Have a sweet Earth Day!

I know it only comes one day a year, but it's definitely the quality that counts! And I know that you've heard it before, but let's hear it again for some of those fave Earth Day phrases that do ring true - "It's all up to you!", "A little bit goes a long way!", "Do just one thing to help the Earth today."

There's no better time to be an Earth Day cheerleader than today! Woo hoo!

ReBuilding

Photo courtesy Joseph Yoon at Yummy Eats

It's been about 2 weeks since Hurricane Sandy swept through the East Coast and those affected have been trying to get their lives back to normal. It's amazing how you think a disaster like this can't happen to you or people you know... until it does. A few people in New Jersey that I know have lost their entire homes. A few others are still without power (and it's getting cold)!

It's always amazing to see people in times of crisis pull together and redirect the focus from their busy lives to helping others. Several friends of mine volunteered with the cleanup effort and I think Molly's essay summed it up well.

When I first signed up to volunteer, the obvious places noted that they were primarily looking for people with medical skills. I've been known to faint at the doctors office when I've gotten a shot, so I started to look around for ways I could help that were more specific to my skills. There are loads of opportunities out there lying just under the first level of obvious. For those of you who have extra room or a summer home to donate, you can look to Air B-n-B and other services to host displaced victims. And if you think that everyone has now found housing after the storm, think again. Many of these homes will take months to rebuild. A good friend of mine has taken in her parents after their Ocean City, NJ home was devastated. It'll most likely be 2013 before their house is back to being livable. For those tech geeks out there looking to lend a helping hand (or router), there's a NY Tech Meetup to get NYC area small businesses back in action. For those with extra food to donate there are plenty of places looking to help provide a hot meal, like our friends at Yummy Eats.

I've been living in Philadelphia for the past month, so I narrowly missed the transportation chaos of NYC. Life without an L train? A small silver lining in this tragedy is, perhaps, that we'll all consider alternative modes of transportation like biking and walking instead of driving. Finding alternatives like these can positively impact climate change, which contributed to this mess in the first place.

My own internet in my new Philly home has been down for the past two weeks. Hardly an inconvenience when others have lost entire homes, but I mention it because of another kind act of community. A large pine tree in my new backyard was blown down the night of the hurricane and the only casualties were an exterior glass window and my internet (and that pine tree). Yesterday my neighbor and I were talking about the tree which is still down and he offered up his internet until mine is back online. Perhaps we'll all start talking to our neighbors more. Although now that I have internet again, it is enticing to read about the hurricane effects rather than live it and help with it. But I hope to take a lesson from my 2 weeks of purged internet and get out there and do something.


Photo courtesy of StreetsBlog by Elizabeth Press

A berry fun summer project!

Recently, RePlayGround offered a series of upcycling projects for a "farm to table" style evening hosted by Time Out NY Kids.  We offered do-it-yourself recycling projects made from food packaging, and our big hit of the day was this woven berry basket, as pictured below.  These berry baskets can be found at grocery stores and farmer's markets, and are easy to upcycle!  Simply cut up strips of colorful plastic bags, t-shirts or ribbon, and weave the strips in and out around the berry basket frame.  Once you're done, you'll have a candy dish or organizer basket that will wow your friends!  You can also see this project in the book ReMake It! Recycling Projects from the Stuff You Usually Scrap.




images courtesy of Time Out NY Kids

Spring Kids Fest Saturday 5/19

Time Out Kids and the Madison Square Park Conservancy host an afternoon of free family fun, featuring performances from kid-friendly crooners the Rockdoves and a special magic show from the Amazing Max. There will also be crafts courtesy of the Rubin Museum of Art and the Children’s Museum of the Arts, and yours truly, ReplayGround! Plus snacks from the Treats Truck. Free. All ages.

When: Sat May 19, 2012 10:30AM-1:30PM
Where: Madison Square Park NYC (23rd-26th Streets btwn 5th and Madison Aves)
website: http://timeoutnewyorkkids.com/things-to-do/220123/spring-kids-fest

Volunteer for Earth Day New York!

Earth Day New York is looking for eco-minded volunteers to help out with the festivities in Times Square and Grand Central Terminal over April 21, 22, 23, 2012.

Make an impact, meet tons of people, and have fun doing it! Sign up here.

RePlayGround will host an eco-crafty table outside of Grand Central Terminal, where we'll teach you to make your own recycling project to take with you. Be sure to drop by and ReMake with us! For more details, see our event calendar.

Green for Queens Earth Day Fair!

