Practical Challenge by @ecotrain
Following the highly successful theoretical Question of the Week on Abundance Woes, this time @ecotrain has offered us a Real Life Challenge: demonstrating how we re-purpose discarded objects, hopefully in a creative way.
This challenge came slightly modified from its original form, where the discarded object had to be a tire. That was when I decided to skip this round, but even when the rules were relaxed to include any other type of "trash", I was not exactly sure about it. I'm still not entirely certain, though I decided any post is better than none, so here it is... If it is not shining with passion, it's for a reason. There are so many wonderful ideas and projects presented by my fellow contributors, who all deserve the prices much more than me. Why is that? To be honest, I don't do much reusing / up-cycling these days.
There, I said it!
It's All So Relative
Okay, what is much? I just noticed that there is a jar in my fridge filled with some salsa I kept that was complementary with the tacos I bought on the corner. Normally it would have come in a plastic bag, but it's much nicer to use a glass jar, right? I don't even know what its original contents were (honey maybe, or peanut butter?), but I've filled it probably at least a hundred times with something...
Other than this humble example, I have a bunch of wooden crates from the market all over my place, holding books, clothes, and various other items. I have a spirulina cultivator bubbling away behind me made of two old carboys, and I still sell kombucha and water-kefir, bottled in recycled wine-bottles (closed with recycled corks). So yeah, it seems like I do still recycle a bit.
But it's still a far cry from last year, when I was surrounded by recycled bike parts, and bike-art made from repurposed pieces, or the time when I was building the retaining wall in Oaxaca, out of old tires.
What's Keeping Me Now From Continuing?
Okay, it's not like I stopped caring, or become lazy (well, this last part just may be true), it's all the current circumstances. Living in a small urban apartment comes with its limitations. The other reason is that these days my schedule is actually quite full, mostly with urban types of money-chasing activities, leaving little time for crafty projects. Though actually, just the other day I saw a discarded tire on my way through the park (out of all places), which made me think of this challenge. But what was I gonna do with it? It's not like I'm building a wall. Also, once I claim it, it will be my duty to look for a final resting place for it. And since tires are a nasty business, always prone to off-gassing, eventually they should become part of a wall. Only there are they safe from the decomposing elements of sunlight, air, and water. The other alternative would be cremation, which is even worse than leaving it lying where it is.
Scoring Stuff Nobody Wants... or Do They?
Instead, let me relate the challenges of gathering items, what you'd normally think is trash, in a place like Mexico. It's tricky to say the least. I remember collecting tires for the wall in Oaxaca: we'd see tires everywhere! They were stacked behind shops or thrown into ditches, giving the landscape their own strange appeal. There were so many we thought ourselves fortunate. As soon as we expressed our interest, however, their value jumped from that of a problem-waste-material to something highly sought after, and people started charging for them accordingly. The only limit here was the greed and the shamelessness of the owner, ranging from "a Jumbo-bottle of Coke" to the equivalent of $18 USD. The tires, by the way, were usually so ripped and torn that we had to be selective with them, even for the tire-wall.
In the end we got a permission to collect them from the municipal dump, but even there we ran into competition. One day we were told there were no tires left. Apparently, the previous day the Mexican cement company had come and taken every last one of them. What would a cement maker use old tires for, you ask? To burn them, of course, in their cement kilns, to make more wasteful and energy intensive building material (while releasing toxic fumes into the air)!
Another item that is frequently repurposed are pallets. They can make anything from furniture to planter boxes, and a whole number of things, limited only by our imagination. Or... they can be used to block parking spaces on the side of streets, which is their most common function around here. Incidentally, this is also the reason for their short life span, as many drivers of bigger vehicles simply disregard them, driving over them and crushing them into firewood. However, if you try to save them, you inevitably end up in either an argument or a negotiation. The best price I managed to reach for a lower quality pallet was about $12 USD. (That was years ago... At the current exchange rate it would be only around $8. Still...)
More Up-cycling the Next Time
So even though at the moment I am not exactly the king of recycling, I haven't given up on turning discarded stuff into useful items. As we can see, the possibilities are endless, and once I find myself (or rather place myself) in more favorable circumstances, I'll get back to it. As we can see, the possibilities are limitless.
Please check out these great communities I'm contributing to:
#ecotrain | What is EcoTrain | Discord Community
#cyclefeed | Introducing CycleFeed | Discord Community
Introducing SteemitDreamit | Discord Community