Ever find yourself deciding between a composting bin and composting tumbler? Or what kind of container one needs to house a worm condo? The good people of Composters.com have a blog that may help to answer some of those questions. Here’s the link.
Tipster Julie S turned me on to Earthgirl Composting, a struggling doorstep composting service in Vermont (if you live there, take note!). The waste picked up from households is delivered to a local company that makes compost and sells it to organic farmers. In addition, they do “event composting.” I’ve never heard of event composting before, but I bet a lot of green brides out there would be interested in offsetting the environmental impact of their weddings by composting the leftover cake and other waste!
Photo ripped from Earthgirl Composting Web site.
Two friends in two days have sent me links to New York City green-minded events organized or endorsed by the Lower East Side Ecology Center. This Sunday, they’re collecting electronic waste in Union Square. They also have listings for amazing-sounding workshops on worms and composting. I can’t wait to check out a work workshop and report back!
Photo via the LESEC Web site.
A new site dedicated to easing people into environmentally friendly lifestyles launched over the weekend. It’s called Blue Egg and the debut issue features everydaytrash. I hope you’ll check out my essay on garblogging.
It’s a fun site complete with interviews with innovators, news stories and online quizzes. I particularly enjoyed the Q &A with Kurt Zuelsdorf, the kayak tour operator clearing trash out of Florida wetlands; the interview with a young man inspired by pot-growing friends to start a trash-to-worm-poop fertilizer business; and video footage of the Eastern Garbage Patch.
Picture ripped from the Blue Egg site.
As someone who reads a lot of garbage headlines, I can say with authority that Toronto is way into trash. Media stories about how to green a community, waste export policy debates and grassroots organizing around reducing waste quite often carry Toronto datelines. So, I wasn’t that surprised to see the local weekly, Eye Weekly focus on trash for an Earth Day special in a stellar compilation of blogworthy articles (thanks for the link, mom).
My favorite piece is an overview of the publications recent design challenge to build a better trash can. Check out what the judges had to say about the three most innovative contenders. The idea behind the contest was to build a vessel that would allow consumers to separate their waste, recognizing the diversity of what we throw away and the various places it should go. Too cool.
I’m torn between the “JUSTDESIGN” and “TRASHIE” models.
This week on Trashtastic Tuesday, we check in with some Middle Schoolers at the Brooklyn School for Collaborative Studies. This year, the students are taking part in a “Cafeteria Expedition,” an interactive project to improve and better understand school cafeterias. Alex Perez, Stephanie Rodriguez, Steven Ruiz, Grabriella Bobe and T.J. Bodden—members of the 8th grade composting crew—were nice enough to take the time to answer a few questions for everydaytrash.
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everydaytrash: Why should a school like yours have a composting program?
Composting Crew: The reason why all schools should have a composting program is because we generate a lot of waste and composting can reduce that amount.
everydaytrash: How does reducing waste help your school?
Composting Crew: Because we are making it into something useful.
everydaytrash: How did you choose what kind of composting system to use?
Composting Crew: We went to the Botanic Gardens and saw what different kinds of composting bins that they had and choose which one we liked and would be best for our needs.
everydaytrash: What kinds of materials did you need to get started?
Composting Crew: We needed pallets, screws, nails, buckets, and waste. We had the pallets donated by Lowe’s and we carried them back to school.
everydaytrash: Who uses the composting soil you create?
Composting Crew: Every single person in our school will be able to use it. The first will be the grade school kids who will use it for their planters. After that we will donate it to locals for their gardens. Thank you for showing interest in our project. We learned a lot from this Cafeteria Expedition.
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Photos courtesy of the incomparable Peter Hoppmann—friend, neighbor and middle school teacher extraordinaire.
In case you haven’t noticed, everydaytrash has a bitchin’ side bar, which links to a wealth of trashy and green blogs and other informative and entertaining resources. This week, for example:
Mark your calendars, May 6-12 is International Compost Awareness Week. This year’s theme is “The Possibilities are Endless … Compost!” Make what you will of it.
The U.S. Composting Council has these suggestions for celebrating:
Successful promotions in past years have included:
Here’s a little more information on Eugène Poubelle, the French official for which trash cans take their name in Paris, and throughout the francophone world. Frederique Krupa covers the namesake’s roll in Parisian trash history in this online essay. It turns out Poubelle set up laws formalizing garbage collection and mandating a cleaner city, part of a larger series of reforms in French sanitation of the day.
