I believe in stewardship, that is, take care of the things and people around you. Leave the campsite cleaner than you found it, use every part of the turkey, and waste as little as possible.
And I generally fail miserably at living this belief.
I think I’ve planted four trees in my life, and with probably around a million air miles under my belt I only have about 2,500 more to go to offset that carbon. I get a lot of to go coffee on those long drives I do, order stuff on Amazon and throw away the packaging, and buy a lot of stuff at Home Depot.
So, if I’m honest with myself I’m not a good steward, but if I’m equally honest I can find ways to be better, and that’s what I’m hoping to do with my moderate carpentry skills, rough scientific knowledge and leaning Markie’s artistic eye to create new things from old, reduce the stuff going into the landfill and connect with people and artists along the way.
I’d like to modify the Three Rs we learned in the 1970s from Reduce, Reuse and Recycle to Reduce, Reuse, Repurpose, Resale and Recycle.
Let’s take my drinking coffee on long road trips to start.
- Reduce: Maybe I need to find a way to not be driving so much. That’s a tough one, but it’s something to be conscious of.
- Reuse: Rather than getting coffee in the to go cup at the local coffeeshop, I’ve taken to either making my own, in my own reusable cup, or bringing my cup to the coffee shop.
- Repurpose: Those plastic lids do add up over time, but if I melt them into sheets of plastic I can make things like decorative boxes and light fixtures out of them.
- Resale: Naturally if I make a lot of things from garbage I can share my work with others, hopefully to make enough money to buy more coffee.
- Recycle: At the end of the day there are always going to be things I acquire that I can’t reuse, repurpose, or resale; but that doesn’t mean it has to go to the dump. Sometimes we just need to get a little more creative about where we send things when we’re done with them.
Expect to see some blogs and videos around building with scrap wood, repurposing old materials, and maybe a little upcycling here and there.