Pivot TV’s new reality show about converting waste materials into new better quality stuff, is changing the definition of trash TV. The new half hour comedy show, “Human Resources,” premiers August 8. It’s based on the eccentric staff at New Jersey upcycling company Terra Cycle.

The world of reality TV has few, if any, boundaries. The era of weird people’s life on camera has included such Emmy worthy programs as “Vanilla Ice Goes Amish” and “What Would Ryan Lochte Do?” And then there was the ever twisted reality show “The Swan,” which took women deemed “unattractive” and gave them extreme plastic surgery-laden makeovers. But that’s not quite the flow for “Human Resources.”

According to Terra Cycle CEO Tom Szaky, it’s all about eliminating the concept of waste by making things that were formerly unrecyclable, recyclable. They reuse, upcycle, and even recycle nearly everything that you could imagine. It’s a nutty crew in a nutty workspace with daily lunch yoga, rain dances on the front lawn, superhero sock day, and vegan lunches.

But most importantly, the show is shining a light on a really cool company whose mission is to create waste collection programs called Brigades for things that are traditionally difficult to recycle. The waste is transformed into brand new products from recycled park benches to upcycled backpacks.

Terra Cycle is trying to fix a big problem, considering that 90 percent of the stuff we buy will be in the dump within the year. But by changing our perspective, nothing needs to be trash because one system’s trash is another system’s food–just like in nature. Either way, it’s certainly an upgrade from “My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé”, “I Cloned My Pet”, or “Living Lohan.”

The Unbelievable Value of Upcycling Cloths 7 Ways: On Trend

Freitag: Creating Sustainable and Upcycled Bag that R.I.P.

Upcycling Fashiong Explores Designer Imagination

Image: Sabrina Dalman

The post Upcycling in the Spotlight: Terra Cycle Gets a Reality Show appeared first on EcoSalon.

A moment on the lips. An eternity where? Food waste is a big deal for your pantry, budget and the planet. 

You’re not going to love this week’s challenge. Next time you visit the grocery store I want you to come home and before you take the bags inside to the kitchen toss half of them into the trash can. That’s right; if you’ve bought four bags, throw two away. If you’ve bought eight bags, chuck out four of them. You get the picture.

Crazy right?

Well according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council, this is exactly what we’re doing because Americans waste every other mouthful of food.

Stop for a moment. Don’t just read on, stuffing this golden McNugget of information into a brain where it doesn’t touch the sides. Stop. Think. Feel…

Every. Other. Mouthful.

Half. 

Three out of six grocery bags.

Has it sunk in yet? Have you tasted the ridiculousness of the situation we’re in?

Many people make the assumption that tossing food in a landfill is ok; it’s a natural product that composts down. The trouble is when air doesn’t get to the food (such as when it’s been wrapped in a plastic bag and has a ton of other stuff sitting on top of it in a landfill site) it decomposes and produces methane gas instead. Hello global warming!

But it’s not just that, is it? What a terrible waste of resources – resources you might not even think about such as water, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, packaging, transportation, energy to run greenhouses… then there’s your money; money you’ve worked hard to earn, perhaps you’ve sat at your desk and missed your child take his first steps so that you can throw money away on food you toss in the garbage can.

This month, I’m asking you to rise to the challenge of overhauling your food habits. Traditionally autumn is the time of harvest where long hours would be spent picking, storing and preserving foods for the winter. With supermarket shopping available to us 24/7 we no longer need to worry about harvesting; we simply go out and buy more. I’m not asking you to go back to living off the land, but to be more reverent about food in general.

We’re told we will face food shortages in our lifetime but I’m not so sure. Maybe if people in the Western world were more thoughtful and less hasty there would be enough to feed everyone for a very long time.

Here are six ideas for reducing food waste to get you started.

• Start your day with a smoothie made from anything going wrinkly in the fruit bowl
• Use your leftovers in the following day’s lunch box – rice or pasta salads are delicious
• Menu plan; brainstorm your family’s favorite meals and plan this week’s meals around them
• Make old veggies into soup or pasta sauces
• Don’t shop when you’re hungry; seriously – you’ll end up buying more than you need
• Never judge a book by its cover; we’ve been conditioned to judge everything by appearance but check out this brown banana and moldy pineapple

I know you creative people out there have plenty more to share. Let me know what you’re planning in the comments below!

