E-Waste Dilemma

This Saturday, November 15 is Americal Recycles Day and I was planning to take a trunk full of E-Waste (broken radios, calculators, toaster oven, lamp) to a local high school which is collecting it to recycle. However, this Sunday’s episode of 60 Minutes made me question whether this action is simply dumping the [...]

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The Bottle Project

Somehow, I managed to miss all pre-press about The Bottle Project in Atlanta, an installation in a park walking distance to my house. Last night, I was walking over there, and happened upon part of it that remains – it was supposed to be installed through September, but it looks like the Department [...]

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The Story of Stuff

If you have not yet seen The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard, I highly recommend it. It’s a clever 20-minute video about the production/consumption/disposal cycle and what it is doing to the earth and to people. A la An Inconvenient Truth, you can sign up to host a screening (some schools have [...]

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A better use for juice pouches

This article in yesterday’s New York Times about concert pianist Soyeon Lee’s efforts to raise awareness about recycling and reusing was really neat. She wears gowns made from recycled juice pouches and plays pieces that have been “recycled”. After watching the Story of Stuff together, my daughter and I decided not to use juice boxes [...]

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Toxic Reef – Hyperbolic Crochet

I’ve been following the work of Margaret and Christine Wertheim, founders of the Institute for Figuring, for a few years now. I tried my own hand at hyperbolic crochet, and was invited by Margaret to contribute to her coral reef project. At one point, I had intended to make something of the collection [...]

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StartMotions

Finally, some more trashy art! Via the NRDC magazine, OnEarth, I learned of StartMotions a studio that generates stop-motion animation films of animals made from trash!
The studio’s mission is:
We create fun and entertaining animations that inform and enthuse audiences around the world about animals, plants, and the environment. We explore [...]

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Natural beauty

Photo by R.W. Scott
This morning, a beautiful hummingbird came to my kitchen window to inquire as to why I had not yet provided the customary sweet water? So, I promptly corrected the error, of course!  I normally feed the hummingbirds sugar water (1 part sugar to 3-4 parts water) from May through September.
Did you [...]

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Artful trashcans

via ecorazzi
These beautiful trash cans were designed by artists commissioned by TRASHed for the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. I’m sorely tempted to try to decorate my city-issued trash can thusly.
From the TRASHed website:
The TRASHed campaign is a year long trash education program developed by Fashion Peace that redefines the way people and [...]

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Trashball

Trashballs
An interesting artist was featured in today’s New York Times. Christopher Goodwin is a junk truck driver who scavenges for interesting pieces of trash, packages them in round plastic balls, and fills gumball dispenses with them. People buy these mementos for fifty cents a apiece. According to the NYT:
Though some admirers see [...]

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PET Project

How beautiful is this?

Miwa Koizumi is an artist, and one of her projects is the PET project, a re-use of plastic containers to create sea creatures and arrange them in aquarium-like settings.
Koizumi says:
I love the idea of using liquid containers to make water animals. Contained/containing, trash/not-trash, like the jelly-fish or anemone: Living/non-living
She has [...]

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