Hawaii's Landfills

"The clock is ticking for Hawaii's municipal landfills as three out of the state's eight will reach their capacity within the next five years."

Solid waste divisions are desperately searching for new ways to deal with our trash. Suggestions include creating a new landfill or mass burning of trash. According to Hawaii Reporter, Hawaii generates 1.37 tons of solid waste per capita.

Waimanalo Gulch, Oahu's only municipal landfill, only has one year left. Currently the city plans on expanding the Waimanalo Gulch since alternatives and time are scarce. But, an environmental consulting firm called Earth Tech Inc. found that it will take around six and a half years to build a landfill that will last thirty years. Clearly this is not a sustainable path.

Economics: Materialistic Consumption

While taking "trash" and turning it into treasure is a great way to reduce waste, save money, and be more sustainable, it is not as fortunate for the economy.  The economy thrives when consumption is high--as a result, aggregate demand increases.  Aggregate demand (AD) is "the total demand for final goods and services in the economy at a given time and price level" (www.wikipedia.org).  A higher AD means more jobs because the demand for goods is higher, which means people are making more money that they can use to consume merchandise.  What we must do then, to have a thriving economy but also decrease the amount that we thrown out, is to be more wise with what we buy, and what we buy should be sustainable and fair trade.

Recently, companies across America have become more aware of sustainability and have attempted to "go green".  This green movement is a great start to a change in our lifestyles, and we can help, as consumers, by only purchasing goods that are fair trade, good for the earth, and are not excessive in waste.  The "invisible hand" is controlled by consumers--we decide what is in demand and what is not.  So lets put our dollars to good use by choosing what is better for our economy and world.

Also, in the economic crisis we are currently in, everyone is looking to save on cash.  Taking trash and turning it into something useful can help you save money and the earth.  We hope this blog helps you with that purpose.

DIY: Keep Things from Becoming Waste

Here are some websites with ideas for how you can use items which would otherwise be thrown away.

For a variety of plastic bag crafts click here.

For plastic bag weaving click here.

For plastic bag fusing process click here.

To buy a recycled rice bag tote click here.

To make a rice bag tote click here.

To make a magazine bag click here.

How to Make a Sugar Bag Pencil Case

I decided to make a pencil case out of an old sugar bag. All you really need is a scissors and a zipper. Most of the construction is done for you since the bag is already sewn into a shape perfect for pencil cases. To reduce further consumption, I used a zipper from an old pair of pants.

Start by cutting the sugar bag, with the remaining length the size you would like the pencil case.

Next cut down each corner of the bag.

Fold the corners down and secure them with tape or glue.

Attach your zipper by sewing it or gluing it. 

And now you have a pencil case.

How to Make Your Own Capri Sun Bag

As mentioned in the DIY Capri Sun post, billions of juice packets are thrown away into landfill. Of course that number can be reduced by not drinking juice packets, but another way is to make useful things out of the juice packets. Since Capri Sun bags are sturdy, waterproof, and sewable I decided to make a bag out of them. 

You will need:

25 Capri Sun bags for this particular model

Tape

Sewing Machine

Scissors

Start but cutting a slit in the bottom of each Capri Sun bag and rinsing out the inside with soap and water.

After letting the bags dry, flatten them out and tape two together.

Next sew the two bags together.

Make two rectangles of 2x3 capri sun packets and two rectangles of 1x2 capri sun packets.

Also make a 1x3 of about half the length of the capri sun bags for the bottom.

Fold up the sides and sew along the edges.

For the handles I folded capri sun bags in half and sewed three of them together. 

And now you have a Capri Sun bag.

How to Weave Your Own Purse

I got the idea for weaving a bag from the commonly made "magazine bags." However, in order to weave bags out of magazine pages, lamination or a lot of tape must be used. Since my purpose was to reduce waste I decided to stray away from magazine pages and instead use shopping bags which are already laminated and so are durable and waterproof without using excess materials. 

