Brett Tietz Sustainability Project

Brett Tietz

ILS 252

Professor Brandner

December 14, 2011

From Trash to Treasure

Introduction

The waste of goods is a greatly increasing problem in the world and is very central to our efforts of a more “sustainable” planet. The problem I have noticed is, in America, most of our consumer goods are treated as material items detached from who we are and so the manufacturers know this and create a product that will break or wear down over time and have to be purchased again. This type of consumer lifestyle of buying and replacing certainly creates a lot of waste which perpetuates our unsustainable ways. The saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” so my project is an effort to make people see their “trash” as something they can reuse in a different way by creating renewed decorations, furnishings, and jewelry out of recyclable glass, aluminum, plastics and more. Not only will this reuse materials that would have been thrown away but it will also reduce the amount of new manufactured products and eliminate some of the waste that comes with manufacturing.

After households dispose of their trash by Municipal Solid Waste collection, it is easy to forget about the trash and often times just think of it as eliminated. However, this is far from the truth as there are many significant problems caused by landfill build up and decomposing trash. According to the EPA:

First, the anaerobic decomposition of waste in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Second, the incineration of waste also produces carbon dioxide as a by-product. Additionally, in transporting waste for disposal, greenhouse gases are emitted due to the combustion of fossil fuels. Finally, fossil fuels are also required for extracting and processing the raw materials necessary to replace those materials that are being disposed with new products (Methodology 2007).

Certainly Municipal Solid Waste is a dirty business. With all of the harm that our waste production accounts for, one might ask, “how much waste is actually being produced?” In 2010 alone, Americans generated almost 250 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste which averages to about 4.49 pounds per person, per day. In relation to this waste, only 34% of that was recycled allowing for 165 million tons of waste to sit in landfills or to be incinerated (Municipal 2010).

When I developed the idea for this project I wanted to challenge myself to think about all of the multiple ways that I could reuse my trash to make furnishings for the home and jewelry for the body. When any single item is just a click away from being purchased on the internet, it is easy to forget the craftsmanship or trade behind the origins of the product. This disconnection of consumerism that I am targeting is the most important factor of why people throw away waste instead of reusing it. Kristin Congdon notes, “There are two sides to the recycling process. We recycle when we place old bottles and newspapers in a designated recycling bin, and we recycle when we make use of objects someone else throws away.”(Congdon 2000). By browsing the internet and talking with other people interested in this project, I have collected several DIY ideas that can be made from recyclables. These projects include but are certainly not limited to: drinking glasses cut and sanded from old wine bottles, champagne glasses cut, sanded, and adhered from old beer bottles, candle holders cut and sanded from old liquor bottles, earrings fashioned from reused photographic film strips, sculptures made from bottle caps, and guitar slides cut and sanded from wine bottlenecks. Included in my class presentation will be the presentation of these few items that I have made for this project. A final goal is to sell these finished products to fund other sustainable projects around Madison.

Consumerism, just like we have learned in class about agriculture, is hard to retreat from after the advance has already been made to that lifestyle. It is impossible to expect people, even after learning about the harm that waste and consumerism causes, to discontinue shopping and wanting to decorate themselves and their homes with new furnishings. My project is unique because it understands this need for an individualistic representation through consumerism and at the same time tries to offer an eco-friendly alternative.

Right now in America, “green” or recycled manufactured goods can be very costly. At my workplace, Campus Street Sportswear, the price for a recycled student lanyard is twice as expensive as a non-recycled lanyard. This same price difference can be seen in many other cases due to a lack of government subsidies/incentives allocated for “green” technologies and programs. Last year, $409 billion was distributed to “fossil fuels” in global subsidies with only $66 billion for renewable power (Walsh 2011). These subsidies go toward clean, renewable energy sources, as well as recycling programs. Just this year, Gov. Scott Walker proposed to cut “Wisconsin´s 20-year-old recycling mandates and subsidy systems” in an attempt to alleviate the budget deficit (Smith 2011). It is apparent where sustainability ranks on the governments list of priorities.

