For more than three decades, New York Sanitation worker Nelson Molina has picked personal treasures from the garbage he collects in East Harlem. Now totaling more than 45,000 cataloged items, Molina has an astounding personal wunderkammer of treasures from the trash. Nicolas Heller profiles him in this wonderful short documentary.
Tom Deininger, previously seen on Boing Boing, is a Boston-based assemblage artist who creates incredible sculptures and 3D "paintings" from plastic garbage.
Deininger created the self-portrait below from "studio trash kept for two months. The size of the self portrait was determined by the trash."
Nepal is banning disposable plastic soda bottles and other single-use plastic items in Khumbu, the region where Mount Everest is located. In May, volunteers collected more than six thousand pounds of trash from the mountain. This new ban is meant to reduce the amount of garbage left by tourists and climbers on Everest and in the villages surrounding it. From CNN:
Nepalese authorities said they will ban plastic soft drink bottles and single-use plastics under 30 microns thick (0.0012 inches, or 0.03 millimeter) in the Khumbu region... The ban will prevent hikers from bringing the plastic goods in -- and stop shops from selling them.
The rules won't come into effect until January next year, and won't apply to plastic water bottles, said Ganesh Ghimire, the chief administrative officer of Khumbu Pasang Lhamu rural municipality.
"We are consulting with all sides about what can be done about plastic water bottles," he told CNN Thursday. "We will soon find a solution for that."
image: "The sun rising on Everest in 2011" by Sebastian Werner (CC BY 2.0) Read the rest
Humans have left approximately 400,000 pounds (181,000 kilograms) of "trash" on the lunar surface. That includes probes, rovers, landers, a metallic olive branch, a hammer and falcon feather (for a gravity experiment, image below), two golf balls, a javelin, a urine collection assembly (small), various rakes and hammer, a portrait of James Irwin, 100 $2 bills, flags, and so many more items. In fact, here is NASA's list of manmade objects on the moon, although it hasn't been updated in 6 years. From Space.com:
Read the restAlthough many people might call the odds and ends humans have left on the moon "garbage" (what else would you call a used urine-collection assembly?), NASA takes a kinder view.
Researchers can study these objects to see how their materials weathered the radiation and vacuum of space over time, (NASA chief historian William) Barry said. Moreover, some of the objects on the moon are still being used, including a laser-range reflector left by the Apollo 11 crew. [What Does the Top of the Moon Look Like?]
Researchers on Earth can ping this reflector with lasers, which allows them to measure the distance between Earth and the moon, according to NASA. These experiments helped scientists realize that the moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches (3.8 centimeters) a year, NASA reported.
The so-called trash left on the moon also has archaeological merit, Barry said. Future lunar visitors may want to view the old Apollo sites and see gear from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian space agency Roscosmos and other countries, Barry said.
In Ankara, Turkey, one person's trash is literally another's treasure. Garbage collectors started saving books once destined for the landfill and opened a public library.
For months, the garbage men gathered forsaken books. As word of the collection spread, residents also began donating books directly.
Initially, the books were only for employees and their families to borrow. But as the collection grew and interest spread throughout the community, the library was eventually opened to the public in September of last year...
Today, the library has over 6,000 books ranging from literature to nonfiction. There is also a popular kid's section with comic books and an entire section for scientific research. Books in English and French are also available for bilingual visitors.
The library is housed in a previously vacant brick factory at the sanitation department headquarters...
The collection grew so large the library now loans the salvaged books to schools, educational programs, and even prisons.
(For Reading Addicts), image via CNN Read the rest
Nothing like going to a tropical dive spot known to be "untouched" by humans, only to find a giant plastic garbage patch stretching as far as the eye can see. The Doobie Brothers music adds a nice touch. Read the rest
Assemblage artist Bernard Pras creates incredible 3D installation portraits from trash. (via @saatchi_gallery Instagram)
A person in Virginia devised a strange-but-effective method to discourage bears from rummaging in the garbage cans. I'm sure the bears will have their revenge.
The Treasures in the Trash Museum in East Harlem is at turns delightful and sad. Curator Nelson Molina is a city sanitation worker with a nice eye and ear for hidden garbage gems. The whole museum demonstrates how utterly wasteful humans are. Read the rest
By the time Carla Squitieri of Chesterfield, Missouri realized she had accidentally dropped her $400,000 wedding ring in the trash, the garbage collectors had already come and gone. She and her husband convinced the trash company to diver the truck from its intended destination -- a radioactive (!?) dump -- to another dump where they could sort through the heap from 900 houses.
After just thirty minutes, Meridian Waste Services operations manager Joe Evans, who volunteered to help with the search, found the 12.5 karat ring in a garbage bag from Squitieri's home.
"That’s the lotto for me,” Squitieri told KMOV. Read the rest
Olivia Coy reports on the stunning downfall of Neopets, a hugely-successful virtual pet community/game/toy line that was monetized so grossly and relentlessly it evaporated in a matter of hours after a site feature failed.
In retrospect, and despite all its juvenile provocations, the Neopets forum collapse looks like a digital-age, collective cri de coeur, a long-suffering community voicing its frustrations with all the rage it could muster.
It's under "new management," but the site still looks like a hacked PHPNuke forum from the 1990s. $160,000,000, dude.
Previously: Kiddie crack Read the rest
Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana is the world's largest dump for electronic waste from all over the globe. Meet the teenagers who tend it in this short film, Regolith, directed by Sam Goldwater. Read the rest
Touchless trash cans caught in an infinite loop. The laughter is infectious! (@rynbtmn) Read the rest
The above is actually a carved and painted wood sculpture of garbage that artist Tom Pfannerstill found on the street, one of his many "From The Street" pieces that you can see on his site and below. Read the rest
A fisher on northern Brazil's remote Uriandeua river stumbled on a huge chunk of detritus dropped from a UK Space Agency satellite launch. "It is the launch vehicle payload shroud from the Alphasat launch last year," a UK Space Agency spokesperson told the BBC. "It probably landed in the Atlantic and then floated inland." Brazil has asked the UK to come collect their space garbage. Read the rest
"Tiny Worlds" is a delightful trilogy of short films about imaginary miniature city services dealing with the small trash littering the streets and sidewalks of London. The series was created by Rushes, a Soho video production house. Above is "Tiny Worlds: Bulldozer." Below, "Tiny Worlds: Submarine" and "Tiny Worlds" Logging Truck." (via Laughing Squid) Read the rest
