Trashion Exhibit: Awareness through Art

Junk to Funk, a local company dedicated to trash fashion, has recently set up an installation in the heart of downtown Portland. When I heard the theme of the exhibition, Single Use Disposables: Convenience or Conundrum, my inner TfP soul just had to learn more! The display focuses on three of the most thrown away packaging products in the world: plastic bags, coffee cups and plastic beverage bottles. I decided to finally check it out on my lunch break today and it is stunning! If you are any bit interested in fashion, recycling, costumes, upcycling, art installations or curbing wastefulness, this is the exhibit for you. Here's a sneak peak:

Please go check it out! You can see more outfits, how they made the costumes and the facts on the wastefulness of the three products. The show will be displayed through October on the corner of SW 9th and Morrison. Take a look for yourself!

You can find more info here. And JunktoFunk's website here.

A Solid Dose of Science

In late 2009, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality released a Life Cycle Assessment of Drinking Water Systems: Bottled Water, Tap Water, and Home/Office Delivery Water. The report is 500 pages of pure, awesome, straight-up science. I was recently introduced to this study in a workshop called Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Zero Waste Strategies to Improve Your Bottom Line through the University of Oregon’s Sustainability Leadership Program. It was taught by none other than Dorothy Atwood, an Associate at Zero Waste Alliance. Dorothy and her friends at the Zero Waste Alliance beautified the results of DEQ’s study and transformed them into pretty, easy-to-decipher graphs. These graphs illustrate the different impacts determined by your choice between drinking out of a disposable plastic water bottle or a reusable drinking container.

This first graph shows a very minimal difference in impacts between recycling a one-time use plastic water bottle and throwing it away. This is not an anti-recycling graph - this is a realistic look at plastic recycling in Oregon.

This graph clearly shows the best possible choice: tap water in a reusable drinking container.

This graph is a big part of why I do what I do at Trash for Peace. Recycling is not the answer. Recycling is a last resort; implemented when good planning and design are absent. Tap water is the way to go, and reusable containers solve some significant problems. Unfortunately, making the best choice in terms of negative impacts will get a little harder.

This controversial local story (Portland Votes to Add Fluoride) was echoed nationally (HuffPost reports) as Portland surrenders its title as the biggest U.S. city to not fluoridate its water.

Fluoridated tap water has the potential to justify one's decision to choose bottled water - despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that reusable containers and tap water are superior. Protect your ability to make informed choices at: Don't Fluoridate Portland's Drinking Water.

- Andrew Judkins

Gear Up! Sustainably, of course.

School has started and schedules have changed but it's never too late to make your routine a bit more sustainable! The TfP team has gathered resources for you to make the switch easier. So cross off plastic sandwich bags and plastic water bottles from your shopping list and let's go green!

First up: Reusable Sandwich Bags

These can be found very easily online by typing reusable sandwich bags into your search for multitudes of sites for reusable food bags with different features. But if you are interested in staying local for all you Portlanders, we found handmade bags by Kim at Simply Practical at etsy.com. The bags come in awesome fabric patterns, perfect for individual personality. Check out more of her creatives here.






Next up: Reusable Water Bottles

These can also be found very easily! They are at every grocery store and super store, they are at sporting and recreational equipment stores, and they are in even in any type specialty shops featuring foods, drinks or sustainable products, literally everywhere. There is no excuse! And we all know that tap water is just as good and even more regulated than the water that is poured into plastic bottles. So get yourself one! HuffPost Green breaks down different reusable water bottle brands here.



And lastly, if you are still looking for some last-minute school supplies, the Center for Health, Environment and Justice has created a Back-to-School Guide to PVC-Free School Supplies. Learn about PVC and why you should shop for PVC-free items, such as bookbags, binders and lunchboxes. You can find the PDF document here.

Reasons to celebrate: friends, family and summer!

