Don't throw out! Use, Store, or Donate.

When it comes to spring cleaning and getting rid of all of the junk that you no longer use take a moment to consider where you might be able to send that stuff before concluding that it is rubbish doomed to a landfill. Also in your everyday dealings with waste consider these alternatives that are more environmentally friendly.

Getting started with the spring cleaning.

Appliances:
Old appliances when no longer useful or obsolete tend to take up space in a house. I still have an old Apple I-mac I am holding on to for no good reason. Some appliances still have value and it is easy to sell them on websites such as http://www.trademe.co.nz/ or in shops such as Cash Converters. If someone else can make use of it and you can profit from it then why not?

If that doesn't work you can try giving it away for free on websites such as https://nz.freecycle.org/. Here people give objects they don't want and take objects that other people no longer need. This website encourages re-purposing of everything from televisions and keyboards to glass jars and microphone stands.

Apple Imac. Taking up space and not being used.

Household items:
Anything intact and not electronic can generally be gifted to a second hand store, clothing, furniture, household goods, toys and books.

You can find your local Salvation Army Family Store here.
You can find your local SPCA Op Shop here.
You can find your local Wellington Vinnies Opshop here.
You can find your local Wellington Mary Potter Hospice Shop here

One of Wellington's many Op-shops.
http://www.vinnies-wellington.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Khandallah-Shop-Outside-2015-small.jpg

Clothing:
As well as the Op-shops listed above, there are some places that will take only clothing. Recycled clothing experts such as Rebound Clothing and SaveMart will take all clean clothing, even if it is ripped and useless.

Read here how SaveMart recycles through every step of their business:

Where does our stock come from?
It comes from various sources including:
1.Clothing Bin Contracts,
2.Recylcing Projects,
3.Woollen Mills,
4.Clothing Manufacturers,
5.Carpet Manufacturers,
6.Imports,
7.Surplus Stock,
8.Seconds and Opportunity Stores.

Hundreds of dedicated employees sort the incoming stock in to those items deemed suitable for sale in our stores, only the very best quality makes it onto the shop floor. It is value priced to sell in the same week. Unsold stock is removed after 4 weeks.

All wearable clothing etc that is unsuitable for sale in SaveMart stores is sent to Papua New Guinea where there is great need for clothing especially in the highland villages.

Inevitably there will be garments and material that are not able to be used again as originally intended, these can still be recycled as follows;

Cottons are made into Cleaning Rags, Knitted woollens and acrylic go to India to be made into blankets for relief organisations, Carpet yarn is used in the insulation industry.

Our aim is to recycle everything possible.

The inside of a SaveMart store, full of recycled clothing for sale.
http://savemart.co.nz/images/SaveMart_New_Brighton_065.jpg

Clothing Bins can be found in most suburbs throughout Wellington.
http://everydaysustainability.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/clothing-bin.jpg

As a person who always tries to make the most out of what I have got I tend to accumulate things, I'd like to differentiate between my thriftiness and being a hoarder because I try to use the things I accumulate. I have little containers filled with bits and bobs that I use from time to time. Here are a few examples of the stuff that I have that I hold onto for later use instead of throwing away.

Paper. Empty excercise books, blank paper, coloured paper, I have a pile of all sorts of paper that I can use whenever I need it. I use it to draw pictures, design my next project, scribble on, write lyrics or poems on, anything that I need blank paper for I have it sorted.

Shelf full of assorted leftover paper, to use when I have need. 

Scraps of paper. I tend to accumulate scraps of life in the form of paper, whether this be ticket stubs, pictures, words, cards, post cards, photographs, or any number of other beautiful things; I tend to keep them. I have previously organized these onto cork boards, but more recently I have compiled them into a scrapbook. My scrapbook is a way for me to remember many scraps of time in a creative way, I glue all of the different pieces into the book, and then draw and write words around it; I empty my brain of all of the memories associated with that physical piece of my history.

A few open pages of my scrapbook.

Some of the images and physical memories within my scrapbook.

I have old notebooks intended for drawing in. I challenge myself to fill them up, here I get the most crazy images that come from my mind, they are for my eyes only unless I choose to share them, and I get to use the pen and paper in a way that nobody judges. I challenge you to find an old notebook around and to fill it up with ink in anyway that you can.

A Sneak peek from my weird doodling book.

