British Robot Raps About Recycling

Nothing makes kids want to recycle like a rapping robot with a British accent. At least, that seems to be the thinking behind this weird and funny video of an educational presentation by The Housing Education Initiative – made just a little bit stranger by the robot’s sign-spinning backup dancer.

Hey, whatever works! Back in the dark ages when I was in school, recycling education consisted of falling asleep during a lecture. Robots make pretty much everything cooler.

Link [YouTube]

Empty Pockets? Recycle These Items for Cash

Nobody’s going to get rich collecting cans and turning them in for cash, but you can definitely get some pocket change, and who doesn’t want some more of that? EcoSalon has a great list of 15 items that you can recycle for cash, helping the environment and gaining some cash at the same time – and many of them are probably sitting in your garage right now.

From EcoSalon:

Printer Cartridges

Hang on to your empty printer cartridges and send them in to be recycled by eCycle Group or similar programs. While you’re at it, get your office in on the action, too. You can also bring them to a nearby Staples, but you’ll receive store credit instead of cash.

PCs and Laptops

Computers become obsolete quickly, and that means more outdated electronics in the landfill. But, it doesn’t have to be. Send in your old laptop or personal computer to Gazelle or search online for similar sites to get money back.

Cell Phones

My puppy recently mistook my cell phone for a chew toy. When I told a friend, she told me that I could send it in to Buy My Tronics for cash – even if it’s mangled beyond recognition.

That’s just three examples – head on over to EcoSalon.com for another 12!

Link [EcoSalon]
Photo credit: kennymatic

From Demolition to Art: Upcycled Creations by Michael Yonke

Artist and ‘upcycler’ Michael Yonke turns reclaimed wood harvested generations ago into stunning, high-end eco-friendly art and furniture. All of his designs have an upcycled material content from 90 to 99 percent and have a modern aesthetic that reaches beyond the rustic look commonly found in upcycled furniture.

The austere geometric designs paired with perfectly polished and stained wood give these pieces, which include chairs, tables, benches and wall art, a sense of sophisticated simplicity.

You can see Yonke’s work in person right now at the Atrium Gallery at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. The exhibit, “Reclaim, Reuse, Renew”, will be up until September 26th. Many pieces are also available in his Etsy shop.

Link [Upcycler.com]

Chic Recycled Paper Jewelry by Sandra Di Giacinto

Who knew that paper could create such beautiful and surprisingly durable jewelry? Italian designer and sculpture artist Sandra Di Giacinto has turned her fascination with recycled materials into a collection of colorful, lightweight, incredibly unique adornments that are hand-made in limited editions.

Di Giacinto’s work speaks to the versatility and potential of recycled materials – they can be upcycled in the most unexpected ways. See the full collection at SandraDiGiacinto.it.

Link [Sandra Di Giacinto] via [Great Green Goods]

7 Amazing Handmade Eco-Friendly Homes

Long before anyone thought of the term ‘green building’, there were handmade houses created with sustainability, respect for the land, and the pride of creating something by oneself as high priorities. Such handmade houses have been around since the dawn of man, but they saw a resurgence – and a new wave of creativity – starting in the 1960s.

The home shown above is one of many featured in the book ‘Handmade Houses: A Guide to Woodbutcher’s Art.’ Now out of print, this cult favorite features everything from tiny cabins to gigantic treehouses, all made by hand in Northern California in the 60s and 70s.

Dug into a hillside in Wales, this low-impact woodland home combines some of the aesthetics from those California homes with partially underground ‘Hobbit House’ feel. Mud and tree trunks from the property, as well as lots of straw bales and lime plaster, were the main materials used in addition to plastic roof sheeting, wooden pallet floors and junkyard finds like windows and wiring.

Built primarily by a man and his father, this handmade woodland home was built with just a handful of common tools like a chainsaw, hammer and chisel. All told, it cost just £3000. Plans and many more photos are available at the website.

Another low-budget but charming eco dwelling is Steve James’ Scotland home, which bore a price tag of roughly £4,000 along with a lot of hard work and ingenuity. In fact, James says he could have saved about £1,000 if he had cut the wood himself instead of going to a sawmill. It took the software engineer about 10 months to build and he now has a website, envisioneer.net, which guides others through the process.