You will need:

-shopping bag

-paper cutter

-scissors

-sewing machine

-hot glue gun (not necessary, but helpful)

-old shower curtain (in the spirit of recycling, but any fabric that will work as a liner will do)

Take your shopping bag and cut out its handles, making sure not to damage them (they will be used later.)

Using a paper cutter, cut the bag into equally sized strips. 

Then weave these strips together, making a square or rectangle. You can choose whatever size suits you.

Next cut a piece of shower curtain or any type of fabric that corresponds to the shape of your weaving and sew it onto the weaving.

To make the edges nicer, fold over two sides of the weaving and sew them down.

Next take the middle of the weaving and fold it inwards. 

Bring the two sides up around the fold and either sew or hot glue gun those sides together. I tried to sew initially but the thickness of my particular shopping bag made it impossible for the needle to go through.

Then punch holes in the bag where you would like to place the handles. You can put two on each side, one on each end, use single handles or braid them for a thicker handle. 

And now you have a lovely purse which keeps shopping bags from becoming waste and you from buying another purse, which benefits both the environment and your wallet. 

How to Make Bags for Everyday Use

With some old dresses, towels, and an old laundry bag, you can make a large bag that can be used for dance, school, the beach, or just about anything:

What you need to make this:

1) An old towel or fabric from a dress, skirt, etc.

2) Any scrap fabrics

3) An old laundry mesh bag

4) Needle & thread

5) Scissors

How to make this:

Cut out two elongated half circles (to be the outside of the bag).  Sew the sides and bottom together.  The inside lining can be done the exact same way, with any type of fabric.  Sew the inside lining and outside lining together.  Make straps by braiding three strands of an old towel together.  Attach to the top of the bag and then sew shut the top.  The inside pockets can be made by cutting out rectangles and just stitching them onto the inside fabric.  The mesh bag can be attached the same way.

Consumer Society

"Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate." 
- Victor Lebow, 1955

Since the industrial revolution in the early 1800s, humans have been on a consuming spree. "Since 1950 alone, the world's people have consumed more goods and services than the combined total of all humans who ever walked the planet before us." And there have been benefits from this, like unparalleled economic growth and better quality of life in industrial countries (life expectancy is longer, we have (more than) adequate food, running water, shelter, electricity, and transportation.) In the 1900s, consumption patterns created huge amounts of environmental damage. To put it simply, every consumer product comes from the Earth and returns to it in one form or another, which is putting enormous strain on the environment.  But we consumers are continually told to keep buying, using, and throwing away. This is easily seen in any commercial, like this Macy's add. As Lebow said, consumption has become a way of life and we are consuming, burning up, wearing out, replacing, and discarding at an ever increasing rate, but now, we are beginning to see its hugely damaging effects. If everyone consumed like Americans we would need 3-5 planets. 75% of global fisheries are fished at or beyond capacity and 80% of planet's original forests are gone. 1/3 of our natural resources are used, only 4% of our forests are left and 40% of our waterways are polluted.

Statistics

From the Sierra Club website

 Fifty one percent of the freshwater animal species of the world are declining in number.

 A recent survey found one in four vertebrate species to be in sharp decline or facing serious pressure from human activities.

 One of every eight known plant species is threatened with extinction or is nearly extinct.

 One in ten tree species-some 8,750 of the 80,000 to 100,000 tree species known to science-are threatened with extinction.

 The overall rate of extinction is estimated to be 1,000 to 10,000 times higher than it would be naturally, and appears to be increasing. The last time such a mass extinction is believed to have occurred was 65 million years ago, when a dramatic shift in global climate patterns ended the age of the dinosaurs.

 Global forest cover is shrinking by 30 million acres a year. Causes include human-induced fires, agricultural expansion, logging, road-building, and exotic insect infestations.

 Vast destruction of the world's forests is contributing to the spread of the world's deserts, increasing the loss of biodiversity and hampering the ability of the Earth's atmosphere to cleanse itself.