Instead of getting caught up in the bureaucracy of recycling, this project allows for anyone to create something useful out of their recyclables. I found the idea for the bottle cutting projects in a tutorial video at Green Power Science. With this method, a simple glass cutter is used to make a small hairline cut in the bottle and then warm and cold water is used to manipulate the fragile properties of the glass. The earrings that I made from my old film strips came from an idea at a photography website, Photojojo. Another inspirational story that I read was of a man by the name of Mr. Imagination. His work is essentially what I am trying to recreate, only in a more practical way. He has created everything from African masks and sculptures made from old, stiff paintbrushes to fish sculptures made from bottle caps.(Congdon 2000) Instead of just creating art from recyclables and waste, this project attempts to create practical, everyday items that would normally be purchased from a store.

This project does not stop at the making and selling of reused goods. The second part of my project which will go underway after the finishing products are made and sold is a web page that allows people to see the artistic and creative process to make all the items I sell. It is great if someone is out there taking the initiative to turn trash into treasure but the goal of this project is to inspire anyone and everyone to reuse their waste intelligently. This web page is to help serve the purpose of kindling the creative mind and to help people understand that our virgin resources are not an infinite supply. Hopefully, this project will resonate with the ambitious artistic folks and help lead to more sustainable lifestyles in America.

Project Results

For my project, I created some easy and some not-so-easy projects to reuse recyclables and trash thrown away in a household. In my introduction, it is understood that we produce too much waste, but with the way goods are manufactured in the U.S. (for convenience), it is hard to reduce waste. As Tom said in class, the reason why we have such a problem with the waste of plastics (oil) is because plastic is convenient. His example was the glass bottle that had to be returned to the store and how that was replaced with the plastic bottle that can be thrown out and eliminate that trip to the store. But with the overuse of oil and energy in America, we need to start thinking of how we want to prioritize our limited resources. There will eventually come a day when we run out of gas while we’re flying in the middle of the ocean so to speak. And when this time comes, we’ll have to ask ourselves, “Did I do enough to erase my carbon footprint?” This project that I constructed is a way for anyone to explore his or her mind and think creatively to erase his or her footprint by reusing waste.

For my first project, I had noticed a pair of earrings online selling for an exorbitant amount of money and thought, “This is something anyone (or at least myself) could create and provide to people who want recycled jewelry.” The design for the earring is essentially cutting old 35mm photographic film into tiny strips with sprockets exposed and making them into trendy hoop earrings. This is my favorite project because the product is very fashionable (especially among photographer crowds) and is a very potential alternative to jewelry manufactured across seas and shipped here to America to be sold in large corporations that all contribute to the pollution of our atmosphere through carbon emissions. There are many other designs with old photographic film that people can use their creative minds to explore. The only downside to this project is that one would need unwanted film to use. This wasn’t a problem for myself because use photographic film frequently and I happened to have a few exposed and scanned rolls that I didn’t mind cutting up. When I presented this project, my classmate Allie was very interested in the jewelry and in return for her enthusiasm I decided to give them to her as long as she spread the word about reusable jewelry.