Back in the ‘70s, a man named Michael Reynolds began building what he called ‘earthships’ in New Mexico, self-sufficient passive-solar home made out of recycled and natural materials. The central building blocks of these off-grid homes are recycled car tires filled with local soil. The tires, along with recycled glass bottles and aluminum cans, absorb heat during the day and radiate it into the homes once the temperature drops.

Eliphante is a handmade home built by Michael Kahn and Leda Livant in Cornville, Arizona beginning in 1979. Kahn and Livant created the home over 28 years using mostly found materials. As the couple stacked stone, created complex driftwood arches and glass mosaics and arranged recycled and reclaimed materials in free-flowing patterns, a shape reminiscent of an elephant emerged – hence the name.

Eliphante is a work of art in itself – a strange, meandering, dreamlike work of art peppered with the surreal and incongruous, like the astroturf that lines the yard. See more photos at Eliphante.org.

Perhaps the strangest of the many amazing handmade houses in the world is the ‘Mystery Castle’. One day in 1927, Boyce Luther Gulley got some bad news: he had tuberculosis, and if he didn’t leave Seattle, it would kill him fast. Gulley walked out of his doctor’s office and disappeared.

Then, fifteen years later, his daughter was contacted by a lawyer in Arizona: she apparently owned a home there. Gulley had spent the remainder of his life creating an 18-room mansion made of stone, adobe, car parts and other natural and recycled materials. Furthermore, when he left Seattle that day, he walked all the way to Arizona. His daughter had asked him shortly before his diagnosis if he would build her a castle, and he did.

Biodegradable Lids Turn Tin Cans into Useful Household Containers

Many a green home has repurposed tin cans in various rooms, holding pencils or kitchen utensils. But what if you could just pop lids onto them and make them even more versatile, so they can be used as surprisingly chic vases, toothbrush holders and soap dispensers?

Northumbria University graduate Jack Bresnahan designed this set of nine biodegradable plastic lids for tin cans, exhibiting them at graduate show New Designers in July.

From Dezeen:

Green issues are at the heart of everything that Jack Bresnahan does.  A passionate believer that designers  must take responsibility for their designs from conception to disposal, Jack feels that ‘anything that ends up in landfill is simply poor design’.

His aim through his designs is to create products that make environmentally friendly goods more accessible and help to make day to day living greener. This is not a blinkered crusade however, as while his designs are always created within a green framework he balances this with a drive to develop products that are both useful and good to look at.

Not only do the lids decompose, unlike regular plastic, they turn tin cans into modern home accents that resemble expensive designer stainless steel products. Since the lids themselves are small, they use fewer resources to create than standard household organizers – plus, they take tin cans out of the waste stream.

This is definitely one concept that needs to be in stores ASAP!

Link [Dezeen]

Himane: Eco-Couture Made from Recycled Umbrella Fabric

Don’t toss that broken umbrella! While having it repaired may not be a feasible option for most people, the fabric can be recycled in unexpected and beautiful ways. New Yorkers can bring their broken umbrellas to a kiosk at Grand Central to embark upon new lives as fashionable totes and handbags.

Local Labels, a shop that sells products made within the New York City area, has teamed up with designer Catherine Edouard-Charlot to collect used and broken umbrellas and refashion them into bags that fashion-forward New Yorkers will be proud to carry.

Edouard-Charlot is the founder of Himane, a design label that upcycles fabric into beautiful new items like dresses, jackets and other clothing items. The dress, jacket and tote bag pictured above are all made from umbrella fabric that would otherwise have been sent to a landfill.

Not only are the designs hot, they’re durable and waterproof, too. Check out the whole collection at Himane.com

Link [Himane] with thanks to [EcoSalon]

Subway Car Reef Project Fails Spectacularly

In an ECO FAIL of grand proportions, the project that aimed to recycle used subway cars into habitats for marine life has ultimately resulted in more junk floating around in the ocean. New Jersey paid millions to have the old subway cars shipped from other states and sunk into the ocean off the coast of Delaware, but the stainless steel cars quickly disintegrated.

Only two of the 48 cars that were submerged are still upright and intact. The Press of Atlantic City spoke to Darlene Yuhas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had estimated they would serve as good reef habitat for 25 to 30 years.

“All the evidence suggested they would be long-lasting. In fact, the EPA data was these cars should last 25 years,” Yuhas said.

Other East Coast states that took the subway cars have reported similar problems.

