However this is not the first journey to be made across the Pacific using plastic waste. Last year a raft made of 15,000 bottles called the Junk successfully made a similar journey from California to Hawaii in 87 days in order to promote awareness of the global plastic waste problem.
From our friends at ZapRoot this week: Arizona tests artificial CO2 filtering trees. Sarah Palin loves oil. We help you find ways to get rid of your junk mail.
I like the idea that’s gaining traction rapidly online and off: to stage a street protest against the proposed $700 billion bailout plan for Wall Street’s junk paper. And some of those behind the planned demonstration are asking participants to bring their own junk — old electronics, stupid consumer products, obsolete household items, bad Christmas gifts — to dump as a visual manifestation of their outrage.
But please, please, please, can we make plans to recycle whatever trash gets piled up near the famed bull sculpture at Broadway and Morris streets at 4 p.m. today? Let’s not make an economic meltdown worse by poisoning our landfills even more.
What better way to start making art out of your supposedly useless junk than to learn from our forefathers (and mothers)? Our wasteful generation, so used to disposing of whatever we are bored with or whose intended purpose has been fully utilized, is just now learning to maximize the resources we possess. Our grandparents, of course, had been recycling long before polar bears started shopping for floaties. Of course, they turned their Oats and Barley boxes into lampshades out of necessity, not green sensibilities.
The wonderful think about folk art is its utter versatility. You can use anything you own, broken or intact. You can super glue some broken plate pieces, old car keys, a car battery, ten randomly bent paper clips, and a torn washcloth together to make a diorama of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Some of you may have the unfortunate affliction that causes everything in your house to break. This problem, commonly known as “Children” can turn everything you own, expensive or priceless, into useless junk. Of course, these debris can be collected and welded together into art that can awe your friends and strike fear into your progeny!
There has been a resurgence of this sort of behavior as of late. All around the world people are taking household items and squishing them together in a global mosaic of junk art. With them leading the way we can all test the limits of our creativity, ingenuity, and the patience of our significant others. (I will warn you now, ask before you start rummaging through their junk drawers. Sometimes a screw driver or Indian penny has more sentimental and/or monetary value than you realize.)
