I made a forever wish jar…

@mr-greens

The Real Life Repurposing Abundance/Waste Challenge by @ecotrain

For more than a year now, i have been working to reduce tire pollution in the city of Bamenda in the North West Region of Cameroon.
My principal goal of this initiative is to stop people from burning tires and educate them to understand that tires are a great resource that we can use for gardening, erosion control and to produce seats.
As my submission for the @ecotrain waste challenge, i wanted to share some of the things i have been able to produce from tires:

Abundance of Discarded Things & The Joy of Turning them Into Treasures

When I read Part 2 of @ecotrain's 'Abundance' question, which asks us about repurposing things we have too much of (like old tires or coffee cups) and giving them a new life, I admittedly wasn't sure what to write. I've been so time poor that even if I had an abundance of things to re-craft something out of (which aside from the husband's shed full of bolts and metals and bits of wood) I wouldn't be able to. But as I walked around our garden yesterday, I realised I didn't have to - I could look around and see the things I'd already repurposed, and hope that maybe you'd be inspired a little by that. This challenge asks us, really, to think about how waste can be repurposed into something new, practical or beautiful without thoughtlessly discarding it, and I'm loving it so far!

First up, are the birds. They're made out of blue tin that was an old above ground swimming pool left behind by the previous owners. One is a wedgetailed eagle, the other an ibis. I have just enough left for a chicken. I cut my finger pretty badly on a piece of tin, but it was worth it, don't you think?

@nainaztengra

@EcoTrain QOTW - The Real Life Repurposing Abundance/Waste Challenge - My Abundance Story

Being in a state of Abundance or in a state of lack I believe to an extent depends on our own thought process. We may have very little and still feel Abundant and satisfied or we may have all the riches and still feel unsatisfied. I mentioned in one of my previous post on Abundance EcoTrain QOTW - My Abundance Woes what all I have in Abundance in my life and how I feel about it. Today I will share about how I made use of the Abundant time I have had.

At one point of time in my life I had a lot of free time. Though I was in a full time job that time I had weekends completely free, which I was spending only lazying around. I was feeling very restless, that what am I doing, why am I wasting so much time. I need to start doing something that would occupy my time and I would also feel good about it. That was the time I started volunteering for human centered missions. Thankfully in my own company I had resources to start with.

@chrisaiki

From chocolate tablet to solar cooker.

In Europe and North America, people are eating chocolate tablets and throw away the aluminium foil that is protecting the chocolate tablet.

This simple process is a symbol of the ignorance of our modern world.

Cocoa is growing in Africa and South America for the needs of Europeans while local children are malnourished.
Aluminium paper require a high energy high technology process and we burn fossil fuel and produce greenhouse gaz to produce it.
International trading have unidentified consequences.
Money used in trading have unknown properties.

Through the chocotab program, I suggest to etablish a link between a school in Africa and a school in Europe or North America.

@minismallholding

Recycling and Upcycling Old clothes.

In the western world we create unfathomable amounts of waste in clothing. Cheap clothes at almost disposable prices are par for the course, shipped in from producers in other countries whose workers don't even make a living wage. I once asked at a charity shop what they did with the clothes that were stained or damaged and couldn't be sold on and they said that they are collected by a charity which cleans and fixes them as best they can then sends them to poorer countries to be sold low cost to those in poverty. I wondered if that would be to the same people and countries who make them for a pittance in the first place. I feel rather ashamed of this is the case.

@erikah

My Repurposing Project for The Real Life Repurposing Abundance/Waste Challenge

I'm repurposing quite a lot of things but today I'd like to show you what I've been repurposing for gardening.

I'm a huge fan and supporter or recycling and to my consternation, selective waste collecting is non existent in my city, it stopped sometime last year. This is unacceptable in the 21ths century. The European Union has set a target regarding recycling and reusing waste which my country will most likely fail to meet by the end of 2050. So basically all plastic, paper and glass goes into the household waste, ends up in the same place and will stay there for hundreds of years because we know plastic and glass does not decompose.

This year instead of buying flower pots, which are made from recycled plastic, I decided to use empty water bottles and plastic trays to grow flowers.

@porters

A Response for the Abundance/Waste Challenge - EcoTrain Question of the Week Part 2/4

For this challenge we were asked to find something we have in abundance and using our creativity, think of ways to re-purpose it.

In my response to part 1 of this challenge - find it here I spoke of how I love to share my seeds and plants.

For the second part it involves sharing plants too!

At the school where I work with the Pre-K (we do lots of growing with the kids and a project we have going is growing Tiny Tim tomatoes, with each child getting a tomato producing plant to take home in the large peanut butter jars we re-purposed as pots) they are holding a student conference.

They asked me to do a "Planting with Pat" session. and I said sure!

@steemflow

Generating Beauty from Waste at Home. [Ecotrain: Repurposeful Abundance/Waste Challenge]

I always wonder where is beauty and try to find beauty whatever I came across. I never understood how to see beauty in everything. Untill my 11 years old #drawingqueen show me the meaning of it. Surely there are many things that a kid can teaches you.

Playing , Moulding, and Crafting some magical stuff from household waste materials. She made some unvelivable crafts work, which I never even thought of. It was not something she got from heredity, but she has the natural instinct to make everything looks beautiful. Now I realise to see beauty in everything we need to have a pure soul, and heart like a child have. She is still in learning age, but somehow with her imagination she put life to meaningless thing. I do not find any other better contribution for @ecotrain QOTW Real Life Repurposeful Abundance Waste Challengewhere I would share some of the Art & Crafts work from household random waste things by #drawingqueen which are made all from innovative and imaginative little mind.

@in2itiveart

Upcycled Art for Ecotrain

Hello Eco-Steemians!

I am in the hospital with a fractured pelvis right now, and I am going to enter this contest with some old examples of work I have done. I always use upcycled material for my work... my latest plan is to melt plastic bags together into plasto-leather and make sculpture, but until I am out and about again, I am going to have to show you some of my old stuff...

One of my heros is this guy: https://preciousplastic.com/ Dave Hankens - I would love to get a group of artists together in Denver to do some collaborative plastic art guerrilla style...

@stortebeker

Following the highly successful theoretical Question of the Week on Abundance Woes, this time @ecotrainhas 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

@phoenixwren

This is my entry to @ecotrain's repurposing abundance & waste challenge! I do this kind of reuse and upcycling stuff all the time, so for post cohesion, I'm going to focus on garden/houseplant reuse!. That long white chain that the plants are hanging from is from an old overhead light that died. I was always in need of "s" hooks to hang pots a bit lower for the best light; so I used the chain instead and got two plants at the best height at once!

@artemislives

Burning Season: The Sustainable Indigenous Alternative for Huge Dried Teak Leaves.

I was in Mae Sariang, Mae Hong Son Province, along the Thai-Burmese border the other day when I SAW them: sustainable roofing panels made from dry teak leaves and bamboo.

It was the 1st of May. After several months of a so-called "government burning ban", it was suddenly OK and 'legal' for rural and indigenous people to burn agricultural and forest waste again. The air was thick with both smoke and judgement.

@eco-alex

WORK IN PROGRESS!....

The 8 Pillars of @TribeSteemUp