The post The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: Our Personal Food Crisis appeared first on EcoSalon.

We Want You to take the zero waste challenge.

For the past few months you’ve been working admirably through your waste in order to get your trash can to a svelte sized zero. Next month over 600 people are waiting to celebrate with you, taking part in a Zero Waste Week. The week takes place from September 3-9 and is in its fifth year.

Just for you I’ve kept the theme light this year and not at all overwhelming, dubbing it “One more thing.” I’m asking: “What one more thing could you recycle during Zero Waste Week to make an even bigger difference?”

The idea behind the week is to gather support, momentum and fun as we work together towards a common goal. By choosing something simple it makes the week inclusive. No matter where you are on your zero waste journey, there is always one more thing you can do.

Ideally we wouldn’t even focus on recycling; we’d look at getting to the root of the issue which is our love of consumerism. Most of us buy blindly, not really thinking about what will happen to the product or the packaging once we’ve finished using it. Worse still we buy stuff we don’t even want or need; but more on that another time.

If you’re recycling like a pro already then you can still take part in Zero Waste Week. Some participants are setting up wormeries or compost heaps. Others are decluttering their closets and taking things to charity shops. Other people are going to refuse to buy things in non-recyclable packaging.

My personal goal is eliminating food waste. Recently I’ve started to let things languish in the back of the refrigerator. Only this week I had to toss some ham that was hidden behind other things, black currants that were sporting blue furry jackets and pizza that I left in the oven instead of putting into the fridge. Who wants to waste pizza?

So have a think about that procrastination job you’ve been meaning to get around to – perhaps you’ve promised yourself you’ll find a local tetra pak recycling area or check out your local farmer’s market. Maybe you haven’t organized your reusable bags yet or have a pile of stuff to take to the textiles bank.

Whatever your goal for Zero Waste Week there’s no excuse – you’re going to get all the support you need. Come and sign up to our event on Facebook, share the twitter hashtag #zerowaste or if social media isn’t your thing come and tell us what you’re up to on the Zero Waste website.

The Facebook event is where most activity is taking place and people from all over the world are sharing wonderful advice and having great discussions – we’ve been talking about reusing cable ties (apparently you can carefully remove them for reuse; who knew!) along with ideas for reducing food waste and 101 uses for old glass jars.

What are you waiting for? Your challenge awaits and I know you’re ready.

Image: The Daily Green/Mark Langan

The post Do You Have What It Takes For a Zero Waste Week? appeared first on EcoSalon.

Adding recycling to errands you already do attaches a new habit to a bad one. 

Last month I encouraged you to part company with your trash can and set up a recycling center. That old faithful friend who has been happily eating your garbage for the past however many years needs to go if you are ever going to get your trash to a trim size zero. We also imparted the mantra “Wash and squash” for rinsing and compacting your recyclable materials, another skinny trick.

By now your recycling containers are probably overflowing at a rate that surpasses regular curbside pick-up. With summer temperatures soaring you don’t want to be hanging onto things much longer, so here’s where this month’s challenge comes in: It’s time to get out your calender for a little forward planning.

Let’s face it: there is little point washing, squashing and storing your recyclables only to make a special journey to the recycling center. By the time you’ve burned gas and belched out your carbon emissions into the atmosphere, you may as well have well kept your kitchen bin and chucked everything in the landfill.

So this month, take a look at your schedule. Peruse your calendars for work commitments, errands, gym visits, visits to friends and families and anything else you are doing. Do any of these take you past a local recycling center? You can find them via Recycle Now in the UK  or 1-800-Recycling in the U.S.

Once you’ve found the perfect opportunity, mark it in your diary or schedule it on your smartphone, then make a commitment to yourself and the environment. The next time you are going past a recycling center, you will leave your home ten minutes earlier and take your recycling with you.

It couldn’t be simpler.

You might be able to squeeze in a visit between pumping iron at the gym and picking up the kids or perhaps you can stop on your way home from work or the supermarket. By adding recycling to errands you already do this makes it more convenient and less likely that you’ll forget. One of the best ways to put a new habit into place is to attach it to something you already do.