Other Junk: I keep a lot of other junk hidden away for when I need it. I use old containers to store things in. Have a look at this older blog post about storage conatiners for some examples.

As you can tell I try hard to reuse as much stuff as I can, however I am realistic and know when something is at the end of its life and should be recycled or thrown away. The key part is really trying to make things last.

When something reaches the end of its life be sure to recycle it if possible, some plastics can be added to your weekly recycling collection, as can some metals; other metals will need to be recycled by taking them to a scrap dealer, if the metal is worth anything you will also receive payment for it.

As the sun begins to stay around a bit longer and you approach spring cleaning, be sure to minimize waste, re-use and recycle.

Building a Wardrobe.

When we moved into our flat in Wadestown, Shellie and I claimed a large bedroom, the only problem was it didn't have any storage space. For the first while it was quite a mess. We moved a couple of shelving units into a spare bedroom down the hall and hung all of our clothing in a wardrobe down the hall that wasn't being used, this was less than ideal but worked nonetheless.

In the months following I came up with ideas on how to optimize the space in our bedroom and to contain our stuff. One of these ideas was to build a wardrobe that would live in our room and not down the hall.

Over the next few weeks I constructed a wardrobe that would fit our needs. It would be over 1 meter wide and tall enough to house two bars full of clothes.

I had the help of my friend Adam, and Shellie also helped out.

1900mm X 600mm.

One solid wall piece.

After completing construction of the guitar stand Adam and I set to work on creating the wardrobe walls. Using sanded down pallet wood we measured and cut the timber, laying it out so it was 1900mm tall and 600mm wide. We used five other pieces of timber to screw to the laid out pieces, thus forming one solid wall piece. This was harder than we initially assumed it would be as our pallet timber was imperfect, bowed slightly in places, and not all the same thickness, this meant an inventive and rough technique was needed to force the timber together in places before screwing it all together so that it aligned neatly.

Over the next few weeks I finished off the second wall; I cut in half a steel beam to create two smaller beams of even length; and I made both a top and bottom base which the two walls would sit in and be attached, this I achieved by nailing four 4X2 pieces together much the same way as I had for the guitar stand.
Before lining it all up I used my jigsaw to cut out gaps where the two beams could slot in; this was an error of judgement as I hadn't made an allowance for the top base which had an overhang that covered the gap. This cost me time in cutting a new piece of timber and a new gap.

Lining it all up

Top base overhanging the gap for the beam.

Before nailing the walls to the bases and constructing the wardrobe as a complete piece of furniture I needed to make it pretty and safe. A lot of the screws I had used were longer than the wood was thick so they stuck out dangerously. Being the safety buff as I am I needed to find a way to remove them. I called Adam over and he provided me with an angle grinder which he taught me how to use. The two of us took turns removing any sharps from the two walls, using the correct protective gear. Safety glasses for our eyes and earmuffs for our ears. The grinder is a dangerous tool and we had to clear the area from anything that could catch on fire from the sparks, a perk of having a friend who is a volunteer fire fighter in has spare time.

Adam taught me how to use the Angle Grinder

We removed sharps from the two walls.

We cleared the works bench of things that could catch on fire.

That evening I brought the pieces of wardrobe into the bedroom, I couldn't construct it elsewhere in the house as it wouldn't fit through the hallways very easily. Shellie helped to hold the walls steady while I nailed the pieces together. when the box was completed with the two bars inserted into their gaps I assessed the wardrobe, it had quite a bit of movement, so I cut and sanded down two braces to cross the back of the wardrobe, these stabilize the whole wardrobe, stopping excessive movement.

Shellie helped me by holding the walls still.

The two back braces stabilized the wardrobe.

The finished wardrobe fit the corner of our room snugly. The next night I took delight in filling it with our clothes. Now we no longer have to walk the length of the house to pick out the next days clothes. 

Our new wardrobe filled with clothes.

Creating a wardrobe from nothing but pallets was an exciting opportunity to learn some new D.I.Y. techniques, to learn how to use tools I haven't explored before, and to add another piece how furniture to our room that tells a meaningful story that purchasing an ugly plastic rack never could. By reworking old materials into something new I am adding my work and my daily life to the wardrobe. I am creating a new history for materials that already have a prior history, to me that is fascinating.