“Eugene Poubelle became Prefect of the Seine in 1884 and created the final laws governing the garbage collection and street cleaning, building on the earlier regulations about sweeping in front of the building and not throwing anything out the window. Poubelle took these rules much further. He defined the garbage can as having a maximum of 120 liters and the time of passage of the tipcarts (both summer and winter). Rules stipulated that lids must be removed before placing the garbage can on the sidewalk, that dumping rubble, industrial and garden waste was illegal, that glass required separate containers, that ragpickers must sort the garbage on the canvas and not on the ground, and that the cans must be cleaned regularly to avoid odors. Poubelle organized garbage collection in this manner to allow for the household waste to be composted at Saint Ouen. The advent of plastics in the 20th century waste stream put a halt to this practice as well. Angry landlords retaliated by giving his name to the garbage can.”
This week in trash news:
Susan Strasser’s bio describes her as “a historian of American consumer culture.” Her book, ‘Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash’ covers America’s tranisiton from a thrifty,resourceful culture to one whose definition of “trash” has vastly expanded.
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everydaytrash: In your book, you say that trash is defined by our sorting processes. How have those processes/our definition of what is trash/disposable evolved in the developed world?
Susan Straser: The sorting process that creates trash varies from person to person, and it differs from place to place. Some people are more frugal or sentimental than others; some cultures value saving things – the Scots have this reputation – while nomadic people, who must travel light, save less. Above all, sorting is an issue of class: wealthy people can afford to be wasteful, while the poor scavenge for materials to use and to sell.
But the sorting differs also according to skill. Repair ideas come more easily to people who make things. If you know how to knit or do carpentry, you also understand how to mend a torn sweater or repair a broken chair. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, when factory production was well established, many Americans possessed the skills and consciousness required for repairing. Now making and repairing things have become hobbies, no longer typical and on their way to being exceptional.
Most Americans produced little trash before the 20th century. Goods were sold in bulk; even in cities, people practiced habits of reuse that had prevailed in agricultural communities; durable items were passed on or stored in attics or basements; broken things could be brought back to their makers, fixed by somebody handy, or taken to people who specialized in repairs. In cities, ragmen worked the streets, usually buying bones, paper, old iron, and bottles as well, and selling the junk to dealers who marketed it in turn to manufacturers. This trade in used goods amounted to a recycling system that provided raw materials for industrial production. It faded with the institution of municipal trash collection, new papermaking technologies that substituted wood pulp for rags, the mechanization of bottle-making, and the rise of giant modern meatpackers who marketed massive amounts of byproducts to fertilizer companies.
everydaytrash: Is it possible to curb or reverse that trend?
Strasser: I do not think we will revive the stewardship of objects and materials that was formed in a bygone culture of handwork. I do like to think that new ideas of morality, utility, common sense, and the value of labor have begun to emerge, based on the stewardship of the planet and of its natural resources. Recycling and composting programs are now recognized as viable options; activists have pressured both government agencies and corporations to create such programs and to reduce waste at the source. Some businesses and agencies have responded only under pressure; others have cooperated, usually persuaded by environmentally concerned managers in their own ranks. After decades of assuming that public policy and corporate profit-making would send us always in the direction of saving time and trouble, some people and enterprises have begun to promote practices that require more of both. Recycling has been successful, and not because of market incentives.
evreydaytrash: How do different cultural beliefs about charity affect the amount of waste we produce?
Strasser: Giving old things to the poor has long been a common act of charity, practiced by individuals and by organized groups. During the decades around the turn of the 20th century – the same period when municipal trash collection was being established, encouraging middle-class people to throw things out – new kinds of charities began to accept donated materials. The personal relationships fostered by dealing directly with beggars yielded to a new sort of benevolence: giving things to organizations like Goodwill and the Salvation Army. These organizations offered impoverished people jobs, spiritual salvation, and a chance to be consumers, and they provided the better-off a virtuous outlet for unwanted things, free from social discomforts. The organizations also fostered new ways of thinking about the sorting process: people could now avoid the trouble of repair, getting rid of unwanted things without having to define them as worthless.
everydaytrash: In researching your book, what were some of the most interesting stories of reusing and repurposing that you came across?
