Awesome (and funny) UK Re-Purposing Site

My buddy Augie sent this site to me a while ago and i'm finally getting around to posting it. It's called How Can I Recycle This, but it's really a guide to finding uses for all sorts of things as opposed to recycling or trashing them.

Have too many After 8 Dinner Mint Boxes lying around? Fear not, apparently they make great filing cabinets for seeds.

And what to do with all those pesky plaster foot molds you have left over from making orthotics (come on you know you have them)? Their solutions ranged from doorstops to lawn ornaments to using them inside other shoes to help keep the form.

Not all the ideas are the best, but it's lighthearted and actually has some good ideas.

Check it out, I know I will.

Dave

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International Garbage

If you had told me 106 days ago that I'd be on the Korean Daily Papers website and in an Israeli Magazine called Globes, I would have laughed in your face. But there it is. The Korean Daily actually happened while I was back with my Dad and provided a much welcomed bit of odd reality amidst the insanity. A friend who knows a Korean student had him translate it for me. I'm assuming that the Korean read a bit more eloquently than the English does.

"There would be no one who never thought about how serious the problem of pollution is. However, There'd not be many people who realize how much we actually contaminate environment in our everyday life.

A man in Los Angeles is doing a one year test to find out.

Dave Chameides had a thought that he won't inherit the world with piles of trash to their two daughters. He wondered how much trash one person makes in one year and if there is a way to take care of trash without contaminating environment as possible. Finally, he decided to do a test which is collecting all of his trash he makes for one year in his own basement. As a new year's resolution, Dave announced that he's going to do this test for one year from janurary 1, 2008 on his blog 'SustainableDave' on December 31.

Dave trys not to make trash by recycling over and over, but it's not possilbe to recycle everything. He separate them by two. Decayable things goes to the worm composter and non-decayable things goes to his basement. His family produces only 2 pounds trash per person a day which is less than a half of average amount of daily trash per person in america, 4.5 pounds. He's giving children lectures on the importance of environment as a volunteer.

Dave's blog became well known to many people through Interviews with major media such as ABC News. Many people who concern about environment are getting help from his blog which contains alot of data on environment and his thoughts and problems he faced while doing the test. It's simply a shock watching the real time meter showing fast increasing number of worldwide plastic bags consumed this year.

As for this one, i knew about it as they sent a reporter and photographer to the house. I'll send the translation when I get the hard copy in the mail as the type on this is just too small for anyone to read.

Enjoy.

Dave

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Day 107 - Thursday 4/17/08

Today's Haul:

• 1 cider bottle w/top - recycle
• 3 paper plates - worms
• 1 pizza platter cover - worms
• 3 hot dog "boats" - worms
• 3 paper towels - worms
• 2 potato chip bags - garbage
• 2 plasticoated drink cups - garbage
• 2 drinking straws - recycle
• 2 paper covers from drinking straws - worms
• 2 glass juice bottles w/caps - recycle
• 2 plastic safety covers from drink bottles - recycle
• 2 plastic tops from drink cups - recycle
• 3 plastic wrappers from sucking candies - garbage

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Day 106 - Wednesday 4/16/08

Today's Haul:

• 1 aluminum foil wrap box - recycle
• 1 metal cutter from aluminum foil wrap box - recycle
• 1 paper towel - worms
• 1 m&ms package - garbage
• 1 piece used dental floss - garbage
• 2 pieces scrap paper - worms
• 1 used q-tip - worms
• 2 pieces of wrapped foil - garbage
• 4 sugar packets - worms
• 2 pieces chewed gum in foil - garbage
• 1 piece tape - garbage
• 
  

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Day 105 - Tuesday 4/15/08

Today's Haul:

• 2 compostable cardboard bowls - worms
• 1 piece of tin foil wrap - recycle
• 4 paper towels - worms
• 1 plastic bag - recycle
• 1 plastic packaging from kitchen timer - recycle
• 1 paper insert from kitchen timer - worms
• 1 beer bottle w/cap - recycle

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Day 104 - Monday 4/14/08

Today's Haul:

• Several large sheets of plastic backing from contact paper - garbage
• 1 plastic shrink wrapping - recycle
• 4 pieces of "foam" wrapping - garbage
• 1 cardboard blender box (yes she got a new blender) - repurpose for later shipping
• 2 cardboard packing inserts from blender box - recycle
• 2 plastic bags - recycle
• 1 plastic electrical cord protector - recycle
• 1 compostable cardboard bowl - worms

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Week 15 Pics

Finally cleaned up the bottles but I think the basement needs a little help.  We pulled a bunch of stuff out for a camping trip and I need to put it back.  That said, no smells or small livestock (that i know of) and the spiffy new grey recyclables tub to boot.

The garbage box is getting full.  I think i'm going to have to seal it and start on the next one ion a week or so.

Worms, bags and paper woopeee!!!!!

The old and the new recyclables tubs.

And finally, the newly stocked stairs of bottles.

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Gravity

John Mayer sings about it, Sir Isaac Newton pondered upon it, Michael Jordan seemed to defy it, and tonight, it visited me in the basement.

As you've seen before, I had the bottles nicely arranged along the side of the staircase looking all neat and cool.  I logged my stuff tonight, opened the door to the basement to put things in their respective homes, and an old vent cover that I had hanging on the wall knocked loose as i was walking down the stairs. Like some bad bowling nightmare, the bottles started shooting all over the place, and before you knew it, the basement looked like the picture you see here.  It was actually sort of funny in a bizarre slow motion kind of way. Astonishingly, not a single bottle broke, so the cleanup shouldn't be that bad.  That said, i've got to get up at 5 AM for work, so i fear that new pics will have to wait until tomorrow night.

Gravity.  Gotta love it.

Dave

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Day 103 - Sunday 4/13/08

Today's Haul:

• 1 plastic top from takeout PS6- recycle
• 1 aluminum container from takeout - recycle
• 1 package awesome mint milano cookies - garbage
• 1 paper cookie holder - recycle
• 1 plastic bulk cereal bag - recycle
• 1 glass marinara sauce jar w/top - recycle
• 1 plastic candy bag - recycle
• 1 glass instant coffee container w/top - recycle
• 1 plasticoated plate - garbage
• 1 plastic party fork - recycle
• 1 plastic ring from milk container - recycle
• 1 chips bag - garbage
• 1 piece chewed gum in foil wrapper - garbage

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