For more from the Zero Waste Trash Challenge, check out:

First Stop: A Bin Audit
Just Say No (To Plastic Bags)
The Five Step Program for Better Recycling
Set Up a Recycling Center Based on Your Habits

Image: Signal Station; Gosia Malochleb, Peter Kaminski

The post The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: Better Recycling Goes Beyond Curbside appeared first on EcoSalon.

How streamlined is your recycling system? The Zero Waste Challenge continues, daring you to trash your trash can. 

Give yourself a pat on the back for all the wonderful things you’ve done so far to reduce your landfill waste. In April you took a bin audit, from which you created your top five list to discover the materials that make up the majority of your weekly trash. Then you gave up disposable plastic bags for good; after all, these are such a waste of resources and can damage wildlife if dropped as litter. Last month you armed yourself with local information by finding out what you could recycle at your curbside and in local recycling areas. You should now have a list of the materials you can recycle and where you can recycle them.

This month you’re going to give your entire home recycling set up a Zero Waste makeover.

Here’s a before and after look at my recycling area. Note the borderline hoarding effect of dutifully saving all my materials vs. the practicality of dividing and conquering.

My before was not exactly conducive to inspired recycling. For example, I couldn’t get to the containers at the bottom so frankly, it was easier to throw things away. And we all know where “away” is:

As a solution, I dumped my kitchen bin. There’s nothing like throwing yourself in at the deep end. The problem is it’s so easy and convenient to open that door and pop something in the bin. Out of sight, out of mind, never to be thought of again. But by not thinking about the consequences of our actions we are wasting resources and polluting the planet.

Therein lies this month’s challenge. We’ll call it Operation: Bin Be Gone.

Now you’ll need to make recycling really work for you regardless of any difficulties you might face. You might have specific requirements such as dogs or cats that might enjoy sniffing around empty cans or toddlers that can’t resist the sharp edge of a tin. Perhaps you’re limited by space or live with an elderly person who needs supervision around rubbish and recycling. There are solutions to all of these issues.

Solution 1: People with small spaces can hang bags on the back of kitchen cupboard doors to store things in.

Solution 2: You might need a shelf outside the back door or on a balcony.

Solution 3: Maybe you need a few boxes in the garage or basement or maybe it’s easier to dot things around your house, like paper recycling next to the computer or plastic bottle recycling in the dining area.

The most important thing you can do to reduce the amount of space needed is to compact your recycling: crush tins, squeeze the air out of bottles and tetra pak containers, flatten cardboard boxes and keep paper flat rather than crumpling it.

Like this:

Keep it clean too, so you aren’t surrounded by stinky trash. Rinsing out a can is pretty much like washing a plate – do it straight away and don’t let anything set hard around the edge. Use old washing up water to save resources and give bottles and cartons a rinse at the same time before squashing down. Your new mantra for this month is “wash & squash!”

Spend some time thinking about your habits. Where are you when you need to recycle something? Sitting at your computer, washing up in the kitchen or doing your morning routine in the bathroom? Put a suitable container in that room for the type of materials you want to recycle.

Figure out whether you prefer to have everything in one place with an assortment of labeled containers or if you need to put up a couple of shelves somewhere. Be creative, think outside the recycling box and always focus on solutions. With a bit of thought you can make recycling just as convenient as throwing something in the trashcan.

Image: Martha Stewart; Goodwill

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There’s recycling, and then there’s hyper-localized zero waste recycling.

How are you getting on with your zero waste challenge? I hope it’s been fun. (Yes, rubbish can be fun.)

To recap: So far you’ve done a bin audit and found, like our editor, an abundance of items you could have reused, recycled or composted instead of trashing. You put together your top five list, as in materials that make up the majority of your weekly garbage. Perhaps you went an extra step and did a “before” weigh in.

After rummaging through your rubbish, you were encouraged to ditch the disposable plastic carrier bag forever. Many people carry their own shopping bags, but we also leave them at home, in the car, or don’t take enough with us so we reach out for convenience – just one more bag won’t make a difference right? Wrong, capital W. Disposable plastic carrier bags are the ultimate waste in resources; made from oil which takes hundreds of years to create, used for 5 minutes then tossed in landfill where it takes hundreds of years to decompose. If you don’t have enough reusable bags and boxes, catch up now and add to your collection so you can be plastic bag free.