RePlayGround is spreading eco-crafty fun all over the city, and our next stop is the Green for Queens Earth Day Fair! Great for kids and adults, this fair will include sustainable food tastings, reptiles and more from the Wildlife Children's Theater, a discussion with Anne Lappe on her book Diet for a Hot Planet, cooking for kids, live music, and of course, recycling craft projects brought to you by RePlayGround! So be sure to stop by for your own free project to make and take, and much more!

When: Sunday, May 15, 2011 1-4PM

Where: Central Queens YM & YWHA 67-09 108th Street, Forest Hills NY

Website: click here!

See you there for some trash-tastic fun!

My super duper dad

Hi there RePlayGround blog readers. I’m dedicating this blog post to my awesome dad. He recently passed away due to a heart attack and he was a super duper awesome guy. He greatly influenced the person I am and especially influenced my career. I’ll really really really miss him (there’s not enough space to add the number of really’s I’d like to list), but I’m finding comfort in knowing just how many lives he’s touched in his life, including my own.



As a kid I grew up creating 4-H projects for my county fair in mid-Michigan. My dad was the 4-H agent of my county, so my brother and I always joked that 4-H was a requirement if you lived in our house. In 4-H I learned everything from basket weaving to sewing to baking to a whole lot more. I attribute a lot of the design skills I frequently use today to my 4-H days.

Even as I flip through my new book, I can see that a lot of the projects were inspired by 4-H projects that I did as a kid with a new, upcycled spin – weaving baskets now with plastic bags, sewing a new skirt from old t-shirts, an origami folded picture frame made from old maps. I’m happy that I was able to send my parents a finished copy of my new book just the week before my father passed away. My mom said that when they got it, my dad sat down and looked through every single page of the book and he was really really proud.



My dad also taught me a great deal about gardening and locally grown food. My dad always planted way too many vegetables in our summer garden. Little did we know that that excess would someday become my parents’ career. When I was about 8 years old my family started taking our excess produce to the farmers market and selling it on the weekends. With the money made from those first few weeks, my brother and I bought an Intellivision (kinda like an Atari if you’re from that era) game system. This not only taught me about appreciating good food, it also taught me about entrepreneurship and growing a business. About 15 years after that Intellivision purchase, my parents both retired from their day jobs and grew their farm into quite the business. I would never call them retired since the farm required more than full-time work in the summer. It was something they really enjoyed doing together and just one more way that they added to their community.

I know my dad especially liked talking to people at the market and give them tips on how to keep their veggies fresh, how to keep fend off garden critters, and just general plant-based knowledge.



I’m already missing him an unmeasurable amount, but recognizing his influence on my life and others helps me to see the impact he had during his 67 years here. And while there will never be beans or tomatoes that will quite measure up to the ones he grew, I'll still remember those bean-picking days where he would be sharing his words of wisdom as we plucked green and yellow varieties off of the plants. I may not be taking over the garden business, but I've certainly taken parts of what he taught me and reinvented it into my own business of reuse and remaking. And those are the best parts.

Home grown!

Locally grown, fresh produce runs in my blood. When I was a kid my dad was notorious for overplanting tomatoes, zucchini, and pretty much all vegetables. And in theme with recycling, my family doesn't like to waste anything, so we turned those surplus veggies into a small business. As a part time project, my parents, brother and I would harvest the excess vegetables and sell them at the local farmers market on the weekends. My parents still run their Threadgould Gardens biz in mid-Michigan and during the summer and fall you can find them at the Meridian Farmers' Market every Saturday. True to my farm-rasied roots, I still buy a lot of my fruit and veggies there at the Greenmarkets around New York City.

My good friend Janie, who has also worked at that same farmers' market, shared a great video where you can see my dad, Janie, and a lot of the other Meridian Market locally grown crew. Click on this page and play the video. And visit your own farmers market! It's always tastier when it's homegrown!

What's for lunch? More real food, less waste challenge!

photo by Abby Kelly

Check out this great Waste-Free Lunch Challenge that happened recently in schools across Ontario, Canada.

This program took place as a one week challenge to help schools reduce their garbage. What a great way to put the education system at work. Apparently the average student's lunch generates about 60 pounds of trash per year! That's like the size of a child! There program even has incentives for the classes that have the best participation.

The article also gives a shout out to good old TerraCycle for their dedication to collecting and upcycling hard-to-recycle food packaging. TerraCycling your food wrapper is a great solution when you can't avoid a completely waste-free lunch. You can sign up for collection brigades in the US, Canada, and many other countries.

Read the whole article here. If you're involved in a school system outside of Ontario, why not try to bring a similar program to your school?

