Recycling Around the World
March 1, 2012 8:48 AM   Subscribe

Some beautiful, some sad, 33 photos of Recycling Around the World.
posted by The Deej (11 comments total) 12 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some of those are really cool. I have to admit that I'm never much convinced by re-use art projects like some of those shown here. I guess they draw attention to the scale of the problem, but they never look very good or prompt me to ponder the issue much.
posted by OmieWise at 9:19 AM on March 1, 2012


Didn't i read about a guy who discovered a way to break down pretty much anything to be recycled? Like a cyclone type thing that could make a dust type result form almost anything put in it, even bones and such. Why the hell aren't we focused on making a way to recycle anything that can be used again? I have this dream of being able to put waste in the hopper, get the broken down elements separately. I know, probably not possible, but come on, how awesome would that be?

That said, that bike alien thing is sexy as hell. ;)
posted by usagizero at 9:32 AM on March 1, 2012


Some of the photos call to mind this piece by Nicholas Kristof: "Where Sweatshops Are a Dream."
posted by John Cohen at 10:38 AM on March 1, 2012 [3 favorites]


Let's save the environment further and have rechargeable energy stations on every windy bridge where passers-by can swap in empty cells for charged ones...
posted by Meatafoecure at 10:39 AM on March 1, 2012


That is so not a recycled crate Easter Bunny. Clue: the Easter Bunny has bunny ears.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:18 AM on March 1, 2012


this one was really moving
posted by rebent at 12:16 PM on March 1, 2012


Does anyone know the deal with recycled plastic bags. Do they actually get recycled. How do they do it when there is food goop on the plastic.
posted by stbalbach at 2:34 PM on March 1, 2012


If playing handball with a recycled tennis ball gives you that kind of bod at 65, sign me up. Rodolfo Rivera, gnarliest senior citizen evah.
posted by Gordion Knott at 3:24 PM on March 1, 2012


usagizero :

You may be thinking of a Plasma Converter or a thermal depolymerizer.

Both technologies exist today.
posted by poe at 3:41 PM on March 1, 2012


Fascinating. Humans really were put on earth to invent plastic! I wonder how long it will be before there are speculators buying up landfills as investment opportunities.
posted by Surfurrus at 4:01 PM on March 1, 2012


Re this:

I have to admit that I'm never much convinced by re-use art projects like some of those shown here. I guess they draw attention to the scale of the problem, but they never look very good or prompt me to ponder the issue much.

I held a similar opinion until I saw the beer-bottle temple in Thailand. Here are some more pictures.

Recycling (glass) bottles in this fashion, whether for environmental or aesthetic reasons, is not new, either, as it turns out. Here is a house in Nevada from 1905 (fascinating photo-documents of the various cycles of decay and repairs it went through), and here a rather eccentric example from the 1950s. Here a large-scale equally eccentric project initially built from bottles and all sorts of other scrap material to house the owners extensive pencil collection (some of this latter is quite disturbing, includes a collection of doll-heads. But also, from the website: the tour would end in the meditation room, where she would play the piano and sing risque songs from the 1920's).

And lastly, the recycle village above is slightly reminiscent of the work of Friedensreich Hundertwasser, a style eminently suited to using recycled material. Here, here and here images from the Kawakawa public toilets in New Zealand. A similar aesthetics and view clearly informs a lot of buildings made from non-conventional materials (see, for instance, cob houses, some of which are quite beautiful rather than simply quirky). Changing the medium, here are some Hundertwasser inspired quilts (they say nothing about recycling, but I assume that quilting is one of the crafts which uses a lot of recycled materials).
posted by miorita at 12:06 AM on March 2, 2012 [2 favorites]


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