Brooklyn Dumpster Swimming Pool Idea Could Go Nationwide

Intrepid hipsters have turned dumpsters into an urban version of pickup truck swimming pools, secreted away in a hush-hush location in Brooklyn.  What was formerly just a chained-off lot hidden from the street in an industrial part of town is now a “lo-fi country club” with three connected dumpster pools, a boccie court, lounge chairs, grills and cabanas – and this idea might just spread to strip malls across the U.S.

From Treehugger:

As ReadyMade first reported a couple of weeks ago, the idea began in Athens, Georgia. Jocko Weyland, a skater and author, discovered some Dumpster pools made by Curtis Crowe of the band Pylon. The pools have a few years’ history at a smaller scale, and Jocko decided to try them in the wilds of Brooklyn.

He and friends formed a company, Macro-Sea, and, with volunteers, a couple thousand dollars and the donation of roll-off Dumpster, they managed to set up everything in 12 days.

To make it a pool, they sealed the seams, added a liner, filled the bottom with sand, rounded down the interior edges, added a filter, thousands of gallons of water. All that was left was a discreet invite to a few dozen people.

Macro-Sea now plans to use the project as a template for a larger idea: turning strip malls into community destinations complete with green space, skate parks, amphitheaters and artist residences using as many cast-off materials as possible.  They hope to open their first repurposed shipping center in Atlanta this fall, with dozens of dumpster pools in the parking lot that visitors can rent by the day.

What a fun way to use stuff that would otherwise be considered ‘junk’. We can’t wait to see what Macro-Sea comes up with in Atlanta – we’ll keep you posted!

Link [Treehugger] + [The New York Times] + [ReadyMade]

Businesses Turn to Dumpster Diving to Save Money

Dumpster diving isn’t just for freegans and gutter punks anymore. Businesses are starting to see the benefits of assessing what they’re throwing away and whether they could save money by changing their ways – and that involves taking a stinky tour of their own dumpsters.

Burt’s Bees is one notable example of a company that “found money in a dumpster”. Employees donned hazmat suits and sloshed through two weeks’ worth of trash to find recycling opportunities that could cut expenses. What they found saved them $25,000.

From GreenBiz.com:

With many corporations setting sustainability goals of curbing trash and improving recycling, the dumpster dive is an instructive way of guiding them to hit those targets.

Businesses are also finding new revenue streams in their garbage by taking items that were hauled away to the landfill in the past and instead selling them to someone else for cash — a boon is a slow economy. In addition, many companies seeking LEED certification are sifting through their trash as part of waste stream audits to earn credits toward that seal of approval from the U.S. Green Building Council.

While there may be a certain “yuck” factor to picking through your company’s garbage, experts insist the exercise makes a strong impression on employees that can inspire behavior change with far greater impact than any written report or e-mail alert, Norman says.

Burt’s Bees has a goal of sending zero waste to landfills by 2020, and they managed to get their 40 tons of waste per month down to 10 within 18 months. Then they got stuck, hence the dumpster diving. They saved their trash for two weeks and sorted through it to find items that should have been recycled and items that could be recycled if they could find the proper facilities. The company views the effort as a way to teach their 300-plus employees to be more careful about what they’re throwing away.

GreenBiz.com has several more examples of how companies managed to save lots of money and meet sustainability goals at the same time. It’s inspiring stuff, and business owners should definitely give it a read. It’s important for people to realize that being more mindful of the waste we produce can not only keep millions of tons of trash from sitting in a landfill indefinitely, it can save us money, too.

Link [GreenBiz.com]
Photo credit: Flickr user Lunauna

Recycling Dumpsters for Use as Gardens, Skateboard Ramps & Swimming Pools

This gives ‘dumpster diving’ a whole new meaning: getting somebody’s unwanted used dumpster and turning it into a swimming pool.  Or, perhaps your urban apartment building doesn’t have any green space, and you’d love to stretch out on some grass for a picnic just a few steps from the front door.  Just fill up one of these giant waste receptacles with some dirt and plant some green things, and you’ll have an insta-lawn.

This is one of two proposals unveiled by design graduate Oliver Bishop-Young for the reuse of dumpsters (referred to as ‘skips’ across the pond).   Aside from the above-mentioned creative reuses, Bishop-Young proposes a website where people can detail the contents of their dumpsters so that other people can scavenge it.  The database would be searchable by a variety of filters including item or location (a temporary demo can be viewed here).

What an awesome idea! There are so many items thrown into landfills every day that could easily find a new home if people just had a chance to grab it.  Free stuff and less waste – who could complain?

Link [Environmental Graffiti]
Photo credit: dezeen.com