I don't know exactly where this timber came from originally but I can decide where it will end up after I am finished using it during my time flatting. Likely it will be used again as a wardrobe by someone else, taking with it the history of its creation and my use of it.

De-Construction of Pellets

With Valley Rovers as a fundraiser we decided to split wood and sell it on. While the wood dried it sat on a bunch of pellets which I got for free by asking nicely at the Dominion Post. As we have started to sell our wood and the pellets have freed up I have been able to take the pellets and make use of them.

I brought them back to our flat and tried a bunch of ways to deconstruct them. The videos below showed a couple of ingenious ways to take pellets apart without destroying the timber. I tried a couple of these methods but they were a bit  hit and miss.
I eventually told a mate of mine who in turn lent me his Stanley Wonder Bar Crowbar. This paired with a hammer did the trick. (Ear muffs were a must for deconstruction).

Stanley Wonderbar - as seen on Amazon.

I deconstructed pellets so as to make new stuff. I have a variety of projects in the line that require a large amount cheap timber, pellets are ideal for this, in my case they are free (apart from transport costs) it just require some time to deconstruct them and make them pretty.

Heres some videos I watched.

This video is a striaght up deconstruction video done with a hammer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtPmUZ-k3aI

This video shows an inventive method using the weight of bricks to seperate the timber.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7oWaRPpdKU

This video offers a range of methods that didn't apply to me, and is very safety conscious. But still a good watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thAsa9jE2QQ

Heres the tools I used.
Hammer - any old hammer will do
Stanley Wonder Bar Crowbar - as seen above
Brush - mine is a wooden handled brush that came paired with a steel shovel, perfect for cleaning the dust and wood shavings off the timber and the floor.

A pile old pellets - yet to be turned into beautiful fresh timber.

Once the timber was separated out I used my claw hammer to remove any nails left in the timber. Sometimes the old rusty nails would snap off in the timber so for safety and the integrity of the timber I had to punch them deeper into the timber using another nail as a nail punch.

http://www.justagirlblog.com/how-to-install-a-pallet-wall-part-1/
The timber needs to have nails removed carefully to ensure its integrity.

The next step is to sand the timber. This strips the surface layer from the wood, revitalizing it and making it seem new again. I borrowed two electric sanders for this job. The first is the belt sander that rips off the old and used top layer of timber. I try not to rip too much off so the timber to give the timber the desired rustic look so people can see that the wood has already lived and served a purpose.

The timber is clamped down while I strip it using the belt sander.

http://www.skibuilders.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=810
Some timber given a rough sand.

Now that the timber is fresh, revitalized, ready to use I have to come up with a few projects with which I can use the timber. The first thing I wish to make is a wardrobe, as our current room in the flat doesn't have one. Other projects I wish to do with recycled timber include a guitar rack, and a book shelf.

4X2 planks salvaged from pallets and sanded down

A plank salvaged from a pallet. Nails removed and sanded down.

Now to make something, check out next weeks upcoming post to see what project I do first.

Making a Bookshelf out of scrap.

It feels like the Happy Valley Tip Shop is my second home recently. I love the place; there is so much cool stuff that has been salvaged from the landfill that they will give away for a couple of dollars. On my latest trip there I managed to purchase some recycled timber pieces I thought ideal to build a shelf out of.

Earlier this year, a generous Auntie needed to find a new home for her previously treasured Early Childhood Education (E.C.E.) books. They were offered to my partner Shellie as she is currently studying E.C.E. and so two big boxes of books ended up in our house taking up floor space.

The timber from the tip, as well as some leftover pieces of decking timber from around the property were the perfect materials to create some storage furniture for the books.

Decking timber from around the property, it is a bit green.

Timber from the tip shop.

The timber needed some prep work, cutting to the correct lengths and sanding down certain areas. The decking timber had previously been used as a deck and was replaced, the old stuff which I used had a tinge of green to it from twenty years of moisture and mould buildup. This was sanded off with a belt sander pretty easily.

RYOBI electric belt sander.

While I'm showing off tools, below are my RYOBI tools that I have purchased recently. They are a fairly expensive purchase, yet are hard wearing, and a long lasting investment.

Battery and charger.

The bag can holds some tools, I have four batteries, an impact driver, a jigsaw, a multi-tool, and a radio.
Also seen here are a sharp saw, and a measuring tape. Both essential to a handy-man's toolbox.

