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Zero Waste – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin. Welcome back to the commentary for Zero Waste. I wanted to mention something in the very beginning. In the conversation Zero Waste, Joe talked about how he had never seen curbside recycling before he moved to San Francisco. And remember, I said curbside is at the edge of the street. So here, we take our recycling bins or containers out to the edge of the street where they’re picked up by City workers then.

So when he said he’d never seen this before, in other places in the United States that recycle, if they don’t, there are places that do curbside. As I mentioned, the college town I lived in, Athens, they did it. But if you live in a place that doesn’t offer that, then what people do is if there is any recycling, hopefully there is at this point in time, they’ll be centers set up. So you drive your recyclable items to these centers where you then, again, you have to sort it out.

So you would put all your glass bottles and sometimes they’re even very particular, like all your brown glass bottles would go into one big container that’s set up at this center. And all your green glass bottles would go into another one. And all your paper goes into another part of the big, it’s like what we call a dumpster, a big metal box is what these look like, big metal boxes that you put these items into, all your cardboard, y’know, from boxes, they go into one. All your plastic goes into another.

So that’s the difference is whether you’re able to just take it out to the edge of the street in front of your apartment or house, y’know, your home, and leave it for the City workers to pick up or you have to drive it to a center yourself. Okay, I just wanted to talk about that because it wasn’t mentioned in the conversation.

Now, for this commentary, this is going to be show and tell which means I’m going to show you some things and I’m going to tell you about them. That’s show and tell. We do that when we’re like in kindergarten. Kindergarten is before first grade. We take things, like one day a week, we bring something in and we show it and we talk about it, we tell about it.

So I have some items here that I own that have either been recycled or upcycled, that’s another name, or repurposed. Repurposed meaning they had…they’ve been made to have a different purpose from their original purpose.

But first, let me start with what I’m wearing. So I have this bracelet on which is actually made out of bicycle tires, I think. I bought this in Indonesia. I love it. So it’s just this rubber bracelet. And this ring that I’m wearing, big, looks like a silver ring, it’s actually recycled metal. I found this here in San Francisco somewhere. I love this ring.

I love finding items like this because to me, I love how there’s been…they’ve been recycled. They have a different, instead of just going to a landfill, y’know, to an area where they’re going to be buried in the ground or burned, they’ve been made into something else. So who knows what the original purpose was for this metal, but it’s been made into my ring now.

Okay, so this, what I’m wearing, and actually, yes, it is summertime here in San Francisco but it’s cold. So items like what I’m wearing right now keep me warm. It’s called a hoodie, or y’know, it’s a jacket. Hoodie because it’s got the hood. But this was made by a woman that I met at a festival. She, I love this, she goes into second-hand stores. So second-hand means they’re used.

Here in the United States we have these stores. They can sell furniture, clothing, music, many different things that people just don’t want anymore. And again, instead of it going…instead of them throwing it away as trash, they donate it to these places that then sell it for very cheap. So it’s great if people, for people who don’t make a lot of money, to be able to buy clothes. Because they only take clothes or items that are still in good, good condition.

So anyway, this woman that I got this from, she made it. She goes into second-hand stores, so she buys a lot of used clothing and then she cuts the clothing up and makes her own clothing. So she made this from all different pieces of other clothing and she sewed it all together then. I have many items of hers that she’s made. As I said, I met her at a festival.

She actually lives in the state of Oregon which is just directly north of California. And she was in San Francisco selling her clothes at a festival. And her clothes are just so creative and I love the idea that she’s buying these used clothes to make really nice clothing, nice, creative clothing. And, yeah, so I have this and this is a hat. I have many, many dresses and this is a hoodie or a sweatshirt, a little jacket.

I have many hats she’s made. She made this hat, so this is made from different, you can see this, right here, this is from some t-shirt that she found at a second-hand store. And like I said, she just sews them together. So I have many of her hats, just many of her clothes. Okay.

This, I love this. This is a bag made from recycled plastic and it’s…it holds my water bottle. So this is great, too. I fill this up with water and when I go out, I take this with me so I don’t…I’m not buying plastic bottles that just go, y’know, if they’re not being recycled they go to a landfill. But anyway, yeah, so this is for my water bottle. And how neat is that that this bag is made from recycled plastic. And this bag will

actually fold up into a little, a small, little pouch, which is kind of cool, too. Like this. See? That was my water bag.

This is a bag. This part is made out of yoga mats. So the person that made this would go to landfills, she says, and get yoga mats. So it’s front and back and then the whole inside is made from the yoga mat as well. So I just really like that, too.