For my second project, I created candle holders and vases out of empty glass alcohol bottles. Specifically for my product that I showcased for my presentation were two Grey Goose bottles that I had cut and sanded to hold candles or flowers. I was inspired by a video I saw on Green Power Science website that demonstrated the cutting of bottles through a unique method. The method that was displayed in the video was the initial scoring of the bottle with a glass cutter. This first step was necessary to create a weak spot in the glass bottle where the separation was desired. The next step was to heat the score line with hot, almost boiling, water until the entire line was thoroughly hot. Immediately after, cold water is applied to the same line and these two steps were repeated alternately until the separation occurred. Originally, I had thought that this project was going to be very easy because the video made it appear this way. However, this was not the case because my results were insufficient to what I had hoped for. In total, I had attempted to cut six bottles and out of those six, only two yielded products that could potentially be used. Out of those two, only one was worthy to give as a gift or used to showcase this sustainability project as a feasible alternative to a comparable manufactured good. Even though the results were not what I hoped, I still ended up with a very unique product that would have been thrown away otherwise. When I was conducting my tests of glass cutting in the basement kitchen at my dormitory, there were some other residents in the room who were very intrigued by my experiments. I surveyed the people in the room if they would prefer my product over a manufactured one created for the purpose of a candle holder or vase and they agreed with my product stating that it was very unique and would call attention to the interesting use of recycled bottles. One of the residents said that they would really enjoy having one of my candle holders and so I promised her that I would give it to her with the same condition as my class mate: to tell people about the potential of reused waste as desirable furnishings, jewelry, etc. The whole point of my project is to spread the word of sustainable goods and to try to cut down of our production of waste as a consumerist society.

My third project was very similar to the second. In this project, I created a drinking glass using the same method as project two. The drinking glass was made out of an empty beer bottle and sanded down so that the edge was smooth and there were no fractures that would injure someone. This experiment produced even worse results than project two so I would not recommend this as a possible sustainable project because it would cause more frustration than anything. My hypothesis is that the cheap glass that beer is bottled in produces unpredictable results when trying to separate the bottle. In my experiments, I attempted to cut approximately ten bottles of different sizes and manufacturers and only produced one drinking glass. Then, after I presented my project to the class, I clumsily knocked my bookbag containing the glass into a door and it shattered. After all my hard work, I now have nothing to show for it. In conclusion to this third project, I would not recommend it to anyone who is looking for positive results. However, I might continue to try cutting these bottles if I have spare time because the product that was created was very unique and would be neat to have a collection of eight drinking glasses to furnish in a bachelor apartment.

The fourth and final project that I created for the entire sustainability assignment was a sculpture made from recycled aluminum cans, bottle caps, paper clips, and string. The point of this sculpture wasn’t to create something that someone in the art world would desire, because frankly I’m not an artist nor am I trying to assume the title of one. More so, the point of this project was to signify my motivation behind my goal of sustainable, recycled art. The sculpture that I created is essentially a robot or machine of sorts constructed of iconic soda pop cans and bottle caps with wires exposed from its chest, clipped to resemble the death of this beast. The message that this sculpture symbolizes is the end to our unsustainable, consumerist ways (the machine) through the recycling and reduction of waste (the reused materials). The title of this creation is “Death to King Consumerism” and is a reminder to me of the imminent consequences of unsustainable, consumer lifestyles.

Most of all, I hope this project inspires people to realize that any effort, big or small, does not go unnoticed and can make a difference in the world of sustainability. When I spread these products to people who enjoy my creative projects and will hopefully tell people so that it will send a wave of sustainable efforts amongst my generation to help reduce our waste. If people don’t understand my project or have no desire to continue it in their own lives, well, at least I have cool stuff to decorate my house with.

Works Cited

Congdon, Kristin G. “Beyond the Egg Carton Alligator: To Recycle Is to Recall and Restore.”

Art Education, Vol. 53, No. 6, Enlarging The Frame. Nov., 2000. pp. 7-9. JSTOR. 20 Nov. 2011. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193877?seq=4>

“Methodology for Estimating Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Benefits” Environmental

Protection Agency. pp. 3. Nov. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://www.epa.gov/waste/          nonhaz/municipal/pubs/06benefits.pdf>

“Municipal Solid Waste” Environmental Protection Agency. 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.

<http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/index.htm>

Smith-Teutsch, Amanda. “Wis. Governor to Eliminate State Subsidies for Recycling.”

Waste & Recycling News. 4 March 2011. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

<http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/email.html?id=1299256176>

Walsh, Bryan. “Does the U.S. Spend Too Much on Green Energy – or Not Enough?” TIME.