Strasser: The stories and ideas were endless, and endlessly amazing to me. People used broken crockery and glued shattered glass back together. Leftover food was regarded as a resource, often even leftovers on people’s plates. Some practices – such as “turning” thinning sheets by tearing them down the middle and sewing the outer edges – are mentioned so often in so many advice books that we may regard them as commonplace. Butterick and other pattern manufacturers sold patterns for pieces of dresses – collars, cuffs, skirts, and sleeves – so that women could renovate dresses that they deemed old-fashioned. New buttons or trimmings were an even easier fix. The wealthiest women sent their old clothes back to Paris couturiers to be remade and brought back into style.
everydaytrash: Is there a modern-day equivalent of the rag picker?
Strasser: There are literally modern rag pickers in third-world countries. In the developed world, contemporary recycling systems offer some analog to the post-consumer recycling of the ragpicker, the rag-and-bone man, and the paper mill.
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Waste and Want is available from the publisher, ask your local independent bookstore to order you a copy.
The Times has a lovely piece in today’s Sunday Styles section about the growing trend of environmentally friendly weddings. It’s a topic I know my side bar buddies Ethical Weddings and Great Green Wedding keep in mind when posting. Of course the number one way I can think of the reduce your ceremony’s footprint (not to mention your and your parents’ energy output) is to not throw such elaborate parties. That said, I’ve been to one of those farm to table places upstate, where the article mentions the couple held their rehersal dinner–crisp weather, more kinds of carrots than you knew existed, pigs wandering about, compostable cutlery, picturesque carriage trails perfect for hikes and runs…I could imagine a fantastic feast served there.
Update: For even MORE on green weddings, check out this post of the same name over at hippy shopper.
Loreen Leedy’s ‘The Great Trash Bash’ (best title ever!) came out in 1991, but the lessons it teaches kids (and adults) about the different places garbage goes, what a problem too much garbage can be, are just as true today. I discovered this book while researching potential Literary Trash week authors and thought an author-illustrator of Children’s books would round out our series. Also, Mayor Hippo is adorable.
everydaytrash: How did you come up with the premise of The Great Trash Bash?
Loreen Leedy: At the time, I was looking for a book project that would showcase the process of characters working together to accomplish a goal. Also, I was interested in working with an environmental theme. Now that it’s been awhile, I can’t recall exactly what inspired the notion of garbage. Perhaps it was/is so ubiquitous it seemed obvious. In general, I try to notice what is all around us yet taken for granted. We become accustomed to “how things are.” It takes insight and leadership to question it, as shown by the mayor of Beaston at the beginning of the story.
everydaytrash: Even though it’s a book for young people, this story covers the pros and cons of incineration, landfills and recycling. How much research did you have to do to write it?
Leedy: In those days (15+ years ago) I always went to the local public library to find magazines, encyclopedias, and books for research. Now the Internet is usually my first stop. If the book had required a lot of detail I might have visited an actual landfill and/or incinerator but it wasn’t necessary in this case.
everydaytrash: How did you decide to match the different animals to their characters?
Leedy: Animals are fun to use as characters because they come in such a wide range of sizes, shapes, and colors from mice to alligators to ostriches. For a commanding yet comic presence I made the mayor a relatively large hippo wearing pants and tie (no shirt). Most of the other characters are small to medium-sized, reasonably familiar animals such as raccoons, foxes, and frogs. The diversity of critters reflects the variety of characters found in every town.
everydaytrash: What are some of the solutions that the citizens of Beaston come up with to solve their trash problems? Are they easy to follow in real life?
Leedy: Create less trash; fix old things instead of buying new things; stop littering; recycle; make a compost bin for food scraps; start a recycling center. Some are easier to follow than others– it’s hard to find anyone to repair electronic devices, for example. Perhaps the best idea is to adopt one new habit at a time until it becomes second nature. An easy one is recycling, though I do run across adults that can’t be bothered to recycle, which is frustrating. Hopefully children will be willing to adopt many of these practices for life.
everdaytrash: Do you have any sense of the impact of your book in the classroom? Do you get fan mail from kids and teachers?
Leedy: I was surprised to learn that so far, The Great Trash Bash is my most translated book and has had many subsidiary rights licensed, such as being reprinted in textbook anthologies. This seems to indicate that garbage is a big issue all over the world and parents and teachers need a way to introduce it to children. Schools do a lot of trash-related projects such as:
1. Clean an area of the playground; tally the types of trash (metal/paper/plastic/wood); make a bar graph to show the most common litter found.