Oh yeah, I want to talk about these. So these are trash bags and we, we have smaller ones too that we use to put our food scraps in for composting, because remember San Francisco composts. These are made from corn. So talk about a great way to take a waste product, corn, y’know, what’s left from the corn after you eat it, the cob, the corn is actually turned into these bags then.

And then, what’s great about putting your trash or your food scraps in these bags is these bags then break down very easily. So we try not to put a lot of things in the trash because it does just go to the landfill to be burned or buried, but at least this will break down if it is buried, whereas some trash bags are plastic and they’re not going to break down.

This is a little bag I have and it’s made out of saris. Saris are the traditional clothing of women in India, so I love this. It’s beautiful. It’s like silk.

This is some material that I had. I didn’t know what to do with it anymore. I don’t even remember what I was using it for. So I decided to take this book of mine and have someone make it into this cover, make it into a book cover. So I didn’t want to throw it away. I didn’t want it to go to a landfill so I was able to have…I don’t know how to sew, so I was able to have somebody do this.

This is a belt I have. It’s made from either, I think it’s made from bicycle tires. Joe actually has a belt like this, too, and he has a wallet where he keeps his money, it’s also made from bicycle or car tires.

This is a little purse I have. It’s…it just looks like a black purse. This part is made out of seat belts from a car.

Now this is a drum bag and this material was actually this big like a blanket or a sheet that we had bought in northern Vietnam. Hill tribe people made it. And Joe had it on the chair that he always sits on as kind of decoration. But over time, because we bought this many years ago, over time it started to get holes in it.

But I love this material and I wanted to keep it because some of it was still very good, and again, I didn’t want it to go to a landfill so I decided to find somebody that could make this bag for my drum. And there was still enough left to where she made this bag from the material and two other small bags. This one is for the drum beater. And she made two other small bags and I still have some of the material left. In fact, I just found another purpose for a piece of the material that’s left. I’m using it to cover a small table top.

This little piece of material, this was, I think I bought in Thailand, northern Thailand, again hill tribe people had made it. I love their material. And I didn’t know what to do with it so I had this little piece cut out and I had somebody sew it on this bag that my iPod lives in.

Now this is great. I bought this here in the United States but it was made in Indonesia. It might be, it’s kind of hard to see all of it. This is the seat on a motorcycle, a motorbike. How cool is that? That this would have just gone into a landfill or to be burned but someone got this and made it into a bag. It’s a bag, folks. Look. I can put my laptop in it. It’s great. And then I just carry it. I love it.

And one more thing. This is my purse I carry around all the time. This is made from recycled bicycle tires. This strap is made from a seatbelt in a car. And then when you open it, one of the zippers is an actual part on a bicycle tire where you would put air into it. That’s the part that zips.

Now, inside I’ve got business card holder made from recycled bicycle tires. This really neat notebook. This is made out of cement bags. I bought this in Cambodia and so they took, again, this is so wonderful, instead of throwing these bags that have the concrete or the mix in it, y’know, to make like sidewalks or streets, the bags that hold that powder, that mix, they took those bags and made these little covers for notebooks. And I love it, too. Like it’s really interesting looking with this elephant on it.

And then my wallet where I keep my money made out of bicycle or car tires. So rubber is what I’m talking about for all these bicycle tires, right, it’s rubber. But it’s recycled from bicycles or from cars. This is where I keep my sunglasses. Again, it’s made out of recycled bicycle or car tires.

Two more things. Can you tell I love this kind of stuff? It’s great. This is also made out of recycled bicycle or car tires. It’s just a little bag.

And this is like my water bag that I showed you. This is made out…it’s the same company that makes it, this is made out of recycled plastic. This is so cool. And so it looks like a little bag, right? I put this in my purse so if I’m out somewhere and I happen to stop in a store and like I buy some, a few grocery items,

y’know, food items, I just pull this out and I have my own bag to use instead of using a plastic bag that’s going to end up, y’know, plastic doesn’t break down.

Those plastic bags, gosh, they end up in the ocean, wherever, buried in the ground. They don’t break down. So I try and always take my own bag or bags. Same with Joe when we go shopping. Alright, and again made out of recycled plastic.

That’s all for this show and tell commentary. I hope you enjoyed it. Have a good month and I’ll see you next time.

Oh, one more thing. Do you…wherever you live, does the government, do people recycle? And if so, how do you do it? How’s it done? Tell us about it on the social site, we’d love to hear about it.

Alright, until next month, bye-bye.