From table to table (with a few stops in between)

If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know that I kind of like to compost.
On a recent sunny Saturday, I worked on my compost pile sifting through decayed veggie peels and other food matter. That's the payment - one afternoon's worth of work once a year in exchange for being able to use drop off compost on Wednesday or Saturdays. And not only did I walk away with a large (recycled) yogurt container filled with what is considered "black gold", but also a better understanding of how food breaks down.

Seeing the compost get dumped from "cooking" for a few weeks and transferring it to a larger bin, you see the recognizable pieces in the mix. Corn cobs are still pretty much corn cobs and coconut shells are of the more determined to stay coconuts, but it's pretty amazing how most of the rest of it - orange peels, carrot tops, egg shells - all break down and start looking like dirt again.

I do work at a company that got its start in compost. In worm poop to be exact. But I'm in the design department and don't experiment much over with the lawn and garden crew other than eat lunch once in a while with them and use the fertilizer myself. So seeing the whole compost process was really helpful. And will make me way more diligent in removing stickers, rubberbands, and other foreign objects before piling it in my compost. I'm usually pretty good, but when sifting at the pile they're all still there, so better to remove 'em beforehand.

Post-compost on that sunny afternoon, I took my newly sifted black gold and planted a few containers of herbs (In upcycled containers of course! You can read the how-to in my upcoming book called ReMake It! In stores March 2011). The basil, pictured above, is sprouting already and I can't wait until it grows large enough to use it on the last of the season's tomatoes. Who knows what that dirt used to be - maybe at one time it was tomatoes and basil? I think the new plant feels right at home.

Upcycled Interiors at Caracas Arepa Bar, Brooklyn

The RePlayGround crew recently enjoyed a delicious arepa dinner at a nearby Venezuelan restaurant. We came for the food, but were extra tickled to realize that the interior design of the restaurant, by our friends at EcoSystems, was beautiful and eco-friendly.



If you're in the neighborhood, you should visit and check out the clever use of salvaged wood and other materials, and the surprisingly grown-up and tasteful use of milk crates as seating. (And then stay and enjoy a delicious meal!)

Dish up this collapsible bowl

Looking for a crunchy project from your old granola wrappers? Dish up this sweet little collapsible bowl over at Craftzine. Your granola will have double the goodness.

Plain and simple microwave popcorn

I love popcorn. It's always been one of my favorite snacks, ever since I'd come home from school and make a big bowlful in my family's air popper. Now I'm a grownup. I don't have an air popper, and sometimes the stovetop just feels like too much effort. And microwave popcorn is just kinda disgusting - and not so great for the environment besides. Even if you disregard the studies potentially linking the inner coating of the packaging with cancer, and even if you don't mind the nasty artificial taste (and smell that won't leave the room for days), think about all that packaging. One cardboard box (which, admittedly, can be recycled or turned into a nifty wallet), three plastic wrappers (which can't), and three wax-and-plastic-coated paper bags (which also can't), for just three bowls of popcorn? No thanks.

So what's the answer? Simple. You can make fantastic microwave popcorn at home with nothing but loose popcorn, a brown paper lunchbag, and a piece of tape. Really. I love telling people this because they are always shocked that there is not a special magic trick involved.

Your standard brown lunchbag (sold in big packs of 50 or so, for cheap) is the perfect size. Use about 1/3 cup of popcorn to fill the bag (and a bowl that will make at least two bellies very happy). Fold it over once to prevent escaping kernels, tape it shut, and go ahead and pop. After you're finished, put in a bowl and season as desired. (I like a mix of melted butter and olive oil with a little salt. Cumin, paprika or smoked paprika are also favorites.)



Usually, the "popcorn" setting on your microwave works just fine, but you might want to keep an eye on it the first few times and adjust the timing accordingly. It's also smart to shake the bag somewhere in the middle of cooking. Other than that, this method takes no more effort than regular microwave popcorn, but you've just eliminated lots of waste and some icky fake butter from your world! It's a delicious, simple, and relatively eco-friendly snack.

To boost the eco-friendly factor even further, buy organic popcorn (it's worth the extra money - tastier and pops better), and rescue brown bags from takeout orders and re-use them in the microwave. I personally don't recommend re-using the bags after they've been microwaved once (the second batch never seems to pop quite right), but you can compost or recycle the brown bags at the end of their (extended) lives.

Happy popping!

Have a nice day!

image by Diana Sonis via Time Out NY

The how-to on these easy DIY placemats from plastic bags can be found in this week's Time Out NY. Grab some bags and an iron and make a set for yourself. They're a great, free entertaining idea for this holiday season. No sewing involved. Just melting and cutting!

