Plastiki sets sail.

I wrote about the amazing David de Rothschild and his wonderful Plastiki made from plastic bottles and recycled materials last year.  It is sailing across the world to raise awareness about ocean pollution and inspire rethinking about waste.

The Plastiki set sail from San Francisco this weekend, and will reach Sydney in 100 days. See more here Plastiki  and here Plastiki.

The Plastiki has solar power, a vertical vegetable garden and is fully recyclable at the end of its journey. It is put together with a glue made from cashew nuts and sugar.

Brilliant innovation with an adventurous spirit.

Wishing them all a safe, happy and successful voyage, and we all look forward to welcoming them to Sydney later this year.

Follow the adventures here The Plastiki here Plastiki on Twitter and here Plastiki on Facebook.

Tick tock ....

This cute little birdie will cheep cheep cheep you awake. Download it onto your phone, and pop it in the bird house while you sleep sweetly. http://www.luckybite.com/luckybits/

The cup that lives longer than you do.

 

Each year American throw away 25,000,000,000 Styrofoam cups. Even 500 years from now, the foam coffee cup used this morning will be sitting in landfill.

Artist Tara Donovan is showing at this year's Adelaide Biennale. Apart we are together. 

http://www.adelaidefestival.com.au/servlet/Web?s=2290869&p=tara_donovan

Donovan uses everyday manufactured materials such as Styrofoam cups, sticky tape and drinking straws to create large scale sculptures that often have a biomorphic quality. Her sculptures must be assembled and disassembled carefully, which sometimes involve an extremely tedious process. With regards to her artistic process, Donovan explained that she chooses the material before she decides what can be done with it. She noted in an interview that she thinks "in terms of infinity, of the materials expanding."

A far more creative use than just sending the cups to landfill. 

Have a look here at some more wild statistics of the waste the USA alone generates.

http://www.epa.gov/reg3wcmd/solidwasterecyclingfacts.htm

Styrofoam also swims around in the ocean and ends up in places like this foamy beach. There is no away. 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inpeninsulacoastside/detail?entry_id=55995

Part of history

Thank you everyone for your basket making magic and creativity. In less than a month, we have made hundreds of baskets and saved thousands of plastic bags from landfill and the sea.

Each one is a unique little beauty!

We will have the baskets on exhibition at The Sydney Opera House, as part of over 4,600 actions in more than 170 countries around the world.

October 24th is the 350.org international day of climate action, where people all over the world make their voices heard, calling on leaders to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere to a safe level of 350 parts per million, and calling for a safe future.

It is the largest collective display of action to fight climate change the world has ever seen.

Find out more here  http://www.350.org/ and follow some of the amazing actions here on Twitter http://twitter.com/350


Here's a picture of the baskets taken at Bondi Beach.

Thank you fellow gritters Julie, Rena, Floria, Bea, Sue, Kylie, Annie, Paula, Yumi, Tobhi, Sam, Bridget,  Taka, Bev, Melanie, Petrina, Vanessa, Finn, Lana, Scarlet, Pepe, Joe, Maya, Di, Harvey, Jackie, Sabrina, Sue, Jessika, Tom, Rachel, Dave, Phillip, Alison, Stefanie, Janos, Sacha, Kirsty, Martha, Sarah, Melanie, Roman, Lola, Piper, Jane, Judge, Sally, Imogen, Felix, Felicity, Kitty, Marti, Tess, Luke, Jo, Bambi, Melissa, Susie, Andre, Kate, Kaye and all the other brilliant Gritters.

We will let you know about where the exhibition will be going after the Opera House.

Knitty Gritty and Loopy action for 350.org

Today we had a fantastic and productive day making baskets. Old plastic bags, bread and fruit bags, newspaper and dry cleaning wrap, garbage bags, mattress wrap...no bit of plastic was safe. Young and old, we wove, crocheted, knitted and plarned. There are 19 days to go until we exhibit our baskets at the Sydney Opera House for the 350.org international day of climate action.

There are 350 frisbees being thrown in Brisbane, 350 t-shirts being printed in Adelaide, scuba divers, surfers, skiers and lantern walkers all doing things to draw attention to the number that defines our future. 1,736 actions in 139 countries. For actions near you, have a look here.  http://www.350.org/action-list and to find out more about 350, have a look here http://www.350.org/about

Come along to GreenUps on Tuesday night and join us in some live crafting action. Bring some old bags and needles. We have made 50 baskets ...300 to go. http://greenups.net/

We will also be making baskets together next Sunday and the following Sunday. Have a look here for details. http://knittygrittyandloopy.blogspot.com/ You can also drop off your baskets to us on Tuesday night, Sunday or drop them into the Ivan Dougherty Gallery.http://www.cofa.unsw.edu.au/galleries/idg/about.html

Knitty Gritty and Loopy for 350.

Last night we made more baskets from plastic bags, newspaper wrap, drycleaning bags and mattress cover bags. They were knitted, crocheted and woven, and each one has its own unique character and style.

Here are some pictures, including the before and after.

Please join us in making baskets for 350.org. They're to be exhibited on the international day of Climate Change Action on October 24th. We've made 20...330 to go.

http://www.350.org/ and join us at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=151602005199

Making the invisible visible.

The ice in the Arctic is melting at a rate like never before. If you ever wanted to see photographs and live film of climate change before your eyes, have a look at this talk and the Extreme Ice Survey.

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/work-connect/photographic-evidence-climate-change.html

Age of Stupid

Age of Stupid is a brilliant movie that premiered in Sydney in August, and is released globally in over 45 cinemas and 550 cinemas on September 21st.

