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Showing posts with label recycling craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recycling craft. Show all posts

15 March 2012

Take 3 initiative & single use plastics



Story by Biome's Online Manager:  Some of the Biome team recently attended a screening of the documentary BAG IT, which was promoted by Queensland Conservation and TAKE 3.

We learned how garbage and litter flows from our waterways out to sea and the harm it causes to water birds and sea life as well as our fragile ocean eco systems.

Turtles, who apparently eat everything, are attracted to floating plastic bags because they look like jelly fish.  While, all over the Pacific, albatross chicks are fed junk by their parents who mistake pieces of plastic for food and bring them back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year thousands of baby birds die from starvation, toxicity, and choking.  Carcases of these birds are found decaying with bits of plastic sitting in their stomach cavities still perfectly in tact.


 
TAKE 3 is “A Clean Beach Initiative” where you are encouraged to take at least 3 pieces of rubbish when you leave the beach, waterway or anywhere. You may not have put the rubbish there but you have the ability to take it away and make a difference. If we participate in this simple act and pass on this message we can help stop the damage our litter is causing to our fragile oceans and waterways.

There is no "away"
The documentary BAG IT is a light hearted look at the effect our addiction to single use packaging has in the world. We saw that although we think we are doing the “right thing” by recycling, most plastics are in fact not recyclable and get filtered into landfill.  Further, a huge amount of our “unwashed” plastics are being shipped to China and India to be processed in deplorable conditons.  Container ships are full when they come here carrying fast moving consumer goods, but they are empty on the return leg.  This makes it an inexpensive prospect to ship our garbage around the world to be processed by cheap labour, starting with sorting the heaps of stinking waste.  

The better solution is clearly to avoid plastics in the first place, or to re-use plastics many times before they are sent to "recycling".

Things you can do
  • TAKE 3 - pick up other people's rubbish. We can greatly reduce the amount of marine debris in our oceans by preventing it from getting there in the first place.
  • Reduce & re-use - use your reusable shopping bags and Onya Weigh grocery bags instead of plastic bags.
  • Take your own container to the grocery store and shop from the Deli for meats and cheeses, or take them to the take-away from where you buy lunch and Friday night Thai. You can use stainless steel lunchboxes or glass containers that are BPA free.  
  • Sign a petition to support the introduction of acontainer deposit system in Australia which will significantly increase the recycling rates of glass, plastic and aluminium drink containers. 
  • Small plastic caps are not recyclable for many reasons, so although it's hard to believe, the responsible consumers are the ones who throw their plastic caps and lids into the rubbish instead of the recycling bin!  For this reason, try not to buy things with small plastic lids or get creative with them instead of throwing them away. 
  • Watch the BAG IT documentary.  Find our where it is screening in Australia hosted by Tim Silverwood or visit the official BAG IT movie site.

 
You know how handmade soap gets all goopey on a soap dish? It’s because the soap sits in water and makes your lovely soap disappear faster. You can make this little soap dish with plastic lids that would usually be thrown away, to keep your soap dry by allowing excess water to drain away faster.


Here's another cool way to reuse your plastic drink bottles and lids. Vertical herb gardens are great for small spaces like balconies. 

16 November 2010

Makedo for kids who just love to make-do with stuff around them


A genius Australian invention, Makedo helps children (and adults!) learn about reuse and recycling in a playful way.  Makedo is a set of reusable connectors for making things from the stuff around you. With the Makedo gadgets and found materials like cardboard boxes and plastic containers, the whole family can construct amazing inventions.  The video shows it better than words can explain!



1 min crash course from MAKEDO on Vimeo.


Makedo and its Australian designer, Paul Justin are being talked about all over the design world.  From Core77 design magazine
MakeDo is a new kind of Lego: a kit of parts serving as connectors for creations made from recycled cardboard and other cheap, readily-available materials. The kits wisely build on the concept that if you give kids a fancy new toy, they'll be bored in an hour, but give them a cardboard box and they'll play all day. Kids, and maybe all of us (as proven by the Maker Faire), respond best when given the tools to find the answer rather than the answer itself.


Makedo makes it onto Biome's Top Green Gift Ideas List for 2010.  Visit our Green Christmas section for Christmas decorations and entertaining.

17 June 2009

Continuous loop of Reverse Garbage

We're having a big clear out trying valiantly to stop our home looking like a staging warehouse for the stores. I heard that environmentalists are the worst hoarders because they can not bear to send anything to landfill. That gave me great peace-of-mind about my compulsion. The guilt I feel when I sneak a large plastic kid's toy into the wheelie bin almost buries me. What do you do with a plastic toy piano that is completely broken? Can’t go to the Salvos because it doesn’t work, it has embedded components that can’t be recycled and no plastics recycling symbol.

We can finally be rid of the old printers, computers and faxes in our garage because at Greenfest I found Buyequip, who take it all. Incidentally, does it alarm anyone else that you can buy a fax machine at Officeworks for $95? Break that down into retailer margin (guessing 40% of $95), transport costs to Australia, materials and factory running costs, and it does not leave much for the wages of the people that assembled it. And, when it breaks (quite readily), it costs more to repair than buy a new one. So off it goes to landfill...

Back to the clear out, which reminded me about the wonderful not-for-profit co-operative, Reverse Garbage. They take all manner of industrial discards that people then purchase for schools and other creative endeavours. In my case, it is a continuous loop. I take stuff to Reverse Garbage that in their words is “waste that is too good to waste” and while I am there can’t resist a few must-haves (“I just know those cardboard pipes and plastic discs will be great for a store display one day”). Then, here I am 12 months later, donating those same items back to Reverse Garbage. Of course, I can’t leave without one quick circuit around the shelves - and so it continues.... The photos here are from their website, which also lists what they accept and sell and Eco-art School Holiday workshops. Surely you could find a use for those eyes!

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