15 Nov. 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/health/article/ 0,8599,2099480,00.html>

Introduction

Brett Tietz

ILS 252

Professor Brandner

November 23, 2011

Sustainability Introduction

The waste of goods is a greatly increasing problem in the world and is very central to our efforts of a more “sustainable” planet. The problem I have noticed is, in America, most of our consumer goods are treated as material items detached from who we are and so the manufacturers know this and create a product that will break or wear down over time and have to be purchased again. This type of consumer lifestyle of buying and replacing certainly creates a lot of waste which perpetuates our unsustainable ways. The saying goes, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure” so my project is an effort to make people see their “trash” as something they can reuse in a different way by creating renewed decorations, furnishings, and jewelry out of recyclable glass, aluminum, plastics and more. Not only will this reuse materials that would have been thrown away but it will also reduce the amount of new manufactured products and eliminate some of the waste that comes with manufacturing.

After households dispose of their trash by Municipal Solid Waste collection, it is easy to forget about the trash and often times just think of it as eliminated. However, this is far from the truth as there are many significant problems caused by landfill build up and decomposing trash. According to the EPA:

First, the anaerobic decomposition of waste in landfills produces methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Second, the incineration of waste also produces carbon dioxide as a by-product. Additionally, in transporting waste for disposal, greenhouse gases are emitted due to the combustion of fossil fuels. Finally, fossil fuels are also required for extracting and processing the raw materials necessary to replace those materials that are being disposed with new products (Methodology 2007).

Certainly Municipal Solid Waste is a dirty business. With all of the harm that our waste production accounts for, one might ask, “how much waste is actually being produced?” In 2010 alone, Americans generated almost 250 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste which averages to about 4.49 pounds per person, per day. In relation to this waste, only 34% of that was recycled allowing for 165 million tons of waste to sit in landfills or to be incinerated (Municipal 2010).

When I developed the idea for this project I wanted to challenge myself to think about all of the multiple ways that I could reuse my trash to make furnishings for the home and jewelry for the body. When any single item is just a click away from being purchased on the internet, it is easy to forget the craftsmanship or trade behind the origins of the product. This disconnection of consumerism that I am targeting is the most important factor of why people throw away waste instead of reusing it. Kristin Congdon notes, “There are two sides to the recycling process. We recycle when we place old bottles and newspapers in a designated recycling bin, and we recycle when we make use of objects someone else throws away.”(Congdon 2000). By browsing the internet and talking with other people interested in this project, I have collected several DIY ideas that can be made from recyclables. These projects include but are certainly not limited to: drinking glasses cut and sanded from old wine bottles, champagne glasses cut, sanded, and adhered from old beer bottles, candle holders cut and sanded from old liquor bottles, earrings fashioned from reused photographic film strips, sculptures made from bottle caps, and guitar slides cut and sanded from wine bottlenecks. Included in my class presentation will be the presentation of these few items that I have made for this project. A final goal is to sell these finished products to fund other sustainable projects around Madison.

Consumerism, just like we have learned in class about agriculture, is hard to retreat from after the advance has already been made to that lifestyle. It is impossible to expect people, even after learning about the harm that waste and consumerism causes, to discontinue shopping and wanting to decorate themselves and their homes with new furnishings. My project is unique because it understands this need for an individualistic representation through consumerism and at the same time tries to offer an eco-friendly alternative.

Right now in America, “green” or recycled manufactured goods can be very costly. At my workplace, Campus Street Sportswear, the price for a recycled student lanyard is twice as expensive as a non-recycled lanyard. This same price difference can be seen in many other cases due to a lack of government subsidies/incentives allocated for “green” technologies and programs. Last year, $409 billion was distributed to “fossil fuels” in global subsidies with only $66 billion for renewable power (Walsh 2011). These subsidies go toward clean, renewable energy sources, as well as recycling programs. Just this year, Gov. Scott Walker proposed to cut “Wisconsin´s 20-year-old recycling mandates and subsidy systems” in an attempt to alleviate the budget deficit (Smith 2011). It is apparent where sustainability ranks on the governments list of priorities.