It shows the world in 2055, and looks at back at real news footage of 2008 in regards to what we are doing to the planet. Why didn't we stop climate change when we knew we could? Why didn't we save ourselves when we had a chance?

Hopefully we will all work hard at making changes now, so that future generations don't look back at us as the age of stupid.

http://www.ageofstupid.net/

October Ups

Please come and join us at October GreenUps on October 6th, 6pm at The Beauchamp Hotel on the corner of Oxford and South Dowling Streets, Paddington. We will be on the roof deck, and will be celebrating Sustainable Art during the the Art and About Festival.

We will have a slide show from The Green Museum, and live plastic bag basket making. Bring some old bags or bits of plastic, some needles and scissors and craft up a storm with us.

http://greenups.net/

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=128642708243

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52193147123&ref=ts

GreenUps

In March this year, a group of us started GreenUps - green drinking to inspire green thinking.

http://www.greenups.net/

GreenUps is a series of informal 'meet ups' aimed at inspiring people with an interest in the environment and sustainability. People can connect, learn, share, inspire and conspire with other like minded people.

We're part of an international movement of Green Drinks in more than 450 cities around the world.

http://www.greendrinks.org/index.php?country=Australia&city=Sydney

Join up to our Facebook group for updates. We hope to see you at the next one. They are held on the first Tuesday of the month at different venues around Sydney.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52193147123&ref=ts

Doing it for the kids

[re]design for London Design Week September 2009 looks great. The theme is Doing it for the kids.

Doing It For The Kids is an exhibition of sustainable play design. The project explores play types, the importance of play in child development, how toys help mould our kids’ values and how they impact on the environment. The exhibition will present examples of sustainable toys and other play resources that inspire designers, educators and parents to be more critical and creative.

http://www.redesigndesign.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=640&Itemid=53

Getting fungi

Fungi is an enigmatic and mysterious life form which is essential to the health of our planet. It infuses all landscapes, and can create an oasis of life. From a source of food to a powerful healing agent, fungi is a magician of air, earth and water.

Make your own fungus at the Fungiverse, and check out some of the amazing fungi facts at the end, including Paul Stamens fantastic TED talk on six ways mushrooms can save the world.

www.fungiverse.com

Truckfarm

This Truckfarm could be a great idea for some of those huge cars you see driving around town.

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/07/28/truck-farm-is-a-roving-veggiemobile/

Trees and Cradles

What is elegant?
Makes oxygen
Sequesters CO 2
Changes colour
Makes complex sugars and foods
Fixes nitrogen
Distills water
Creates micro climates
Self replicates

Then we knock it down and write on it?

A TREE!

Here is a Cradle to Cradle TED talk by the wonderful William McDonough

http://www.ted.com/talks/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html

Interviews

I saw the great Bill McKibben speak when he was in Sydney earlier this year, and he delighted us with a visit to GreenUps to talk about 350.org.

Here is a new interview on Treehugger radio.

http://ads.treehugger.com/thtv_files/audio/TH%20Radio/Interviews/Bill%20McKibben.mp3

They are a fantastic series of interviews, and I like to download them and listen them as I walk around the park.

Some other great ones are by Emily Pilloton on Project H, Edward Humes on Eco Barons, Adam Werbach from Saatchi and Saatchi S, Paul Watson - a modern pirate who is saving our seas, Daniel Goleman author of Emotional Intelligence, the people behind the amazing story of Crude ... the list goes on. Great listening and learning.

WOW. The Paraty House.

Have a look at this gorgeous house on Paraty Beach by Marcio Kogan Architects in Brazil.

More here. http://www.contemporist.com/2009/09/08/the-paraty-house-by-marcio-kogan-architects/

Fresh Supplies

A novel way to grow food in your living room, this home farm will provide you with fresh fish, fruit and veg, and save on all those food miles.

This Biosphere home farm contains fish, crustaceans, algae, plants and other mini-ecosystems, all interdependent and in balance with each other. Making families all over the world at least partly self-sufficient in this way has obvious appeal.

A concept Food Probe by Philips Design in Eindhoven.

http://www.design.philips.com/

Swoon

The Tokujin Yoshioka designed Pleats Please Issey Miyake store just opened in Aoyama, Tokyo.

It is a refurbishment of the existing store, and the walls and ceiling are covered in recycled aluminium panels, originally developed as parts for cars.

His work is so divine, it makes me swoon!

http://www.tokujin.com/

Green Pockets

These tiles designed by Maruja Fuentes are made from recycled materials, and you can add a bit of life and colour to an otherwise plain tiled wall.

They were designed to be used as planters for a wall display or covering, but the uses for these pockets are endless.

http://www.marujafuentes.com/

Flying Rubbish. Re-think, Re-cycle, Re-delight.

Artists words:

A strange kind of cleanliness and tidiness are the rules of society everyone has to obey. That’s why it is difficult for us to recognise the different possibilities of reuse that lay in used products or waste. Imagination is needed for an intelligent reuse of “rubbish”. Just by a new interpretation of the product, by a change of context “rubbish” can get a new function in the world of efficiency and become useful again. This kind of imagination is easier for children. For them there is also beauty in the rubbish. They discover easily alternative ways to use objects of daily life. So the aim is to combine the world of efficiency and the world of miracle! But is it possible to overlay the disgust and repulsion of waste with the joy and fun of the world of the children?

Weimar, Germany, December 2004: I sold rubbish bags filled with helium to the people visting the Christmas market. The “balloons” are a strange happening and afterwards helpful to carry the waste and garbage. Even so the bags were clean and not used it was difficult for adults to accept the new “prefunction”.

Holger Beisitzer.