Trash | GreenCupboards Blog

Junk, Junk, JUNK!

Sep 122011

A Tissue Box for Plastic Bags

No, it’s not time for spring cleaning yet, but don’t waste these upcoming cold months surrounded by clutter. At GreenCupboards.com we believe the age old saying that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Check out our Top Ten resourceful tips to transform clutter into creative design.

1. Peppermint Tin

Need a tissue? How about a Q-Tip? Peppermint tins are the perfect purse accessory for those little day to day essentials.

2. Oven Mit

Missing an oven mit? Instead of tossing the spare, move it to the bathroom. These mits are perfect for protecting your counters from all hot items including hair crimpers, curlers, and straighteners.

3. Plastic Easter Eggs

Before you make a trip to the grocery store for more Tupperware or plastic bags, take a moment to dig into your Easter stash. Those colorful pastel eggs are good for more than Easter candy. Pack your grade-schooler’s cheesy goldfish in these eggs for an easily hatched snack at school.

4. Shoeboxes

Are empty shoeboxes taking up your closet space? Pair them up with the papers spilling off your desk. These boxes are the perfect for extra files, recipes, or business cards.

5. Tissue Box

Are wasted tissue boxes affecting your carbon footprint? Don’t let that empty box go to waste. Use it for extra plastic bags. Use the tissue box to stuff those extra plastic bags from under the sink. It’s an easy way to organize and to recycle!

6. Shower Rings

Have a few extra? These convenient rings are fantastic hangings for more than curtains. Use them in your closet to hang scarves, or take them to the kitchen for a hand towel hanger.

7. Step Stool

Have your tykes sprouted into teens? Now that they no longer need a step stool to reach the sink, it’s your turn to find a use for it. Try your closet! These stools fit in to optimize closet space as a shoe rack.

8. Wine Cork
Don’t want to toss another cork? Use it as an accessory in your jewelry box to hold earrings. Not into jewelry? These corks are good for holding sewing needles, pins, and extra tacks.

9. Linen bag
Have an extra linen bag? This zippered plastic may seem like a waste of space, but it can serve as the perfect supply bag. Put your art supplies or extra school supplies here for space optimization and organization!

10. Button Bag

Surrounded by tiny plastic button bags? Well they’re good for more than just buttons. Button bags fit perfectly into your purse as pill carriers.

Images:

http://bloomingdesign.wordpress.com/page/19/?pages-list

http://www.mops.org/page.php?pageid=1792

http://www.yemmhart.com/news+/winecorkrecycling.htm

Nature Box 101

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Mar 182011

A nice nature box model.

Hiking is a fun and healthy way to stay in shape. A nature box is a piece of art that is created from what you find on a hike or hikes. Here is how you to can go about making your very own nature box.

Find a box. Use a crate, cardboard box, or pieces of wood around your house to use as your frame for the art that you will find. Your box can be any size but keep in mind that a bigger box will require more things to fill it so you may have to go on more than one hike.
Go on a hike. Beaches work great because you never know what you will find washed up on the shore. Hiking for a nature box takes a keen eye and a certain amount of trail blazing. Often, however, the most interesting items are found off of the beaten path.
On your hike collect things that interest you or are visually appealing. There is no limit to what you may find, from pretty rocks, brightly colored leaves, the potential is limitless.
You may find things on your hike that are not part of nature that appeal to you like rusted metal, bullet casings, and shells. If you are on a beach you can find glass that has been smoothed down by the sand (do not pick up sharp glass). However, most of the things that you will find are not on this list- this is what makes a nature box original, as no two are the same and you never know what you may find.
Once you have the subject pieces for your nature box, affix them into your box however you see fit. Hot glue and nails generally work great for bigger items, whereas tacky glue can do for the small things. Between these three things you can affix most anything you find (it doesn’t hurt to have a roll of duct tape handy though).
Admire your box; your box is organic and unique to you. If one hike did not fill your box or you are dissatisfied by the composition, then you can go on another hike to fill it or try and re-arrange the items (if possible), or start over entirely. There is no end to what you can find, meaning the nature box is full of limitless possibility.

Nature boxes are fun, and can often lead to environmental cleanup of “junk” that is visually appealing. Remember, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Have fun on your hike, enjoy nature for what it is, as it does not cost a thing. Happy hunting.

Image Sources:

http://lemoncholys.blogspot.com/2009/07/typesetter-drawer-shadowbox.html

http://artpropelled.blogspot.com/2009/09/nature-walk.html

NASA’s Space Litter Conundrum

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Feb 032011

Space Litter: decommissioned satellites, rocket parts, nuts and bolts and more, forever fly in outer-space.

The human race has left a mark on every setting it has injected itself into. The most invisible are the toxins released and the effect on other living things. More visible is the litter we trash our planet with. Even on the most remote islands, you will find plastic bottles and bags washing ashore. The litter is not just contained to the ocean, nor the land, or even the sky, not even outer space.

Abandoned satellites, parts of rockets, remnants of failed missions and every experimental piece of equipment we have been blasting into space is cluttering our atmosphere just as waste has disgraced our beaches. As “space junk”, collides with more “space junk” it keeps sending debris flying for eternity in all directions. Lets not forget Isaac Newton’s encounter with an apple: an object in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force. There is no gravity in space, so there is no drag, meaning our trash in space will continue in whatever course it was set upon forever, or until it hits something else.

This debris threatens the lives of astronauts in space today, and in the future, for there is a risk space people could be struck by rubbish. If one day Star Trek becomes a reality, while zooming around in space ships, we will still have to swerve to dodge scraps from way-back-when. Just like on earth garbage doesn’t just go away, and unlike earth, we cant bury it in space. So the only way to get rid of it is to collect it, and that technology is not yet available.

From Wired Magazine:

The solution is not so simple...

February 10, 2009: “ 500 miles over the Siberian tundra, two satellites were cruising through space, each racing along at about 5 miles per second. Iridium 33 was flying north, relaying phone conversations. A long-retired Russian communication outpost called Cosmos 2251 was tumbling east in an uncontrolled orbit. Then they collided. The ferocious impact smashed the satellites into roughly 2,100 pieces. Repercussions on the ground were minimal—perhaps a few dropped calls—but up in the sky, the consequences were serious. The wreckage quickly expanded into a cloud of debris, each shard an orbiting cannonball capable of destroying yet another hunk of high-priced hardware.”

All the little pieces of these satellites have now become like bullets, spears, and massive pieces of scrap metal after an explosion that will never stop flying until it hits something else.

“A 10-centimeter sphere of aluminum would be like 7 kilograms of TNT,” stated a NASA scientist.

This event in 2009 was first proof of a theory known as Kessler Syndrome. Kessler Syndrome states that when two satellites collide, the explosion of debris will increase the possibility of more collisions to occur, and when they do, it goes-on-and-on-and on until earth is encompassed in a chaotic cloud of fast moving crap. The atmosphere should protect the earth itself from any pieces that try to get through, but that would be the end of the space industry, and thus the sky would be the limit.