Instead of getting caught up in the bureaucracy of recycling, this project allows for anyone to create something useful out of their recyclables. I found the idea for the bottle cutting projects in a tutorial video at Green Power Science. With this method, a simple glass cutter is used to make a small hairline cut in the bottle and then warm and cold water is used to manipulate the fragile properties of the glass. The earrings that I made from my old film strips came from an idea at a photography website, Photojojo. Another inspirational story that I read was of a man by the name of Mr. Imagination. His work is essentially what I am trying to recreate, only in a more practical way. He has created everything from African masks and sculptures made from old, stiff paintbrushes to fish sculptures made from bottle caps.(Congdon 2000) Instead of just creating art from recyclables and waste, this project attempts to create practical, everyday items that would normally be purchased from a store.

This project does not stop at the making and selling of reused goods. The second part of my project which will go underway after the finishing products are made and sold is a web page that allows people to see the artistic and creative process to make all the items I sell. It is great if someone is out there taking the initiative to turn trash into treasure but the goal of this project is to inspire anyone and everyone to reuse their waste intelligently. This web page is to help serve the purpose of kindling the creative mind and to help people understand that our virgin resources are not an infinite supply. Hopefully, this project will resonate with the ambitious artistic folks and help lead to more sustainable lifestyles in America.

Works Cited

Congdon, Kristin G. “Beyond the Egg Carton Alligator: To Recycle Is to Recall and Restore.”

Art Education, Vol. 53, No. 6, Enlarging The Frame. Nov., 2000. pp. 7-9. JSTOR. 20 Nov. 2011. Web. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/3193877?seq=4>

“Methodology for Estimating Municipal Solid Waste Recycling Benefits” Environmental

Protection Agency. pp. 3. Nov. 2007. Web. 20 Nov. 2011. <http://www.epa.gov/waste/          nonhaz/municipal/pubs/06benefits.pdf>

“Municipal Solid Waste” Environmental Protection Agency. 17 Nov. 2011. Web. 20 Nov. 2011.

<http://www.epa.gov/waste/nonhaz/municipal/index.htm>

Smith-Teutsch, Amanda. “Wis. Governor to Eliminate State Subsidies for Recycling.”

Waste & Recycling News. 4 March 2011. Web. 21 Nov 2011.

<http://www.wasterecyclingnews.com/email.html?id=1299256176>

Walsh, Bryan. “Does the U.S. Spend Too Much on Green Energy – or Not Enough?” TIME.

15 Nov. 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2011. <http://www.time.com/time/health/article/ 0,8599,2099480,00.html>

Project Statement

I am creating a sustainable project that joins creativity and resourcefulness. Part of our human nature is to decorate ourselves with jewelry, furnishings, stylish clothes, etc. Our decoration is a part of our culture just as much as it is a part of who we are. But often times the jewelry, clothing, and art we buy is made off in a third world country in a factory that emits insane amounts of greenhouse gases, by children making meager wages, only to be shipped over seas creating more CO2 emissions, so on and so forth.

My project is to create jewelry, furnishings, decorations and anything else I can think of by reusing things I would normally throw away. Recently, “green-friendly” merchandise has been very popular amongst college students, but do we really know how green friendly they are? With the project I am creating, not only am I completely reusing old materials but I am saving money by not buying new items.

So far I have a couple ideas for jewelry that I have created out of old photographic film, bottle caps, and other recyclables/trash. My goal is to sell these handmade items so that the money can go to other sustainable projects around Madison. Hopefully I can find an art fair or create a website to sell my crafts. However, my real purpose is not to make money and keep creating these crafts. I wish to inspire people to look at their soda bottles and not think “trash” but instead think of creative ways to turn it into something greater.

I feel that people today always go to the store when they need something. The final goal of this project is to force people to not rely on giant corporations but look to their own trash for what they want to buy. I suppose the slogan for my project would be the cliche, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” If we say it so often, why do we not act the same way?