The state DEP has done more surveys since February and has decided to end the program after cars were only deployed at the Atlantic City Reef and the Cape May Reef, which is about 9.1 nautical miles off Cold Spring Inlet. Cars had been earmarked for three other reefs, including the Shark River, Garden State South and Deepwater reefs, before the termination.

“We did in fact notify the New York Transit Authority that we would no longer be accepting their cars,” Yuhas said.

As Shea Gunther points out over at MNN, we tried something like this before and made a big mess instead of helping marine life. The tires that were dumped into the sea off Florida’s coast in the 1970s to act as an artificial reef broke apart and caused damage to actual living reefs nearby. It’s probably just not a great idea to dump our crap into the oceans, no matter what it’s made out of.

Link [MNN] + [Press of Atlantic City]
Photo credit: NJ.com

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]

LCD Display Screens Recycled into Medicine

It’ll barely make a dent, but e-waste dumping sites may soon have one less item in their midst. A chemical found in LCD display screens can be recycled into surprising new items including medicine and bandages.

From EurekAlert, via Earth911:

The chemical compound polyvinyl-alcohol (PVA) is widely used in industry and is a key element of television sets with liquid crystal display (LCD) technology. When these sets are thrown away, the LCD panels are usually incinerated or buried in landfill sites.

Researchers have now found a way of recovering PVA from television screens and transforming it into a substance suitable for use in tissue scaffolds which help parts of the body regenerate. It can also be used in pills and dressings that are designed to deliver drugs to particular parts of the body.

Professor James Clark, director of the York Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence and one of the author’s of the research, said: “With 2.5 billion liquid crystal displays already reaching the end of their life, and LCD televisions proving hugely popular with consumers, that is a huge amount of potential waste to manage.

Pretty interesting stuff. Any time we can transform a waste product into a usable product – especially when it’s being upcycled – is a triumph for sustainability.

Link [Earth911]
Photo credit: Flickr user mcbarnicle

DIY Green Home: Wine Bottle Modular Shelving

If you’ve got a drill, some planks of wood and a collection of empty wine bottles, you can create simple and free modular shelves that are actually quite stylish. Instructables has easy step-by-step directions for the ‘Ten Green Modular Shelving’.

From Instructables:

Ten Green is a modular shelving system, constructed simply from local recyclates.

This prototype was built with the Coach House Trust in Glasgow, using bottles from their recycling centre, and wood from the maintenance of their own sites. You can use any found timber, and adapt the dimensions to suit the wood you are working with.

And hey, if you don’t have any empty wine bottles, there’s never been a better excuse to throw a party or try out a bunch of new varieties. If you’re not a lush, local restaurants would undoubtedly be happy to unload some of their recyclables.

Link [Instructables]

There, I Fixed It: Ingenious (And Sometimes Crazy) Ways to Keep Using Broken Stuff

We’ve got a big problem in America with thinking of virtually everything we own as being disposable. If something breaks, few of us bother to try to fix it – instead, we put it out by the curb and run to Wal-Mart to replace it. So, those people who manage to keep using stuff throughout its entire life cycle and way (way) beyond are to be commended – even if sometimes, their jury-rigged creations are a bit scary.

A website called “There, I Fixed It” is an awesome online gallery of unbelievable MacGuyvered objects, from a bed held up with a car jack to a Pringles can used to replace an intake tube in a car engine. Be warned, you will get sucked in and forget all about what you were supposed to be doing.

Here’s to the uber-creative people who risk their own safety to keep stuff out of landfills (even if their motivation is just being cheap)!

Link [There, I Fixed It]

Twisted Jewelry Made from Recycled Forks

Who would have thought that old, used forks could be used to create things that are so beautiful? Dr. Gus transforms unwanted silver-plated forks into one-of-a-kind pendants – like those spoon rings that were popular in the ‘90s, only cooler.

Some feature tines that have been delicately bent and twisted to achieve unique shapes, while others hold gemstones like turquoise and obsidian. Prices range from $10.99 – $19.99. Check them all out at Dr. Gus’ Etsy Shop.

Link [Dr. Gus] via [Great Green Goods]

Recycled Car Tire Furniture by Kitsch-U-Like

While you probably wouldn’t find these items in a Dwell-reading décor snob’s home anytime soon, this recycled car tire furniture would be fabulous in the right setting. It’s certainly unique, and a great way to keep tires from piling up in landfills. The stool is £35.00, the table £45.00.

