Alright I know the title is cheesy, but anyone that knows me knows that I love cheesiness. I’ve been thinking about some funny conversations I’ve had with people in the past about “green” thinking. Sometimes I cannot handle the ludicrous claims people say to me and it ends like the conversation pictured above.

I have a really hard time keeping my cool and explaining to people why it is important to recycle, compost, realize Hummers aren’t actually cool, buy local food, etc. when they have such an apathetic, crap attitude about it. I have gotten into some really heated arguments with my boyfriend and other close friends about environmental issues.

Why can’t everyone just shut up and recycle?

It has been almost a year since the Closed Loop started– one year of composting all of my food waste. I have got to say, the transition was not that difficult. I should start weighing the amount of compost I collect every week, it would be interesting to see how many pounds of food waste is composted in one year.

The photo above is what the compost bin looks like in my apartment in Atlanta. Somehow it always morphs into a smiley face… basically, we collect the food in a bin that is [unfortunately] lined with plastic bags. It is the easiest way to transport the compost to my roommmate’s house in rural Georgia. We are hopefully going to switch to biodegradable plastic bags soon. The Georgia Tech campus dining halls compost all their food waste — but they are hesitant to let students compost their food waste there as well.

I inserted some of the photos from the article below:

Kiddies recycling.

What mixed recycling looks like before it is sorted into different types (plastic, aluminum, glass, etc)

Nantucket claims that composting is HUGE factor in how they are decreasing the volume of their landfills. Look at this huge room just for compost!

WALL-E anyone?

But… right now it is just me, one person, with a cause doing some work in my spare time. So he suggested that the best bet for me would to just declare myself a consultant for design sustainability. I can help out companies, homes, schools (like I am with Amerlux), and use that as my consultant-portfolio. Since I need some financial help to get started, I can collect donations now from family and friends explicitly saying “this donation does not apply for any tax exemptions”. Then use that money to pay for marketing materials, website upkeep, and other things that you need to do starting off. Then later on, I can charge clients for consulting services. Then donate a % of the profits to environmental NPOs that I choose.

I think this plan could work…

I don’t know if recycling-awareness techniques have changed in the past 5 months since I have been away, but with some changes recycling at tech could be more successful. As part of this project, I have have been thinking of ways to bring what I have learned back to Tech. I think its really important to have organic compost to reduce food waste in landfills. It is definitely a lifestyle change though. I am going to have a chat with Cindy…

Hey Tech kids– would you be willing to participate in a composting program? if it was logistically worked out, basically you would collect food waste in a seperate bin and need to deposit it somewhere periodically where it would be taken to a given composting site. Would it be hard? Easy? What do you think? Please post your answer/comments/concerns… maybe it will happen!

Last week I had my intermediate presentation for this project. One of my Professors, Claus, starting talking about products that seem so natural and biodegradable (its a long word so lets call this “bdg” ), but are not because of one teeny tiny detail. He discussed teabags for example.

What is a teabag composed of?

+ tea leaves (100% bdg)

+ cloth pouch to hold the tea leaves (bdg)

+ a string (bdg as well)

+ a paper tag, usually with the company’s logo (bdg)

+ 2 staples holding the string to the tag and to the teabag (aha! not bdg)

Without the staples, the entire product could be composted. I honestly had forgotten there were even staples on teabags until Claus brought it up. Why a staple? There are a ton of alternate design solutions to attaching the string to the tag and to the teabag. You could sew it together. Tie it together with knots on each side of the string. Perhaps the string could just be a cloth strip that is an extension of cloth bag.

Above are hand-sewn silk muslin tea bags from 1903. No staples.

There are a lot of different ways to do it, but the point is why did a designer chose a certain method over another? Manufacturing? Probably. Or maybe because there is a certain tradition on how teabags should look nowadays? It is funny how some things can come full circle. The first teabags were used by silk sacks with string tied around them, which could currently be viewed as a little primitive. The teabags nowadays may be more sophisticated with its staple attachments, but are not the preferred methods when it comes to sustainability. So now, maybe tea companies will go back to sacks with ties knots on them. Does this mean we are going back to the stone ages? I don’t think so, it just means we are learning and even though our methods may get a blast from the past, we are ultimately moving forward.

What do you guys think?

You have to use your imagination a little bit because it is winter, but this is Johan’s wonderful garden.

Here is Johan explaining how the leave/stick compost pile works. He was saying how in the winter it is harder to compost because it is so cold, but come spring time the materials will start to decompose faster and he will be able to use them then for his garden.

Here are the two bins side by side in the corner of the garden covered by all the snow that fell in the past couple days here in Lund.

So here is the organic compost bin. Johan said there should be worms in there… maybe they died because of the cold weather though… right now it is mostly soil and hay and things like that, but this is the bin where I will be putting my leftover food, onion skins, fingernail clippings… etc.