RSS
Merida Home Logo
 

Tag Recycle

Factory Scrap Furniture

By Cameron Filed in Interior Design, Sustainability Tagged with , , , April 30th, 2010 @ 5:18 pm

Recently in the “Architecture and Design” column of Treehugger.com (one of the best environmental blogs on the web), there was an intriguing article about coffee tables that were made almost entirely of wood scraps from door and window frame factories in South America. The tables were designed by Chilean design students for Remade in Chile. Remade is a South American program in seven countries that promotes the reuse and recycling of everyday waste to create new desirable and fashionable products.  Founded by Marco Capellini, Remade in Chile encourages aspiring artists and designers to use waste materials in their work by hosting international design contests. Most recently, the Animal Gallery in Santiago, Chile held its third Remade in Chile Contest in the heart of the city’s capital.  By the deadline on March 17th, 2010 the contest received 250 entries! Other projects included a line of dresses made from old Puma sneakers, waterproof sheaths for electronics made from wool and fiber wastes, and children’s’ chairs made from tights and nylons just to name a few.

These scrap-based coffee tables are beautiful examples of Merida Home’s mantra “sustainability with style”. While the coffee tables are chic and polished, owners can rest easy knowing that they prevented more materials from ending up in landfills or littering Chilean streets. Marco Capellini says projects like these that use waste materials also help keep end costs down which make eco-design affordable, since raw materials would have been more expensive. I look forward to see more innovative products that come out of Remade in Chile.

Trashion

By Cameron Filed in Sustainability Tagged with , , March 11th, 2010 @ 3:34 pm

Trash Fasion!

On the west coast of Africa in Accra, Ghana, 85% of the city’s waste is old discarded plastic bags and sachets. Water and frozen treats are sold in small plastic bags on the city streets, but the city does not have very extensive trash collection and recycling infrastructure so most of these bags end up as litter. But, there is one group that is trying to turn this trash into treasure. Trashy Bags is an NGO (non-governmental organization) that hires people to collect plastic off the streets, clean it, and then sew it or weave it into messenger bags, totes, duffel bags, and more. These items are then sold to consumers for around $12 each. Trashy Bags is hoping to expand their consumer base and eventually export them to sell in stores around the world like Trader Joe’s and Wholefoods in the United States. So far the project has been successful – the group has pulled approximately 10 million plastic sachets off the streets of Accra, and has helped employ about a hundred people, many of whom would not be able to find work in the city otherwise.


Trashy Bags also uses their products to educate people of the dangers of littering and pollution. Along with each bag they sell comes an informative brochure about the trash problem in Ghana. This brochure includes eye-opening statistics like: in Accra 60 tons of waste is produced from plastic products each day, yet only 2% of this plastic is recycled. Organizations like trashy bags are slowly changing these statistics, and I for one am excited to one day purchase a trashy bag for myself!

http://www.trashybags.org/
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/ghana/100225/ghana-trash-fashion

5 Easy Ways to Reuse Glass Bottles

By Cameron Filed in Interior Design, Sustainability Tagged with , , March 7th, 2010 @ 11:58 am
1. Create an easy, casual yet delicate tulip vase
Its just about spring which means flowers flowers and flowers! Old wine or liquor bottles are great flower vases because they are long and can prop up a droopy flower for longer. For example, I received a beautiful bouquet of tulips for Valentines Day a couple of weeks ago, and they are just starting to sag. I picked the droopiest flowers out of the bouquet and put one or two flowers in various old wine bottles around my apartment. They no longer look droopy, and the bottles add an elegant (and green) surprise to our decor.
2. Candle holder.
If you have skinny candles, they can fit right into the top of a wine bottle, which create the perfect impromptu candle holders. They can also be quite pretty if you peel all the labels off the bottles. Since wine bottles come in all different shapes and colors, you can create your own arrangement to suite your style.
3. Piggy Bank/Motivation Bottle.
I recently came across a neat idea in Shape Magazine, every time you go to the gym, stuff a dollar in an empty bottle. Like many, I struggle to get myself to go to the gym, but if I can save money by going to the gym it helps create that extra incentive I need. Then, hey, if you go to the gym everyday for a month, you can (safely) cut or break open your bottle and you have $30 to spend on a new, smaller, pair of jeans! Nice!
4. Water Carafe.
Bring a little European style home by cleaning out and peeling the labels off an old wine bottle and using it as a water carafe. I can just picture it – white table cloth, soft candlelight, and a green glass bottle as the water carafe – how Parisian!
5. Spice your own Olive oil.
Clean out a an old wine bottle, but keep the cork. Sprinkle in some of your favorite dried herbs and then fill the bottle with olive oil. The herbs will infuse the oil with flavor over time and add a new delicious taste to your cooking. One important thing to remember is that you should always use DRIED herbs or peppers because anything with traces of water in it could grow bacteria in the oil over time. If you do want to use lemon peel or fresh garlic, or other things that may have traces of water, you have to make sure that you refrigerate it.
Voila, 5 new ways to reduce, REUSE, and recycle!

Recycle your Fleece!

By Cameron Filed in Sustainability Tagged with , , March 3rd, 2010 @ 10:48 am
At Merida we are often inspired by other companies and organizations that find unique ways to become more sustainable. I recently learned about Patagonia’s Common Threads Garment Recycling program and was thrilled to see that Patagonia is doing so much to both be a sustainable company, and also help their customers to be more environmentally aware as well. Their Common Threads program, started in 2005, allows customers to send in old, unwanted, or worn out Polartec fleece items. They are then broken down fiber by fiber and recreated into new Patagonia products. Simply amazing! The program was expanded in 2007 to include more garments, even some Patagonia brand t shirts. This helps prevent old polyester or fleece clothing from ending up in landfills or being incinerated, plus, it allows Patagonia to use less virgin materials in their products. Patagonia partners with a company called TEIJIN Ltd., that has perfected the recycling technology so that there is absolutely no difference in quality from the new and recycled fibers. Research shows that clothing made with recycled fibers use between 50% – 100% less virgin polyester. Since polyester is derived from oil, recycling garments helps reduce consumption of fossil fuels and helps decrease U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Patagonia and TEIJIN are hoping to develop new technologies so that even more different types of garments can be broken down and recycled. We look forward to hearing about it, and until then, we tip our hats to Patagonia.
More information on the Common Threads Program can be found  at http://www.patagonia.com/web/us/environmentalism

Copyright © Merida Home Blog

Built on Notes Blog Core  |  Powered by WordPress