Check out more awesomely creative recycled furniture designs over at WebEcoist.

Link [Kitsch-U-Like] via [Great Green Goods]

Useless: Are We Consumers or People?

Are you sick of being labeled a ‘consumer’, with all that it implies? We still have to buy stuff, but perhaps if we thought of ourselves as people instead of consumers, we’d start behaving like conscious individuals instead of a mindless mob.

A company called USELESS – that is, use less – is dedicated to reducing the impacts of irresponsible consumerism and helping those in the developing world who lack the basic necessities to lead healthy lives. Wait a minute – a for-profit company that sells products, telling people to use less? Does that even make sense?

Max Gladwell got some details in an interview with USELESS co-founder Mark Simmons:

Two years ago I was working with Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection trying to work out what to say about climate change that would get people from all walks of life involved to help solve the crisis. I saw that, while many people thought of climate change as a left wing conspiracy, they all felt, regardless of their political views, that we Americans use too much stuff. The thought of “use less” lodged in my mind and a year later when I was trying to develop a brand around reducing use of disposable water bottles and bags it struck me that “useless” would be a perfect name because on the face of it, while it is quite negative, if you scratch just below the surface you see it’s not negative at all, it’s a positive way to message about the desire to use less. And if on the one hand we in the developed world are using too much stuff and that’s contributing to climate change, on the other hand there are people in the developing world who are going without the very basics of life such as clean water and sanitation. In fact, 2.6 billion lack proper sanitation and resulting diseases is the biggest killer of children under five. So there is a natural counter-point to use less, which is to give more. The pieces then all fit into place for me. The brand would be called USELESS and its mission would be to help people USE LESS and GIVE MORE in a cool, thought-provoking way.

The point is, we can buy things that were made responsibly and will last a long time, thus reducing our own waste output and helping to improve the lives of other people around the world. USELESS sells t-shirts, hoodies, hats, messenger bags, reusable water bottles and other items that are made to last in the USA from organic, recycled or recyclable materials. 10% of the profits from USELESS sales go to water and sanitation projects.

Learn more about USELESS at Max Gladwell and check out the selection at USELESS.org.

Link [Max Gladwell] + [USELESS]

Seven Fun and Creative Eco-Friendly Business Cards

Why stop at printing on recycled card stock when you could make your business card super eco-friendly, creative and memorable all at once? After all, business cards are a dime a dozen – most of them go into your wallet and aren’t taken out again until you’re cleaning it out and ready to throw them away. These seven green business card ideas are definitely outside the box, making an impression that will last much longer than most.

Blooms When Dipped in Water

Seed packets or cards with seeds embedded in them are a popular eco option, but two ultra-creative takes on this idea caught our eye. The first is a growing business card by designer Jamie Wieck that acts as a mini-houseplant, blooming when the packet is dipped in water.

Next up is a card design that isn’t just green and eye-catching, but perfectly sums up what the business is all about. Landscape architecture firm Tur & Partner created this seeded business card that sprouts up a miniature garden when exposed to light and water.

Making it Your Own

What do you do when you make an important contact but are caught without your business cards? Reach for one of the ones you’ve already got in your wallet, scribble out the info and fill in your own. Just try not to hand your ‘recycled’ business card back to the person who gave it to you in the first place.

A Card with Many Uses

This concept, by designer Ji-Young Chun, was intended for use as a credit card, but it could definitely apply to business cards as well. If something has more than one use, people are going to be less likely to throw it away.

Of course, multi-use business cards are greener when they’re made using items that have a smaller ecological footprint in the first place, like secondhand household objects that somebody will actually find handy and keep. Clothespins, like the one seen above, are a great example.

Just Eat It

Okay, so this one is kind of counterproductive. As soon as someone eats it, your contact info is gone. But the concept is definitely an attention-getter, and they’re biodegradable, so that’s worth something, right?

Stamp on Scraps

Perhaps the greenest idea of all, this business card by Fischer Portugal can be created anytime, anywhere on just about any kind of material. A hand-held rubber stamp imprints your important details on scraps of cardboard, flyers, envelopes, receipts or whatever you might have on hand.

