company in California, near L.A., is renting out live, potted trees that customers can decorate and keep in their homes for the holidays, and then return to the company once their celebrations are over. The company then stores them and cares for the trees for the rest of the year, and the tree is again available for rent the next Christmas. They also deliver and pick up the tree for you!
This is all well and good, but what if you don’t live somewhere where this service is provided? You can always consider buying a Christmas tree and caring for it all year round, or making your own creation with trimmings and branches. Does the thought of giant garbage clumps in our oceans stress you out? “Garbage gyres” are made up of discarded plastics that are carried by currents and accumulate into huge patches (the one in the Pacific Ocean is estimated to be larger than the state of Texas–you can read more about gyres here.) A Swedish company called Electrolux has found a way to put these masses of plastic bits to use. Electrolux is producing vacuum cleaners made with plastic pieces collected from garbage gyres around the world. In fact, they produce five models, which each are made with plastic materials found in the garbage gyres of a different ocean. From an article on the Record Searchlight’s website: “The North Sea vacuum’s plastic — collected off the Swedish west coast — is a mixture of red, yellow, blue and white. The Indian Ocean model is made exclusively from the clear plastic water bottles that washed up on Thailand’s coast, not surprising, says Nord, given the region’s hot climate and large tourist industry. The Mediterranean Sea model resembles crumpled pieces of world globes, while the Pacific Ocean’s model is a more muted mixture with smaller plastic chunks. The Baltic Sea edition contains larger round pieces. Their collection was unique, said Nord. Electrolux invited island vacationers in that region to gather plastic for the collection.”
The vacuum cleaners aren’t going to be sold, but are instead meant to get attention for a very real and very large problem: we’re consuming and discarding plastics at an alarming rate, and need to start finding innovative ways of both decreasing our waste and putting it to use. What other ways have you seen garbage repurposed into something useful?
Oct
17
Welcome To The Blue House
Located on Steiger island, one of seven man-made islands located in the Amsterdam IJburg lakes, this beautiful, fascinating home boasts a deep blue facade and some pretty cool eco-friendly features. This building, a product of the visions of architect Peter Weijnen of Faro Architecten in the Netherlands, captures rainwater to use in its toilets and washing machine, large windows open up to the South to let in light and warmth, and the ventilation system is based upon old Arabian cooling towers!
The interior also features recycled materials, like the beams made from old wood bollards taken from nearby IJ Lake, and copper taken from an old church roof reused to make the suspended kitchen/living area ceiling. Faro Architecten has other, equally impressive sustainable projects you can see on their website (here’s the English version). |
Not recyclable products such as tooth brushes, or bags from chips and candy wrappers are used to make/decorate various other products. For example, you can see a jewel case made from Cheetos bags, or a tote bag from Capri Sun packages. These items are truly one of a kind. Along with these products TerraCycle also carries fertilizer, household products and even fences. Everything you might want or need you can find on their 
opportunity for people to be more environmentally conscientious. It is incredibly easy to join the team, all you have to do is sign up, collect trash and then send it to the company headquarters. Not only will you be helping cleaning up our environment, but also with your help 
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