This month you’re going to empower yourself with local information, really local, starting with your own curbside. Recycle outside of your home in five easy steps.

Step 1: If you’re in the UK, like I am, type your postcode into Recycle Now to discover the materials your local council will collect. In the U.S., check out 1-800-Recycling or Earth 911.

Step 2: Take advantage of local collection points outside of supermarkets, schools, pubs or the kind of local authority household recycling centers we call “Bring Banks” in England, hence the spelling.

Step 3: Spend a moment thinking about the journeys you make in a typical week: use the database to see what you can recycle near your workplace, near friends you frequently visit or on other weekly errands.

Step 4: Find out where your nearest civic amenity site is and check out the range of materials recycling available to you.

Step 5: Write down the materials you can recycle and where you can recycle them.

That’s all you need to do this month. Easy. Let me know what you found out. Are there more or less recycling facilities than you expected?

For more of Rachelle Strauss’ series on Zero Waste Living, check out:

The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: Just Say No (to Plastic Bags)
The Zero Waste Challenge: First Stop, a Bin Audit
16 Ways to Trim Your Trash

Image: Pylon757; epSos. de

The post The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: The 5 Step Program for Better Recycling appeared first on EcoSalon.

The hardest part of the Zero Waste Challenge is making a conscious decision and sticking to it.

Assuming you persevered through your bin audit – any horror stories to tell? – you should now be aware of how much you are throwing away and what your top five wasters are. If you haven’t already done so, let us know in the comments below.

My top five landfill lay-a-bouts were plastic milk bottles, yogurt cartons, food waste, plastic bags and aluminum foil.

I promised this month’s challenge would be much easier, less messy and something most of you are doing already. But before my family got started, it was the last straw in the trash pile that finally got my husband on board.

Say No to Disposable Plastic Carrier Bags

Think about the absurdity of plastic carrier bags for a moment. It’s believed that oil takes hundreds of thousands of years to produce. We extract it and make it into a carrier bag, which we use for the duration of one shopping trip. For most shoppers, that carrier bag is filled with things to be wheeled from the checkout line to the car, then hauled from the car to our kitchen: a total of 5 minutes. After that we throw the bag in the trash where it ends up in the landfill and takes around 500 years to decompose.

So let’s get this straight: We take something that has taken hundreds of thousands of years to produce, use it for five minutes then leave it for another 500 years to decompose?

Not a good use of resources.

But that’s not all. Our oceans are now a soup of plastic consisting of slivers of plastic that have broken down into smaller and smaller pieces. These slivers end up in the food chain: the fish eat the plastic and we eat the fish. Hardly a foodie trend we should want to partake in.

Sadly, for marine life like turtles and albatross, things aren’t quite so good. They mistakenly ingest plastic bags or get caught up in them, resulting in a painful death.

There is no need to use a disposable plastic bag when there are so many options. Our shops are bursting at the seams with beautiful, sustainable shopping bags made from organic cotton, jute and repurposed materials like rice sacks.

If you’re good with a sewing machine, put your fabric stash to good use and make a morsbag. Reuse cardboard boxes and stack them in the car.
Get a beautiful wicker basket and carry it proudly on your arm.
Even consider reusing your plastic carrier bags until they are no longer useful.

Next, the challenging bit: make a conscious effort to remember to take your bag alternatives to the store with you.

Are you up for this month’s challenge? Show your commitment by leaving a comment below.

Images: Ars Electronica; Ocean Resources; ailatan

The post The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: Just Say No (To Plastic Bags) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Step one to getting zero waste is keeping your rubbish in sight and in mind: bring that junk into your awareness.

Editor’s note: Rachelle Strauss is the author of My Zero Waste, a homegrown blog and informational site about a family of four striving to reduce the amount of waste they send to landfill each week, month and year. In her ongoing series with EcoSalon, she’s challenging readers to do the possible: reduce household trash to one bin a year.

