Repurposing Waste As Resources To Avoid The Endless Costs Of Throwing Something Away.

Dried out markers used as fanciful, decoration. It creates a happy environment that kids often remark by saying of the marker border "that's so cool" which is all the praise I need and the whole point.

 

Notice used 3D printing spools as shelf brackets and repurposed finished wood from an old bed frame used for both the upper and lower shelf.

My library is in an old square "mod" of the type that school districts all over the country use to add on to schools that are too small. It is old and barely habitable, which makes it the perfect because in a newer building I wouldn't be able to modify at will. I cheekily call it my Building 20 after the famed decrepit MIT building, that through its juxtapositions and cross fertilization of disparate intellectual fields and modifications that facilitated invention, revolutionized many fields of endeavor. As a result, I can glue markers to the wall and screw empty 3D printing spools into window frames to create the space we need to make learning happen. 

Normally, an old broken bed frame, spent markers and empty spools would be thrown away without a thought. Not 3D printer spools though, which I have found to have endless uses. Why do we accept such a world without thought? In part, we have been socialized by industries from chemicals and plastics to electronics to believe it is our problem in whole and not theirs as it should be. I am old enough to remember when bottle bills made recycling a way to make a little cash. Industry killed that, though some states still have them. The Philippines still has glass bottles and deposit with a little less than half our population. Who doesn't think drinking anything out of a glass bottle is superior to plastic?

Abstract art kids helped make from repurposed 3D printing scarp. Kids say "that's cool". which is the best praise.

We have been socialized to just throw things away without thought. Recycling has for the most part been a boondoggle and still we throw away too much. We blindly accept that for everything we purchase, we will pay for it at least three times and possibly four. The first time, is of course when we buy it. As long as we keep it that is the only time it costs us. For much of human history, until the modern era that was all we paid for, since most objects ether biodegraded or were recycled in some way.

The second time we pay is when we decide to throw it away and it costs us in tax dollars and garbage fees that fund the mountains of trash that add up to 4.5 pounds pounds per person per day in the U.S. which is about twice the global average of 2.6 pounds. The third time we pay for it is in the long term with landfills that need maintenance forever along with the cost of compromised health and a polluted environment that cost us real dollars in the present. The fourth is passed on to future generations far into the future who will need to pay for the impact of toxic substances in landfills and the environment that we pass on like a bad legacy.

Makerspace sign I made out of recycled parts and shelf made from repurposed wood.

 A part of the solution is that we consciously try to reuse our own waste stream. At a school, this can be sizable, but instead of waste, we need re-frame everything we throw out as resources. Reuse, just takes a little creative thinking which is the easy part. The harder part may be breaking people from old habits that see everything as trash.