2. Each class collects the trash from one snack time; paste it onto poster board; display all the class trash posters together to raise awareness.
3. Kids bring in clean trash such as cereal boxes/egg cartons/cans; they combine their trash to make “trash monsters.” [editor's note: Contact Leila if you want to get together to make trash monsters. Or make your own and send your photos to everday trash!]
4. Make useful items such as bird feeders out of trash.
These are just some of the activities I’ve heard about, usually via email. It is fun to hear how the book is used in the classroom… you never know what they’ll come up with next!
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The Great Trash Bash is available through Leedy’s books.
Check back tomorrow for more Literary Trash!
Update: Next up on the Literary Trash lineup is David Naguib Pellow, a professor of ethnic studies and author of Garbage Wars: The Struggle for Environmental Justice in Chicago
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A friend in public radio tipped me off to Elizabeth Royte and her fantastic chronicle of trash, Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash, this past summer after talking to Royte for a show about trash and the law. I bought the book the next day and later met Royte at the Brooklyn Book Fest, where she was reading from her newly released paperback edition. I introduced myself and asked if she’d be willing to be interviewed for everyday trash. “Sure,” she said, adding [something along the lines of], “but I read on your blog that you’re still reading my book, so wait to see if you like it.”
Outed as not yet having finished Garbage Land, but thrilled that a genuine trash reporter had not only heard of but read everyday trash, I filed away the idea of an interview until…author’s week! What better way to kick of a week of interviews than with the Garbage Lady herself?
everydaytrash: Now that you’ve finished your book, do you still research the subject of garbage? Any recent excursions/adventures?
Elizabeth Royte: I try to keep up with garbage news through various media (including yours) [editor's note: Royte is an occasional and much appreciated tipster to everyday trash], and I go around talking on college campuses about consumption and waste. I was recently invited by a friendly engineer to tour his landfill in Anchorage, but my plane left too early for a visit. Since Garbage Land came out, I’ve written magazine stories about the Katrina cleanup, about corn-based plastics, and waste from pharmaceuticals and personal-care products in our waterways. Oh, and I recently stayed at a zero-waste hotel in Boulder - that was kind of neat. I can’t seem to get away from the topic!
everydaytrash: Your book focuses on the way New York deals with trash. What are some other cities whose creative waste solutions you admire?
Royte: I admire what San Francisco is doing with their zero waste initiative, particularly their composting program. Boulder signed a zero waste resolution last year and is investigating composting options, and now Seattle, which has an excellent curbside program, has started fining residents for putting anything recyclable into the regular trash. It shows they take this seriously. (New York City fines residents for recycling improperly, but it doesn’t seem to be that hard-nosed about it - perhaps recognizing that the public is still pretty confused about our recycling rules.)
everydaytrash: In your book, you use your own household waste as an example of the amount we throw away and what a struggle it can be to reduce that waste. Are you still hyper-sconscious of your own trash?
Royte: I’m still hyperconscious, but I’m not nearly as conscientious as I was when I was sorting and weighing my trash. I’m lazier about getting small pieces of paper - shopping lists, receipts, blow-in cards from magazines–into my paper recycling pile (which is ten steps away and outside my apartment door). But I’m still composting.
everydaytrash: From a bigger picture perspective, are there lobbying or legislative initiatives out there that people should look out for? Is garbage a voting issue or should it be?
Royte: Yes! Mayoral elections in New York have swung on garbage issues. People _should_ be aware of where their garbage is going and have some say in how it’s handled, how their tax dollars are spent. New York City spends over a billion dollars a year collecting and disposing of waste. And yes, all Americans should be pushing for legislation that requires manufacturers of electronic waste to take responsibility for their products’ end-of-life, to recycle this stuff responsibly. Computers are hazardous waste in a landfill. We should be pushing for bottle bills, for composting programs, and for bans that keep yard waste (leaves and grass clippings) out of landfills, where it generates leachate and methane. I could go on, but I’ll spare you.
everydaytrash: Has writing a book about trash earned you any strange nicknames?
Royte: The garbage girl. Or lady.
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Next up on the Literary Trash lineup is Dominant Wave Theory, a series of photos depicting beach debris by British artist and surfer Andrew Hughes.
Oooh, Treehugger has broken out their green gift guide by category…For the Foodie, For the Bookworm, etc. See also their shout out to goodgifts.org.
