Similar to No Impact Man this couple undertook a year long challenge to stop making trash! Check out their website and film!
Tag Archive for 'waste'
At an event recently I met a great guy who created Garbage for Lent! This year, for the first time, he has signed on several churches to participate in giving up garbage for 40 days! Wow!
What is Lent? Well! According to Wikipedia:
Lent (Latin: Quadragesima, “fortieth”[1]) is the Christian observance of the liturgical season from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday.
Lent is a time for sacrifice for Christians. You must sacrfice something dear to you, and some believe you may take pleasure in it on Sunday, however most believe that you cannot for the entire forty days. Its institutional purpose is heightened in the annual commemoration of Holy Week, marking the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events of the Passion of Christ on Good Friday, which then culminates in the celebration on Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
During Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxury as a form of penitence…
There are so many traditions in the world and I think they all have a message of compassion. I think it’s great when we can use that compassion to extend to the Earth as well!
Today’s SuperForest Sundae celebrates the completion of the Plastiki’s voyage from San Fran to Sydney, the power and healing of Restorative Justice, and Amy Krouse Rosenthal’s uplifting video in which she gathers strangers and enlists them to make stuff together.
Plastiki voyage = success!
Back in March, we told you about the incredible Plastiki voyage that had recently set sail. [In case you missed it: Armed with a crazy idea - undoubtedly harder to execute than it sounds - the Plastiki crew fashioned themselves a catamaran using 12,500 plastic bottles and sailed it from San Francisco to Sydney]. Well, I’m happy to say they made it! Their heroic journey across the Pacific lasted 129 days. See the illustration below for a visual and numeric breakdown of the trip.
Brit David de Rothschild came up with idea as a way to get people to see waste, not as waste, but as a resource. Check out the video below of David onboard the Plastiki, talking about his hopes for a new way of looking at plastic.
I’d say all it takes to really change your thought pattern on this one is to pause before you pull out your purse. Look at what you’re buying has been packaged in. Bring your own cup, container, bag or box, and offer a polite and cheery “No, thanks” to unnecessary waste. Oh, if you’d like to pledge (or simply re-affirm) your allegiance to this cause, you can do so here, where every click means you’re committed!
A path to healing
As a young girl, I remember being completely stunned when I’d learned that Pope John Paul II had visited his would-be killer in jail, two years after the assassination attempt. I thought it was a remarkable display of forgiveness and mused on this for a long time afterward. This flashback came to me after I’d read about Restorative Justice programs in the UK, which sees victims and their offenders meet face to face for a chat.
Peter Woolf was a prolific offender, ensconced in a world of violence and depravity, who, by his own reckoning committed about 20,000 crimes. Then he burgled a house, fought with his victim and ended up in prison yet again. This time though it was different. Peter met with his victim, Will, in a restorative justice session that took place in the prison. The meeting changed both their lives for ever.
Will’s experience of meeting the person who attacked him meant he could move on from the trauma. Why Me? was started in 2008 as a way to deliver Restorative Justice to victims who want it.
The Beckoning of Lovely
You might recall catching Amy Krouse Rosenthal‘s Thought Bubble On Kindness on SuperForest recently. In this video, we see her put a call out to strangers, inviting them to meet her at the Bean sculpture in Chicago on 08/08/08 to make pretty things, friends, energetic entrances and more. This one’s the cherry on this week’s sundae.
Oh, and to see what Amy did one year after The Beckoning of Lovely, click here.
Happy Sunday.
April
Organelle is a lovely independent design studio based in Vancouver, BC whose work starts with a single premise: “waste is the most abundant local resource our cities have to offer. Often free or inexpensive, waste is a seemingly endless supply, always providing new and exciting design possibilities. ” Love!
Personally, I find all of their work to be superb but their lighting fixtures composed primarily of hangers are on an entirely different level.
Bravo, Organelle Design! To see more of their work, make sure you visit their website!
(via booooooom!)
This morning SuperForester Jackson and I went for a walk through the city. I’ve wanted to see and meet the living legend of Michel Bayard since the moment I got here and today the moment finally seemed there.
The biologically degradable trash had to be brought away to the composting section of the Green Farmer Market at Union Square here in NY, so Jackson and I embarked on a little walk of a few blocks. On our way we did some shopping – and shopping in Jackson English isn’t the same as shopping in Regular English, in the first case it is to look for useful trash and the definition of the second case is, I may hope, clear. Since Jackson posted a few of the ‘most charming’ pictures of me a few days ago I will share with you some of the most charming Jack-flicks I took today.
More seriously though, I think it’s awesome how person A dumps something on the street and how person B can do something useful with A’s waste, right? It all happens here in NYC.
We were just a few blocks away of the Green Market, when we got there we got rid of our (frozen) compost (below) and went to Michel The Legend Bayard, we had a chat and went on. Went on to get the greatest strawberry-apple juice I ever had. The apple wasn’t very present though, but the strawberries were. Then I told Jackson I would like one of Bayard’s photos, he said that if I wanted something I should get it now because Bayard could be gone the next day.
I picked out this really cool picture of the Southern skyline of NY with the Brooklyn Bridge, and when I was right at the point to pay for it Bayard gave it to me for free. How awesome is that?
On our walk home we passed by the Rubin Museum of Art. I thought the window looked kind of interesting so we hopped in. The Rubin was all about Himalayan art, and how that relates to the Buddhist culture. It was an awesome museum, and the free tour that was included in the $7 ticket was also really informing. Perhaps the best part was that there were very little tourists, I guess a lot of guides skip the Rubin. If you’d ask me why, I’d have to reply with: “I don’t know, it’s kind of confusing since it’s a nice museum with great pieces.”
As I said, the free tour was really nice as well. She told us how a lotus is symbolic for an enlightened personality. Since a lotus grows in real muddy water you wouldn’t expect it to turn into something beautiful. But as the plant grows and grows it finally develops a flower that is so radically different than it’s situation, so clean, so beautiful, it stands for change
We also did some stuff with bottles today. You know, when you go shopping here in NYC you find lots of stuff. Including bottles. Jackson got the idea of turning them into drinking glasses. The quick explanation, four steps: peel of the label, cut of the top, sand the edge, treat your glass with glass epoxy. Since we’re not entirely done as I’m writing this I’ll get back to you about it later.
For now, have a great night… or day, depending on wherever you are.
SuperForester Julius
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