I began to cut the pieces to their correct lengths with saw. I follow the old adage that my dad has told me time and time again, "Measure twice, cut once".

The small pieces of decking timber will hold the sides together, and will have the shelves nailed to them.
The earmuffs and visor keep me safe from loud noises, from powertools, and even hammers. The visor protects my eyes and face from projectiles e.g. splinters.

Each of the two sides of the bookshelf were created by nailing joining three lengths of decking timber together as one solid piece.

The two bookshelf sides.

Two saw horses helped to stand the two sides up while I nailed the shelves to them.

How to join it all together.

Seen here is the final shelf. This was an easy project that took only a couple of hours. If you have a lot of belongings with nowhere to put them, or are striving for a tidier house, this is an easy piece that can serve your needs.

The finished shelf

Does it look like recycled timber? Yes. Does it serve its purpose? Yes. It does what we need it to, as students we are looking for practicality. We don't need to own expensive brands of furniture to give us a certain financial status, we are content with practicality. The aesthetic of the book shelf is simple, clean, and functional. There is some textural beauty in the corrugations of the decking timber. These were sanded with the belt sander, giving the tops of the corrugations a clean and not green, fresh timber look, but this is contrasted with the dips in the wood which still show the old, dark, weathered timber. These little details appeal to me. I find that recycling of materials into something practical is beautiful.

The book shelf is full.

There is one more thing I would like to do to this book shelf, in accordance with my manifesto, and that is to inscribe into the wood the origin of the materials, as far back as I know; and the processes that these materials undertook in becoming the bookshelf you see now.

The timber shelves would have a history to them, a past life, a purpose for which they were previously used for. As for the decking timber, it knows twenty years of family life; twenty summers of family BBQ's and childhood adventure; twenty winters of rain, wind, and sometimes snow. These stories are something I would like to celebrate in the creation of this book shelf. 

Job done. I no longer have education books all over the floor.

Getting around - Publlic Transport/Driving/Scooter

Wheels

The Situation.

I live in rural Wellington with my partner Shellie, together for the past few years we have relied upon driving a car that has been loaned to us, a red Mitsubishi Lancer. One morning a couple months back we were driving to work through the busy morning traffic; it was a cold winters morning, the windows were foggy from condensation, and there was blinding sun strike hindering our safe progression to the city; ultimately this led to us being rear ended by a little old lady who was also blinded by the sun.

The Lancer

Upon closer inspection, our car got written off, the result of a bent chassis. The insurance money was paid to the owners of the car, and we were left without a vehicle.
Some of you may know I live in an area of Wellington where public transport is not an option. We needed a vehicle as soon as possible to continue going about our daily lives. We ended up buying two vehicles over two weekends.

The old scooter, it putted out and got sold for parts

Perhaps you are to the view point that the use of petrol is killing our world and anyone using a vehicle unnecessarily is kicking their boot in at mother earth. I know that my use of petrol is killing the earth, but I believe that our use of two vehicles is the most suitable mode of transport for our lifestyle.
The first vehicle we purchased is a yellow Honda Fit, the Japanese equivalent of the Honda Jazz. This 'Small Car' "Fits" our needs nicely. Although smaller than the Lancer, it has a lot of storage space, it carries up to 5 people, perfect for driving friends and family around and holding a weeks worth of gear whilst we are away from home. Also, the Fit is more fuel efficient than the Lancer, we save $10 every time we fill it up.

The Fit

For the first week we made use of the fit for all of our needs, but we soon found we each wanted to be self sufficient as far as transportation. The following weekend we purchased a Motorized Scooter; a PGO, PMX Naked 50. I originally wanted to get a motorbike but being sensible we agreed to buy something that both of us could drive.

Our new PMX

In purchasing the two vehicles we exchanged money intended as our international travel fund, into two vehicles, two assets, and in doing so, cemented our residence as being in New Zealand for the next year or so.

Shellie was thrilled with owning our own car; this meant that she could get from one place to another and have the ability to work her jobs as a nanny for two different families, being able to drive children from A to B.
I am thrilled to have the scooter because it means not having to rely on the car; being able to drive through rush hour traffic slightly faster; and most conveniently, being able to park right outside my work building in the middle of the city all day for free.

Two of my least favourite things are getting stuck in traffic and paying for petrol. In a different world I would not have to face either of these daily realities, but instead I live a life that requires my mobility. With my lifestyle the choice of  vehicles that I drive complement the way I go about my daily business.