Ah summer days in Portland just fly by way too quickly. The TfP team recently took a short hiatus to enjoy the sunshine, go play outside and relax on patios with friends. Feeling refreshed and energized, the team is back together and ready to get back in action, this time with our recently tanned faces. We couldn't resist soaking up more sun time by planning a small fundraiser potluck with our closest friends and family. We truly have an amazing set of volunteers who are supported by some pretty awesome people and just wanted to say thank you. So THANK YOU all for your support! We sure do appreciate it. :) Check out some photos from the lovely afternoon.

Our fabulous creatives, Kendra and Caitlin converted our bins to tables for our products and room for plates and drinks.

Delicious food was tasted and drinks were poured (including Caitlyn's famous horchata, yum!), and cornhole was set up in the backyard.

What awesome friends we have.

And awesome family!

A beautiful summer day.

The Art of Recycling

As I explored the city of Seattle for the first time ever (and saw way too many duck buses), I noticed to my right a few young adults stringing plants from three trees along a median. Very nice. Oh wait, those little plants are in plastic jugs! Ah, the mere thought of upcycling plastic bottles excites me. So I quickly urged my friends to cross the street to get the inside scoop.

Three students from the Art Institute of Seattle were working on a project (this homework is too easy!) focusing on sustainability! All the plants were edible, consisting of lettuce, herb and veggie varieties. The students said the point was to exemplify how simple it is to recycle and garden all at the same time in an urban setting. And so simple it is!

The students rigged up a portable irrigation system by turning a big water container upside in a tree, where the water drips through rubber tubing along a rope.

Just a couple rows of herbs, lettuces and other edible plants.

Now I may be a bit biased but Portland has got to have more homemade, sustainable solutions throughout the neighborhoods. Please send in your sightings and we'll post about them!

A Street Fair of Fun

Thousands of people flocked to Mississippi Ave's Street Fair last Saturday to enjoy the strong sunshine, the everlasting line of arts & craft booths and of course, bin building with Trash for Peace! We first want to give an enormous thank you to mr.greenbeans, a small DIY shop with big ideas, for inviting us to come and set up in front of their shop. We had numbers of people stop by and couldn't have done it without mr.greenbeans!

We couldn't have asked for a better day and a better response to TfP. A steady flow of kids, followed by their parents, curiously entered the booth to see what they could get involved in. At last! A craft they could touch and play with. (Don't worry parents, we clean all of our plastic bottles).

The children loved picking out the right bottle or can, stringing them with twine and sliding the bottles to fit snugly on the bin. The kids would get so involved in the project it was finally the parents encouraging them to keep walking through the festival.

While showing students how to build the bins, I kept overhearing tidbits on recycling plastic bottles and drinking from reusable water bottles. The TfP team just can't forget sneaking in our educational component!

 Check out our Facebook for more photos and mr.greenbeans web site for more DIY ideas!

Bins, bottles and crafts, oh my!

Cloudy skies and the occasional drizzle didn't deter hundreds of kids and families from checking out Kids' Day at Lake Oswego's Festival of the Arts last Friday. The day included a whirlwind of  face-painting, games, music, bingo, crafts and more! Just enough entertainment to engage childrens' short attention span for hours. Kids, ranging in age from Preschool to Jr. High, ran around the park soaking up as much fun as they could possibly take in. And luckily for Trash for Peace, kids LOVED our activities! We had a steady stream of children eager to get their hands on our games! So much that it was difficult to stop and take photos but we managed snap a few.

Children stepped right up to get their hands messy and paint egg-carton flowers or toilet paper roll owls and creatures.

Older kids thought our recycling bins made out of recycled materials were so cool and excited to learn how to build one! And helped finish TWO bins in the first hour!

And can't forget our cornhole set for any kid to test out their tossing skills with homemade, bottle cap-filled bags.

Not only did kids like our activities, but the TfP team shared some great conversations with parents and community members discussing TfP's mission of spreading awareness of reducing our global waste. It truly was a heart-warming day for Trash for Peace.