 Some 58 percent of the world's coral reefs and one third of all fish species may be at risk from human activities.

 Fisheries are collapsing. About a quarter of stocks worldwide are currently depleted or in danger of depletion. Another 44 percent are being fished at their biological limit.

 Massive erosion-related to intensive farming practices and deforestation-is causing a rapid loss of topsoil and with it a potentially drastic drop in the ability to produce food for the world's people.

 In September of 1998, the BBC, citing data from NASA, reported the hole in the ozone over Antarctica had reached record proportions: 10 million square miles, roughly three times the size of Australia.

 1998 was the hottest year recorded since record keeping began in the 1860s. According to scientific evidence, it was the hottest year in the past one thousand years. Seven of the ten warmest years recorded occurred between 1990 and 1999. The dominant view among scientists is that a significant portion of this warming is the result of industrial society's emission of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases.

"The common thread through these environmental crises is unsustainable consumption. From mining, refining, transport, manufacture, use, and disposal of goods, humans today-individually and collectively-are asking more of the planet than ever before. The impact has been staggering. Quite literally, we are living beyond our ecological means, destroying the natural world in the process."

Plastic Bags

"According to calculations extrapolated from data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 on U.S. plastic bag, sack, and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills—estimates range from less than one to three percent of the bags." Click here to read more.

Plastic bags account for 80% of grocery and convenient store markets since they are cheap to produce, sturdy, plentiful, and easy to carry and store. However, once in the landfill, it takes plastic bags hundreds of years to break down, and as as they decompose, they leak toxins into lakes, soil, and the ocean. Plastic bags also account for large amounts of litter. "In San Francisco, City officials estimate that they spend $8.5 million annually to deal will plastic bag litter- that equates to roughly 17 cents for every bag distributed in the city." To read more from Californians Against Waste, click here.

However, there is one extremely successful story about reducing plastic bag use. A simple tax of 15 cents per bag was enacted in hopes of reducing Ireland's litter. This "tax on plastic shopping bags in the Republic of Ireland has cut their use by more than 90% and raised millions of eurs in revenue, the government says." The 3.5 million in extra revenues from the tax is to be used for environmental projects. To read this article, click here.

America's Consumption

From an artists point of view: Chris Jordan, America's Consumption

Juliet Schor's "Why We Want What We Don't Need"

Don't want to DIY?

DIY (Do It Yourself) projects are fun and allow you to take your "trash" and turn it into treasure.  However, many of us live busy lives and do not have the time to sew our own clothes out of re-used fabric, make our own bags out of old juice containers and plastic bags, or create jewelry out of old wires and beads.  If you need to buy clothes, accessories, or any other materialistic item, why not buy things that are (produced) environmentally friendly, with Fair Trade, and/or help support those in greater need?!  Here are some great websites to search through, with items ranging from vintage clothing to coffee!

Vintage: Vintage fashion re-uses and recycles, and "giving older garments a new lease on life reduces reliance on petrochemicals and the energy needed to manufacture them" (www.idealbite.com)

Rusty Zipper- over 12,000 vintage items available, searchable by size, era, style, and price

Enokiworld- designs from the 40's-70's

Annie Creamcheese- vintage couture!

Goodwill- find a Goodwill near you for great bargains on second-hand clothes. 

Fair Trade: Fair trade is aimed at helping farmers and other producers in developing countries and promote sustainability. 

The Hunger Site- Click once every day at this website and food is donated to a third world country.  However, they also have tons of fair trade items- unique jewelry, clothes, food, and more!

TreeHugger- This site leads to tons of different companies that stock products which are sustainable and fair trade.

Bazura Shop- A fair trade company that hires women in the Phillipines.  They sell paper beads, juice bags, and more.  The juice pouches are purchased from local school children and then made into fashionable bags!

Organic Clothing:  Organic clothing is much more eco-friendly than non-organic clothing- non-organic cotton takes 1/3 pound of chemicals to produce just one shirt.  Buying organic clothes means you are lowering the amount of pesticides surrounding you every day.