Junktion Breathes New Life into Trashed Furniture

We’ve all seen junky furniture on the curb and thought, could we salvage that? But the average person is more than a little intimidated by all the sanding and upholstering that most furniture rehab jobs require. Lucky for us, a company called Junktion does the hard work, turning flea market finds into fun, modern furniture and accessories.

From Inhabitat:

These designers take everyday objects out of their original context, like these funky lamps made from old rotary telephone heads and electrical parts. Their creative use of reclaimed materials challenges previous ideas of function and infuses them with a new narrative that re-addresses the value of discarded trash and its inherent nostalgia. In their own words, “People love seeing objects in new ways—stuff that makes us think; stuff that makes us act; stuff that makes us laugh.”

Inspired by items from the past, they get their materials from flea markets all over the world. Each piece is handmade and carefully finished to appear natural in their newfound state. These modern chairs made from old bicycle parts conjure fond memories of summer days and sticky vinyl banana seats, while evoking an elegant maturity far from our former adolescent taste.

Junktion is in Tel Aviv, Israel – but maybe these photos will inspire some creative recyclers closer to home to make some of their own whimsical recycled furniture.

Link [Inhabitat] + [Junktion]

Gardening, Recycling and Nudity, Oh My

So, we’ve heard of gardening nude… a couple was recently in the news for doing and there’s even a World Naked Gardening Day (link NSFW)… but we’ve never seen it used as a marketing tool. Until now.

Woolly Pockets creates these awesome soft-sided gardening containers made from 100% recycled plastic bottles, allowing you to create beautiful vertical gardens even with minimal gardening skills. And the photos just happen to have naked people in them.

From Woolly Pockets, via Treehugger:

Woolly Pockets are flexible, breathable, and modular gardening containers. They`come in two styles: those designed to be placed on horizontal surfaces, and those designed to be hung on walls for vertical gardening. You can use Woolly Pockets both indoors and out; they have built-in moisture barriers to help protect furniture, and they’re equally at home outside in the elements. They’re perfect for creating urban gardens where you have space to garden but no land to garden in. Woolly Pockets are lightweight and can be folded flat, which makes them very easy to use, move, and store just about anywhere.

Woolly Pockets have two main components: the breathable felt and the built-in moisture barrier. The breathable portion is made of 100% recycled plastic bottles that have been industrially felted. The moisture barrier is made according to military standards for impermeability from 60% recycled plastic bottles. We stitch each pocket together by hand with a double lock stitch and strong, UV-resistant nylon thread.

This is a pretty awesome way to cover an ugly wall or fence, provide more privacy, and get a good yield of herbs or vegetables out of a small outdoor space.

We’ll refrain from making a joke about woolly pockets and naked people. Just enjoy the strange but totally awesome photos.

Link [Woolly Pockets] via [Treehugger]

Family Recycles Deconstructed Home for $100,000

Taking the time to carefully deconstruct a home instead of just tearing it down can pay off big. Just ask Mike and Tricia Barry, who prevented tons of waste from ending up in landfills and pocketed a cool $100,000 for their efforts.

The Barrys took the home apart piece by piece and donated the materials to non-profit organizations to be recycled into new homes.

From the Seattle Times, via Earth911:

The double-pane windows were sturdy, Barry says, as were the newer appliances and some of the wood. Surely someone would want them.

Usable wood from the house’s frame was stacked on pallets, while damaged wood was thrown into a wood chipper to be used as landscaping material or for particle board.

Heating vents and doors were recycled. The nails were taken out one by one and collected with a giant magnet.

After the house was stripped, California Deconstruction and Building Materials ReUse Network picked up the materials and brought them to Habitat for Humanity and other organizations, including Corazón, which helps build homes for people in northern Baja California, Mexico.

“I’d say 80 to 85 percent of the Barry house was reused,” says Gerald Long, of the nonprofit network. “Even the copper plumbing was recycled, the bricks were saved and all the interior fixtures were saved.”

What a responsible, admirable thing to do. Though deconstruction costs more – at $23,000 compared to $14,00 – and takes about two weeks longer than demolition, the tax write-off certainly made it worth the extra time.

And now, needy families in Mexico will have a place to live – made of recycled materials, no less! We’d love to see this trend catch on. Many cities and counties across the U.S. are starting to require recycling from people who want to tear down all or part of their homes, so it may become commonplace before we know it.

Link [Seattle Times] via [Earth911]

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