We're definitely on a plastic bag re-kick after the Halloween bag lady dress. What should we make next from those ubiquitous plastic bags? There's certainly no shortage out there.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

easy DIY wine charms

Some friends stopped by RePlayGround for tasty brunch. We had plenty of sangria, but were lacking cute little wine charms. One friend, who claims herself uncrafty (but has been seen making a clock and shrinky dinks) quickly came up with this easy colored paperclip solution. Just unbend a paperclip and place around the bottom of your glass. It's not exactly recycled, but it is repurposed and is rethinking something rather than buying something. Just look around. Maybe you're craftier than you think.

Rethink | Refuse | Reuse: Glass Jars, Take 2

Some of the ways I like to reuse things are so dead simple that it doesn't even occur to me to talk about it. But our new Rethink - Refuse - Reuse series reminded me to pass on a very easy, and very functional, way of keeping your glass out of a landfill.

(Yes, glass is recyclable, but people often overlook the fact that recycling something takes a pretty substantial amount of energy. It's almost always better to find a new use for existing items when we can. Reduce and Reuse should be the headliners in the way we deal with waste, with Recycle playing a small part when necessary.)

I store just about everything in my kitchen in glass jars leftover from groceries I've bought. (The process is pretty easy: soak the label off in some hot soapy water, and eliminate any lingering smells from, say, pasta sauce, by letting some white vinegar sit in it for a few hours.) Glass is easy to clean and doesn't pick up smells the way plastic does. It's great at preserving dry goods, pasta, spices, and snacks, and looks beautiful besides. And I've never understood the allure of buying an expensive set of matching glass containers when I get lovely ones for free pretty much every time I go to the store. (Personally, I think the mismatched jars can look charming, and if you're like me and buy the same brand of peanut butter all the time, you'll probably have a matching set sooner than you think!)



Of course you can't save every single glass jar that comes your way. But a little goes a long way, and keeping even 5% of your waste out of that fossil-fuel-using recycling truck is a big move. You might be surprised at how much use you get out of that old olive jar!

Pea shoots taste like spring!

Green things are finally sprouting at the farmer's market. There are still potatoes and apples from last season, but signs of the new growing season are finally showing. It finally feels and tastes like spring. I picked up some pea shoots yesterday along with the first asparagus of the season. Yum!

An organic garden on the White House lawn!

See - we had faith that the Obama's would know how to keep it local. Michelle Obama, along with some local students, will be digging up part of the White House Lawn to plant a vegetable garden! The fresh, delicious veggies will be incorporated into meals for the prez and his family. Apparently he doesn't like beets, but I hope he plants some heirloom tomatoes. Nothing beets homegrown tomatoes.

An organic garden on the White House lawn? Yay change!

Change is good! As we embark on a new Commander in Chief, we not only get a fresh attitude, we could possibly get fresh vegetables, too.
I'm not sure who first suggested an organic garden on the White House lawn - perhaps it was Michael Pollan in his Farmer In Chief letter (in the final paragraphs of the letter), or from the website EatTheView.org or TheWhoFarm.org. It's a simple and elegant idea that could spur tremendous local garden growth.

Planting a garden on the White House lawn could do so much more for home gardens than any formal PR campaign could ever do. Eleanor Roosevelt demonstrated a similar solution during WWII with the Victory Garden movement.

Who knows - maybe once the White House garden gets growing, they'll be able to add a hoop house in 2010. This time next year the Obamas could be munching on spinach grown in their front yard.

Sign the petition here.

Bottlemania!

Why do we buy water when the clean, pure liquid flows for free from our tap? That leads us to question - is that liquid coming from our tap, in fact, pure?

Our friend, Elizabeth Royte, studies that exact question. Just as she wrote Garbageland and followed each wastestream from her Brooklyn apartment to the landfills and recycling facilities where they ended up - she does the same with bottled water in Bottlemania. She starts in Maine at the Poland Spring bottling facility and adventures on to water tastings and water cleanup plants in serarch of the answer - is our water safe and why do we buy water, when we can get it from our tap for essentially, free.

In many cases, when a water source becomes contaiminated, it's cheaper to truck in bottled water than to clean the source. But is clean water a human right? If we don't protect our own tap water, it'll become contaminated and we'll all be forced to drink bottled water And don't forget about the environmental effects of the bottling waste, the transportation costs and carbon footprint of shipping all of those bottles across the country and overseas.

Sure, there are times when the convenience of bottled water has its place - when traveling or when far away from a clean water source. But if, for the most part, we all continue to drink tap, we'll continue to create a demand for it and will keep our water local.

If we don't protect our water, then what's next - canned oxygen?