“Away” is simply somewhere else – a landfill site, an incinerator or a ship to China. The trouble is, once we’ve put something in the ubiquitous black bin bag, it’s out of sight, out of mind. We can’t wait to “get rid of it,” to absolve responsibility for it and, in some cases, forget it ever happened.

I’d like to challenge you to start thinking about your rubbish. Start thinking about what you are doing before you dump something in the bin. Start thinking about what you are buying before you get it home. Bring your rubbish in sight, in mind and into your awareness.

Don’t worry; I’m not asking for an overnight change of habits; this is all about taking baby steps, manageable steps, steps so small you won’t even notice – towards a fantastic goal.

This month, then, I’m challenging you to become aware of your bin habits. That’s all.

What do you throw away without thought? What do you haul to the curbside each week? What do you buy on autopilot without considering the alternatives?

To gain this knowledge you need to take a bin audit.

A Good Dirty, Squirmy Rummage

Rubber gloves are handy. Pull them on and have a rummage. Is your stomach turning yet? It should be. Who wants to be reminded of all the garbage we throw away on a day-to-day basis? It’s okay if you’re disgusted, perhaps you should be. This is the awareness.

Get in there. Have a poke, a prod and a ponder. Hold things up in horror. Feel guilty if you need to for all the food waste in there or the broken plastic that that you really didn’t need to buy in the first place.

Micromanage That Junk

Make a list dividing it into categories like food (waste, packaging, leftovers), household (cleaning product containers, DIY remnants, aerosols), personal (toiletry packaging, sanitary protection, medications packaging).

Use whatever system works for you and write it all down.

Now pin it to the fridge where you can be reminded of your wasteful habits.

Can you measure your waste in some way? Either chuck it on the scales or measure by number of bags. Write this down along with your list of rubbish; it will give you something to feel good about when you can see your progress a couple of months down the track.

If you could work out a percentage, what are the top five wasters in your bin? Is it plastic bottles, yogurt cartons, food waste? Write these down too.

The guilt stops here because you’re on the path to positive change. I’ll even hold your hand. In less than a year you’ll be in possession of a size zero waste.

The dirty work is done. Let the real work begin.

Postscript: In 2009, Rachelle Strauss and her family accumulated one lone and solitary trashcan of landfill waste. It was not an overnight transformation, but rather an 18-month process of planning and a gentle change of habits. In Strauss’ ongoing series with EcoSalon, she challenges readers to do the possible: reduce household trash to one bin a year.

Images: Bonnie Natko; Christopher Wolfe; Duncan Blackwood; The Daily Mail, Dru Bloomfield

The post The Zero Waste Trash Challenge: First Stop, A Bin Audit appeared first on EcoSalon.

This year, resolve to get your waste down to a size zero.

How much rubbish did you throw out last year? If you’re anything like the average person, you threw away your own body weight in rubbish every seven weeks. But have you ever stopped to think where “away” is? Away is no magical place full of rainbows and fairies where everything is transformed into something lovely. No, “away” is a landfill site, an incinerator, or a ship to China. It might even be a turtle’s mouth.

In the New Year why not make a resolution for the earth by resolving to get your waste to a svelte size zero? It’s fun, challenging and, better still, it won’t cost you anything. It might even save you money.

In 2009, my family set ourselves to the challenge of accumulating no more than one trash can of landfill for the entire year. Here’s the result.

After having our bin emptied live on breakfast television (what a claim to fame!) and our story spreading around the world we decided to see how low we could go. By the end of the following year, this was our contribution to landfill:

Don’t let this overwhelm you. It took us 18 months of gradual reduction to get to that level. Putting your bin on a diet is like losing weight yourself, the odd pound every week soon adds up to significant change. Soon the only pounds you’ll be gaining will be in your wallet while your trash can will be looking slim and sophisticated.

If you’re up for the challenge, here are 16 tips to get you started:

1. Take your own reusable bags to the store and say no to disposable plastic bags.

2. Make full use of your curbside collections; what could be simpler than rinsing and recycling at home?

3. Set up a collection point in your home for materials you can take to a local recycling bank.

4. Check your schedule and mark in your diary the times when you are traveling past a recycling bank – start taking your materials with you.

