Hiya Folks,
I’ll continue my tradition of binge-posting (writing an extremely long post every couple of weeks, instead of writing one of a reasonable length every couple of days.) So what is everyone doing for Earth Day? Well, for me earth day is every day, so I don’t need a celebration to motivate me to do green things. I am green. (Did the italics help you imagine the proper amount of self-righteousness in my tone?) Let me tell you about an email I received from Etsy that showcases green crafts.
The most recent email to crowd my inbox was about plarn, a type of yarn made from strips of plastic shopping bags. Crafty people are crocheting these strips into various types of shopping bags and purses. I really have no desire to learn to crochet, but these bags are cute.
Plastic waste is a huge problem. When plastic bags get into the ocean, sea creatures get caught in them or choke on them. I like the idea of reusing these bags and making them into durable goods, but it doesn’t tackle the problem of overproduction and irresponsible discarding of these bags. I googled “how to dissolve a plastic bag” and came up with an intriguing find. A 16-year-old named Daniel Burd won the 2008 Canada-Wide Science Fair with a project, “Plastic Not Fantastic“, in which he investigated the ability of various microbes to break down plastic bags. He managed to find two microbes that were able to break down plastic bags relatively quickly—he estimated a complete breakdown of the plastic bag material would take three months. If I had a yard, I would be tempted to try his experiment myself. I have way too many plastic bags. A biotechnology approach to the plastic waste problem seems promising, but I also like the idea crocheting the bags into a durable good. A real solution to the plastic bag problem would focus on eliminating the demand for plastic bags by providing a biodegradable (in anaerobic conditions like a landfill), sustainable substitute for them. It would also require people to learn new habits, like planning their shopping trips so that they can remember to bring cloth bags. Our modern lifestyle is predicated on immediate satisfaction of our desires, and if it suddenly occurs to us that we want to pick up something at the store, we can just use a plastic bag to carry it home. Part of this is related to our long work weeks, which limit our ability to relax, plan our purchases, and buy fewer heavily packaged, pre-prepared goods.
I’ve been taking little stabs at getting back to a creative practice. I keep preparing surfaces, like the ceramic tile, and records, but I get paralyzed when I think of actually starting to paint something on these canvases. My kitchen table is also quite cluttered at the moment, and that is limiting my ability to spread out and paint.
Right now I’ve decided to direct my creative energies toward making a batch of cream puffs. Yikes. I almost typed “cream puggs.”
