I had the pleasure of starting my time back in B’ham the right way at the RE Store’s benefit for their new location. The most entertaining, and seemingly popular event of the night was Extreme Bowling. This is probably one of the most creative ways I’ve seen to raise money, ever… Who wouldn’t love to aim a bowling ball for ramps leading to old-school 5 gpf toilets, sheets of glass and chandeliers? I know I sure enjoyed watching…

My thanks to Lisa Friend for hooking me up with a ticket for the night! I also owe thanks to my friend Liz for being my personal photographer - Brian

The targets…

The lanes…

The intended damage…

Frame One…

Frame Two… It’s a Spare!

Here are some pictures of our SmartArt Contest. Artwork was made out of recycled materials and entered by various folks. The exhibit was put together by Hannah Swee, AmeriCorps Member with my office from 9/06-7/07. The exhibit was held at Whitman College during April in honor of Earth Day.

Sharon Baker Johnson, Coordinator
Waste Management Division,
Public Works Walla Walla County

Thanks for sending in your pictures Sharon!

It’s a vermi couch! Our reader David Skakel has sent in these pictures of his very unique worm bin/customer couch that he uses at the Gorge Rebuild-it Center in Hood River.

Thanks for the pictures David!

Rich McConaghy, Manager of Solid Waste Services & Water Resources Education Center for the city of Vancouver, has sent us a picture from the WSRA Conference.

This picture was taken at the Tuesday Cake and Ice Cream event - it includes many of the people that have been involved in Vancouver’s curbside program over the last fifteen years.  He also sent us a copy of his “15 Years of Curbside” flyer which attempts to estimate how much they’ve recycled in that time. Way to go Rich!

We’ve received a picture from David Repa of Free Geek Vancouver in BC. Free Geek does computer donation pick ups, with a spin… They use a bicycle and trailer to do their pickups on a case-by-case basis.

David has sent us a picture of this recycling in action!

“On this particular run, a volunteer named Ryan pulled approx. 285lbs of computer equipment from a downtown lawyers office.

On the way back we were pulled over by the police and questioned about where we got the computers. Sustainability isn’t easy!!”

Thanks go to Lisa Friend for referring David to us, and thanks for sending the picture in David!

Here’s a sneak peek of Jim’s latest ad for Earthworks that he’s dreampt up. Enjoy!

Thanks Bob O’Neal of Corporate Recycling Services for providing us with the following interesting picture!

USS New York

It was built with 24 tons of scrap steel from the World Trade Center.

It is the fifth in a new class of warship - designed for missions that include special operations against terrorists. It will carry a crew of 360 sailors and 700 combat-ready Marines to be delivered ashore by helicopters and assault craft.

Steel from the World Trade Center was melted down in a foundry in Amite, LA to cast the ship’s bow section. When it was poured into the molds on Sept. 9, 2003, “those big rough steelworkers treated it with total reverence,” recalled Navy Capt. Kevin Wensing, who was there. “It was a spiritual moment for everybody there.”

Junior Chavers, foundry operations manager, said that when the trade center steel first arrived, he touched it with his hand and the “hair on my neck stood up.” “It had a big meaning to it for all of us,” he said. “They knocked us down. They can’t keep us down. We’re going to be back.”

The ship’s motto? “Never Forget”

Our faithful reader Gretchen Newman of the Washington Department of Ecology has sent us some pictures from her recent 3-week trip to Chile. She was visiting her daughter’s family and traveling to the south and the east.

Here’s what she found:

I found these clean, well-advertised recycling bins in a park overlooking Santiago called Cerro San Cristobal. They accept cans, glass, plastics and “others” which includes paper products, textiles and probably just about anything remotely reusable. These bins are new since I lived there in the 1990’s. Most of the recycling collection in Chile is still done by individuals or families who walk the streets at night with push carts going through the trash for anything recyclable or reusable. Santiago has a bad air pollution problem, ranking as one of the most polluted cities in the world. The smog was light that day.

This country cider mill in the south of Chile, near Valdivia, was washing out old pisco bottles by hand for reuse as cider bottles.

The only other organized recycling collection that I observed, was these large bell-shaped bins for glass collection in the metropolitan areas. They are placed by CODEFF, a Chilean member-run environmental organization (National Committee for Defense of the Flora and Fauna). This one is in Valparaiso, on new-years day, full to the brim with wine and champagne bottles from the night before. Valparaiso is world-renowned as a new-years eve destination, for the parties, great views and fireworks. ¡Feliz Año Nuevo a Todos!

Thanks Ellen Cunningham for sending us this cute picture of her sister’s work!

Wouldn’t it be great if some of the smaller towns in Washington could have recycling sheds like the one in Hancock, N.H.? My sister-in-law, Kim Cunningham, has a new mission in life - to rescue stuff in the recycling shed and turn it into art. Unlike the San Francisco artists, who apply for the position, are paid, etc. Kim, who is a full-time artist, does this for fun! She has created dozens of art pieces, most of which can be displayed on the wall. The recycling shed is open 12 hours a week and volunteers are there to screen the in-coming stuff. In a newspaper article about Kim, she noted that dump-goers enjoy discovering that things they had taken to the recycling shed or scrap pile were being put to good use. Here is a dump art project she designed for my horse-loving daughter.

Hannah Dondy-Kaplan of Waste Connections in Vancouver, Washington has sent us some very nice pictures from her recent trip to Guatemala.

Here’s the message she sent along with the pictures:

“The car parts are from Flores, which is the hopping off point for seeing the ruins of Tikal, but we saw these in numerous towns. I guess they just take the place of cement columns?

The organics bins are from the Biotopo de Quetzal in the cloudforest outside of Coban in central Guatemala. No Quetzals, but it’s nice to see they have some form of organics recycling. Unfortunately both bins were empty so I couldn’t check to see how they were being used. (There were no signs or other forms of education around them).”

Thanks Hannah for sharing these pictures!