Etsy- Original and unique clothes, some made using organic and reclaimed materials

Levi Jeans- Skinny, low-rise jeans made out of organic cotton and recycled buttons

Darwin Design- Men's and women's tees

DID YOU KNOW:

-The $16.5 billion U.S. garment industry is highly dependent on polluting synthetics and sweatshop labor, which means that majority of the clothes you buy have chemicals in them and the money spent is supporting companies which have poor working conditions for workers.

-If just 10,000 people bought a pair of organic jeans instead of non-organic jeans, over 10,000 pounds of pesticides would be averted.

How to Make Small Pouches

With a rectangle piece of fabric, you can make a small pouch like this:

Cut of a strip of the rectangle (long way) for the tie.  Then fold the rectangle fabric in half and sew the sides together.  Fold the top over to create a slit for the tie, and sew it down.  Then thread the tie through the slit and tie knots at the end.

This is a simple way to make a pouch for jewelry, cameras, pens, etc.  In making this with old fabrics, you are preventing the fabric from being thrown into the landfill, and you are also saving money and time since you don't have to buy it at the store!

How to Make Bags out of Scrap Material

Scrap material can be used to make bags.  By taking many pieces of scrap fabric and cutting them into square or rectangles, they can then be sewn together to create a unique and thrifty bag.

 

What you need to make this:

1. Sewing machine (or needle & thread)

2. Scrap fabric

3. Scissors

Instructions: Cut scrap fabric into squares or rectangles.  Sew them together- you can make two large rectangles with all the scraps and then sew the two big panels together.  Attach long strips of fabric for the handles.

How to Make Journals out of Recycled Paper

Making journals out of recycled paper is an easy way to conserve the amount of paper used, and it also prevents paper that is still usable from being thrown away.  All you need is a stack of papers that have one side blank.  Staple the end of the papers on one side (three staples works the best) and that is it!  You can decorate the front by pasting a magazine page on top, drawing, or putting whatever you like on the front.

Here are some startling facts about paper waste in our country:

1. It takes 390 gallons of oil to produce a ton of paper

2. Public landfill is approximately 36% waste paper products

3. Each person in an office uses around 2.5 pounds of paper each week

4. Four million tons of office paper is discarded every year, which is enough paper to build a 12 foot high wall of paper from New York to California.

Once paper is no longer of use, you should recycle the paper.  Recycling paper helps control waste disposal problems--for every ton of paper recovered from recycling, about 3 cubic yards of landfill space are saved.  A paper can be recycled up to seven times before the paper-making fibers become to short to be recycled again.

Save all your old paper and make journals for school, work... just about anything!

DIY: Clothes

Every year, 85% of recyclable clothes are thrown away- around 900,000 tons of clothes end up in the landfill.  Over half of all the clothing, shoes and accessories purchased in 2008 were never worn.  We could save over 8 million tons of CO2 by not throwing away our old clothes and by being more conservative in buying clothes, shoes, and accessories.  

Here are several ideas for clothes that are still in really good condition, but you do not like anymore or know you will never wear:

1. Donate clothes to Goodwill, Salvation Army, Cerebral Palsy, or any organization which collects clothes for those who are in need.

2. Swap clothes with friends

There are also ways to take old clothes and make them into something usable:

Click here to learn how to make a bag out of old clothes

Click here to learn how to make a drawstring bag

You can use the fabrics of old clothes to make new clothes!

DIY: Capri-Sun Juice Packets

Every year, billions of juice packets are thrown into the landfill.  One way to avoid this is to not purchase individual juice packets.  However, if you do use juice packets, here are ways to make the old into new:

Click here to learn how to make a Capri-Sun purse

Click here to learn how to make a Capri-Sun wallet

Save your old Capri-Sun (or any similar juice, e.g. Kool-Aid) juice packets and re-make them into trendy and eye-catching purses and wallets!