EcoTrashSolutions » Recycle

Is your Trash Art?

www.ecotrashsolutions.com — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:59:57 +0000

One of the main motivations for American’s taking out the trash is it’s unsightly nature, however, with the proper handling and care, even your trash can grow to accent your home in ways you may have never imagined. Perhaps not the excess food, considering the less than glamorous nature of the decomposition process and the resulting bugs who might make your kitchen their new outdoors, but before tossing out discarded items, consider your artistic flair.Found Art as the concept is known, centers around recognizing beauty in commonplace items generally passed over by common onlookers with a less keen eye for beauty. Artist Marcel Duchamp first discovered the genre in 1915, to describe an old bicycle wheel he had come across which was intrinsically striking, needing only slight modification to make it gallery worthy. From there Duchamp expanded his found art repertoire to include what once was a former urinal he titled “Fountain.” “Bottle Rack” was Duchamp’s first completely readymade piece of art, needing absolutely no alteration what so every from the street to display. The art world was slow to take to Duchamp’s new philosophy on this revolutionary artistic concept, but he is now almost universally revered as a forward thinker, with today’s contemporary artists following his light of thought to produce junk art.Junk art literally takes items headed towards the dumpster and uses them in a manner of ways, from painting to reshaping to welding and turns them into visually appealing structures worthy of being shown off. Hundreds of artists have made careers out of turning the unwanted into the desired. So before you throw out the old bookshelf that’s been wasting away in the attic, or even the big bag of bottle caps accruing over time by the fridge, consider how today’s trash might shape tomorrow’s masterpiece.

Reduce Waste, Find Your Old Belongings a New Home

admin — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 13:39:25 +0000

Over the past century America has grown to become an extremely wasteful society. The portion sizes provided at not only fast food chains, but most American restaurants, are unreal. Or stop to think of how many times you’ve thrown away old clothes or furniture that could have easily been reused by someone else. American industries encourage the constant purchase of the newest product and disposal of the old, whether or not this is necessary. A culture change to incorporate more sparing and less-wasteful behavior should be considered, but encouraging simple habits such as recycling is a much easier change to come about.The benefits of recycling go far beyond simply reducing the amount of trash we send to the landfill every year. Recycling is an entire industry that creates jobs for Americans and can add to market competition. By reusing old products in a new way, limited natural resources don’t have to be expended to create as many new products. Along with the raw materials used in the creation of new products, comes the greenhouse gases that are emitted in production, which is contributing to the problem of global warming. There are many ways to recycle beyond the traditional methods of recycling bottles and cans. When you decide it’s time for a new computer or printer, instead of throwing it away, where it could end up leaching hazardous material into the soil of a landfill, donate or resell it. Sites such as freecycle, Craigslist, and recycle.net are great places to unload old electronics in a less wasteful way. Old tires can also be recycled and used for fuel, in certain types of asphalt or in other new rubber products. Many kitchen items such as foil wrappers, Ziploc bags and metal soup cans can also be recycled and reused for a number of purposes.

Don’t Forget the First Two Steps

admin — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 20:43:41 +0000

“Reduce, Re-use, Recycle” is a longstanding, simple mantra to explain the process that protects the health of our planet. While the campaign to recycle has certainly caught on across the globe over the past 2 decades, the reducing and re-using parts of the three-pronged strategy are often overlooked. Here are some simple tips and reminders to make sure the first 2 steps are taken care of, before you even recycle your used goods.

The process should start at your purchase decision not when you are disposing of old items. A lot of similar products, both in price and function, are packaged very differently. Unless the packaging itself has some sort of intrinsic value you will want to hold on to as a keepsake, choose the one with the least packaging. Once your purchase is unwrapped, the box or bag it came in is more than likely to end up in the bin anyway.
A lot of grocery stores now offer re-usable bags, giving you an environmentally sound option when asked “paper or plastic?” Both paper and plastic bags require valuable natural resources for their production, so any way you can cut down on their usage is a step in the right direction.
When you do end up with plastic bags, because it is inevitable even the most environmentally conscious consumers will, use them in place of plastic trash bags. Department store and convenience store carry-out bags can easily line a trashcan and can be disposed of in the same manner as well.
Just because an item is labeled as “disposable,” it doesn’t mean it has to be thrown away. When possible, avoid tossing plastic cups, bowls and utensils after only a single use. A lot of time these items can be hand washed or re-used as is to increase their lifespan, not bombarding Mother Nature on such a regular basis.