Plastic Works

The AP ran a great feature today on the Indonesian company, Plastic Works, which buys plastic trash from trash pickers and employs locals to make it into bags and other brightly colored goods to sell.  Remember those cute Jakarta umbrellas from Monsoon Vermont?

Beer bottle roof detail

Remember that guy who made solar panels out of beer bottles to heat his mom’s shower? Well, the Green Garbage Blog found another photo of the project, which shows close up how it was constructed. Yay for garblogging. Here it is.

Weekly Compactor

This week in trash news:

• The People Improvement Organization opens a school in one of Cambodia’s largest dumps;
• The WSJ discovers eco-consumerism;
• Latin America Press profiles the carteneros;
• Germans find profit in the Naples trash crisis;
• Also in Italy, Sardinians block trash hauling in Cagliari; and
• Kyiv, Ukraine is the 26th dirtiest city in the world (Baku, Azerbaijan is #1).

Photo of Baku via advantour.com (apparently it doesn’t look dirty at night and from the sky).

66 bottles of beer on the roof

My friend Joe of Beer at Joe’s tipped me off to this story relevant to both of our blogs: a solar water heater made out of old beer bottles.  Love it!

Weekly Compactor

This week in trash news:

• Confidential plans for NYC’s Freedom Tower found in the trash;
• Soldiers clean up Hawaii for Earth Day;
• The Japanese plan to reduce trash by 60%;
• Trash and corruption plague Indonesia; and
• Utah takes controversial nuclear waste from Italy.

(Photo by Mark Lennihan for the AP)

Reblogging: Edible Tableware

Check out this TreeHugger post on dishes and chopsticks made by a Japanese company out of biscuit dough…perfect for zero waste picnics!

Photo via dezeen

Weekly Compactor

This week in trash news:

• The Italian army begins cleanup in Naples while non-trahsies around the world catch on to the ongoing trash crisis;
• Organizers in the Philippines call for a green counter-celebration to clean up after a trash-generating religious feast; and
• New York City will soon require big stores to provide plastic bag recycling.

Weekly Compactor

  This week in trash news:

• Connecticut trashdaddy convicted of  racketeering;
• The government of Uganda and the World Bank invest in manure;
• Uncollected trash threatens health in Barisal, Pakistan;
• Fox News discovers the potential of trash to create energy;
• Scientitsts zap trash into small pellets and fuel (pictured).

Photo via Marketplace. 

Gomi round-up

Fellow trashie, DumpsterTaoist recently turned me on to the subject of gomi, or japanese trash.  Trash, like most aspects of japanese culture, comes with its own set of intricate protocols.  Here are some interesting links on the subject detailing:

• Foreigner confusion when faced with inexplicable sorting rules;
• Foreigner awe and respect for such organized waste reduction;
• Foreigner frustration when faced with inexplicable regulations; and
• That memerable NYT piece with a cover photo of an old man looking lost before his many recycling bins.

Guilty Political Fashion

  I discovered the small company of Monsoon Vermont via a recent comment made by one of the founders on an old post about rag pickers in India.  I tend to be a bit jaded about trash-to-treasure products and eco-friendly fashion that encourages us to pay more or buy things we don’t really need in the name of green.  That said, I do appreciate the power of talking piece fashion, such as the umbrellas available as part of MonsoonVT’s Scavenger Projet.  Objectively practical and fashionable, these bright and beautiful items also carry a political message.

   The umbrellas and other recycled wares—bags, waste baskets, wallets—are made with discarded packaging collected by scavengers in Indonesia and double as awareness-and-fund-raising tools for the YE Water Program in Jakarta.

Photos via the MonsoonVT site.

Worms

  Check out this video and slide show on NBC documenting Hong Kong’s recent investment in worms to reduce waste by eating organic trash separated and collected from restaurants.  If it works on that urban island, I hope this plan comes to mine!

Weekly Compactor

This week in trash news:

• Sony teams up with Waste Management to recyle old electronics;
• An  Austrian woman finds a valuable medieval cross in the trash;
• Kathmandu smells;
• NYC gets creepy “Street Condition Observation Units“;
• London may get recycle bins on High Street; and, to end on a sweet note
• A Welch community uses profits from recycling metal to plant trees in Malawi.

Photo via Nepalnews.com

Note: I’m on vacation this week, back on the 26th.  During this period of slow-to-no posts, please check out the highly informative and entertaining side bar!

Weekly Compactor

This week in trash news:

• The Brooklyn Papers spread the word about everydaytrash;
• Orillia, Canada considers garbage tags in a pay-as-you-throw plan;
• A Japanese man is knifed over a neighborhood trash dispute; and
• Uganda will start composting trash and selling it to farmers for fertilizer to increase government coffers.

Weekly Compactor

  This week in trash news:

• The EPA announced that federal prisons in five states will undergo environmental audits;
• A trash strike in Vancouver entices Canada’s rat population;
• A settlement outside Cape Town, South Africa, gets some much needed media attention for its trash woes; and
• A rubbish collector in Malasia is fined for not taking out the trash (pictured).

Photo via The Star

Trash Tides

Check out this AFP shot featured by the BBC’s Day in Pictures segment yesterday.

“For the last week, the sea around Juhu beach in Mumbai, India, has been churning out more than 300 tones of rubbish every day because of changes in sea currents and waves.”