5. Instead of throwing away toys, books and clothes, find your nearest thrift store and do your bit for humanity as well as the environment.

6. Decluttering larger items? Join your local Freecycle group where you’ll find people in your area who think your trash is treasure.

7. Become a secret spy – check any packaging you’re thinking of buying for recycling information. If you can’t recycle it easily look for alternatives and complain to the manufacturer.

8. Choose one disposable item you regularly use and swap for the reusable version (think disposable pens, kitchen towels, diapers and sanitary napkins).

9. Reduce paper waste by signing up for paperless billing (this often saves you money too) and stopping junk mail at the source.

10. Make something you usually buy in packaging such as bread, cakes or biscuits. It’s better for you and cheaper, too.

11. Make friends with your local retailers. Ask your butcher, baker or deli to sell you things in your own reusable containers.

12. Start a compost heap or wormery, you’ll be able to turn your fruit and vegetable peelings into something valuable for the garden.

13. Speaking of gardening, grow some of your own food. Even if you don’t have a garden you can grow in window boxes or on the kitchen windowsill.

14. Banish the word “leftovers” from your vocabulary. From now on you have tomorrow’s ingredients.

15. Make do and mend. We live in a disposable culture but the reward of knitting, sewing, crochet and woodwork is tremendous.

16. And now the philosophical part: learn to separate your wants from your needs.

Are you ready to resolve to give up waste in 2012? Tell me how you’re going to start and I’ll be your personal cheerleader.

Images: Paula Bailey; Anorak; VegPlotting

After reading an article about the effects of plastics on marine life, Rachelle Strauss and her husband (a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. Green) vowed to live a life less wasteful and started the popular UK-based site My Zero Waste, which encourages its readers to make small changes in their homes, using less resources along the way.

The post 16 Ways to Trim Your Trash from Rachelle Strauss of My Zero Waste appeared first on EcoSalon.

The author of the hugely successful UK blog My Zero Waste challenges people to join a waste-free week away from home.

I recycle so much trash it’s embarrassing. To show you the state of my bins would be to out me as a hard-pressed consumer whose attempts at not producing waste are at most futile.

Prior to encountering the Greens – a.k.a. Rachelle Strauss, her husband Richard, their seven year-old daughter and black-and-white kitty cat, who’s now deceased, I felt rather confident with my waste management skills. Overall, I’d give myself a seven out of ten. Until I saw this:

It was enough to make me shrivel. That, my friends, is what Rachelle, author of the hugely successful UK green blog My Zero Waste, was sending to the dump one month last winter.

A combination of albatross and sea turtle horror stories, plus a “traumatic” family vacation evacuation blamed on “strange weather” led them to embark on their zero waste experiment, which they now sustain as a way of life.

Let’s take a bottle of milk as an example. Silica-sand is formed into glass and then made into a bottle, which is filled with milk and sold to the consumer. A responsible consumer would toss that bottle into a recycling bin. A Zero Waste consumer would return the bottle to the original distributor to be washed, refilled, and sold to someone else. The only “waste” produced would be the water the bottled is washed with, but even that can serve its purpose.

Zero-wasting (or even nominally wasting), is all rather simple, and doable, particularly from the comfort of your own home. Controlling outside waste, however, is the real challenge. Like, I never remember to say no to straws while out and about, because they remind me of Shirley Temples. I would never drink a Shirley Temple now, of course, because of the “empty calorie” factor. Instead, I’m producing “empty waste.”

In their fourth annual Zero Waste Week, Strauss and friends are focusing on “Reducing waste away from home.” You can join them from September 5^th to the 11^th by participating in small, but impactful, acts of waste reduction. For example, use your own travel mug. Bring fruit peelings and cores accumulated on the road to compost at home. Avoid straws and disposable cutlery when eating out.

Also, chime in your efforts on My Zero Waste. Sign up for the Facebook event. Even tweet with the hashtag #nzww.

It might seem small or self-evident until we consider the milk bottle again. After it’s washed, refilled and resold, imagine if the consumer on the other end was a zero-waster like you. Now, that would be a veritable flash mob – one worth boasting about.

Images: ruminatrix; John Wardell

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