![While traveling in India, Adital Ela came across a chai vendor who sold his tea in small, clay cups that patrons could use and then simply toss on the ground when they were done. These cups didn’t create any waste, because it was earth returning to earth. This sparked a question for Ela: “How can products, like people, come from dust, and return to dust?”
[This set her on] a mission to make products out of compressed earth and agricultural waste. A self-proclaimed designer-gatherer, her title is as organic in nature as her found materials.
Ela’s first product for her line, Terra by Adital Ela, was a stool made from dirt heaps that construction sites had dumped in the forest. …
Making a Terra stool creates no pollution. It requires no energy and uses only local and organic materials. If a stool is no longer useful, the owner can simply leave it in the garden and let it deteriorate back into the earth. Or they can add water and mold it into another functional object.
(via Dust to dust: TED Fellow Adital Ela makes products from compressed dirt)](http://25.media.tumblr.com/83a5e8797bca805e02d71b82e02f2781/tumblr_mhp7n53t8n1qzv12bo1_400.jpg)
While traveling in India, Adital Ela came across a chai vendor who sold his tea in small, clay cups that patrons could use and then simply toss on the ground when they were done. These cups didn’t create any waste, because it was earth returning to earth. This sparked a question for Ela: “How can products, like people, come from dust, and return to dust?”
[This set her on] a mission to make products out of compressed earth and agricultural waste. A self-proclaimed designer-gatherer, her title is as organic in nature as her found materials.
Ela’s first product for her line, Terra by Adital Ela, was a stool made from dirt heaps that construction sites had dumped in the forest. …
Making a Terra stool creates no pollution. It requires no energy and uses only local and organic materials. If a stool is no longer useful, the owner can simply leave it in the garden and let it deteriorate back into the earth. Or they can add water and mold it into another functional object.
(via Dust to dust: TED Fellow Adital Ela makes products from compressed dirt)
Our pal (and Uncollection contributor!) the amazing Garth Johnson had a great talk recently at a Tedx event. The title — “Recycling sucks!” — is a bit of a head fake: Garth’s real point is that what’s better than recycling is creative reuse. And while creative reuse sounds like a very contemporary concept, the talk demonstrates an amazing and rather inspiring history across time and cultures.
Check it out: “Recycling Sucks! The History of Creative Reuse: Garth Johnson at TEDxEureka, Dec. 2, 2012, va TEDxTalks
Past TED / TEDx talks highlighted on Unconsumption are here.
The above TEDTalk given at TEDGlobal 2011 by plastic engineer Mike Biddle (founder and President of MBA Polymers, which has developed an incredibly energy and economically efficient method to recycle plastics — by turning it into the raw material again) elicited over 1000 comments and questions on TED.com, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter and elsewhere.
Faced with the impossibility to answer them individually, Biddle has grouped them together and addressed them…
Jamie Furniss: “The World’s Best Recyclers Are Not Environmentalists.”
Interesting TEDx talk about “waste as commodity.”
Earlier TED/TEDx talks we’ve highlighted:
- Jessi Arrington on thrift-store shopping
- Dianna Cohen on the ocean plastic gyre.
- Arvind Gupta on making toys from everyday trash
- Kathy Hinde on a highly creative reuse for an old piano
- Suzanne Lee on the possibility that we could grow our own clothes
- Graham Hill on having less stuff
- Dan Phillips on creative houses from reclaimed stuff
- Charles Moore on plastic waste
- & finally, not a talk, but we highlighted an installation created from decommissioned shipping containers at TED 2012
![Arvind Gupta creates toys from everyday trash
“Arvind Gupta shares simple yet stunning plans for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves — while learning basic principles of science and design.”
Via TED
[Click on photo above to view video of his TED talk.]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lkf6kz82wk1qzv12bo1_400.jpg)
Arvind Gupta creates toys from everyday trash
“Arvind Gupta shares simple yet stunning plans for turning trash into seriously entertaining, well-designed toys that kids can build themselves — while learning basic principles of science and design.”
Via TED
[Click on photo above to view video of his TED talk.]