By driving a car I feel obliged to take into consideration fuel efficiency. Our current car is more fuel and money efficient than the Lancer, and the costs of driving the scooter are almost negligible; I am often taken aback by the fact that I can pay for a weeks worth of petrol for the scooter out of the few coins in my wallet.

I used to stress about having to pay money all the time just for it to turn from Liquid petrol into fumes that become lost to the air; the reality is though, that purchasing petrol has become routine. Whenever the car is empty it gets filled up. I know that this is an extremely privileged situation, but our income from working the lifestyle that we have chosen does allow for our transport costs to be covered.

I still do worry about my fuel consumption, If I lived anywhere else I would happily use public transport or even travel by bicycle. The reality is that having two vehicles opens up so many opportunities for us, yet it retains out desired lifestyle. Firstly we live in Makara, the rural part of Wellington. This place is inspiring, rugged, and beautiful. Living here has enhanced my ability to perform well as a designer and a photographer, it has encouraged my creative output, and ultimately it has promoted my emotional well-being and a happy state of mind, I wouldn't trade all of that in for a cheaper transport option.

Using the train system in Wellington is very efficient.

Vehicles allow Shellie and I to do the things we love, this includes our ability to attend scouting activities. Without a vehicle we would be unable to turn up and be scout leaders for the twenty or so children from the Karori West Scout troop, we would be depriving them of learning life skills and bush craft. We would be unable to attend Rover Scout events, depriving ourselves opportunities of self-development. Personal transport allows me to see my parents most weekends, therefore strengthening our relationship. As an adventurous couple, Shellie and I like to explore the country. Our vehicles allow for this, whether it is a road trip on State Highway 1 in our car, or a afternoon adventure with the two of us on the scooter, our appreciation of our country is made better by the use of our vehicles.

Not neglect for the environment, but passion for living. That is the reason we use machines that consume petrol and output bad emissions. The environmental impact still weighs on my mind, but not enough to change my choice of lifestyle, not yet.

Recycling Plastic

This week I am lifting content straight from my university work, Yesterday I handed in and presented my first project in the course 'Experimenting with materials'. The project focussed on taking a material and destroying it in order to make something new. Destructive Creation. We worked with physical techniques such as smashing, heating techniques such as melting, and chemical techniques such as rusting. Read on for more.

Heres what Interested me about this project:

Over the course of my university life I have been able to define myself as a designer by what interests me and what I think is important. The two things that this comes down to are
1: D.I.Y., The culture that surrounds it, the practice of doing it, and all of the benefits that go along with that.
2: Sustainability, creating in a sustainable way that does not impact the earth negatively, whether this be recycling old materials, making the most of green spaces, or any number of other things.

Our second lecture of this course was inspiring to say the least. As soon as I saw the calm waves seen  of the video below I knew I was watching something special. It contains all things that I love, DIY, Sustainability, Film, Fire, Re-use, and beautiful scenery to name a few.

I'll try not to get too poetic about my feelings towards this video, but I thought two things after watching this video for the first time. 1. Why aren't more people doing this, and 2. I have to do this.

After a small internet search  I found a couple of lo-fi, videos showing that people already are doing this on an amateur level.
See the videos here for a gow to turn old plastic into a new and beautiful slingshot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_XUJwINdLw
Melting plastic into a brick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyZMWLkcfes
Turning plastic into a slingshot.

Needless to say it was my turn to have a go.
I started with a walk on my local beach in Makara.

My girlfriend Shellie and I walked the beach for 40 minutes filling our buckets to the top. There were bottle caps and plastic rope, and all other plastic crap you can think of.

Back at home this is our haul.
Before I could use it it needed to be sorted and washed.

Here is your daily dose of disturbing images.

As seen here, plastic discarded from people everyday that gets washed down rivers and out into the ocean gets mistaken for food by birds such as the three species of endangered albatross (There are a further 19 species of threatened albatross).

In an ideal world everyone would go out into the ocean, or down to the beach, fish out some old plastic, and use that instead of making more new stuff.

I want to work further in the area of plastic recycling, below are some of my experiments.

My first experiment was indoors on a kitchen element. The plastic melted to the extent that it was maleable but still identifiable, this created a vibrantly coloured bottle top pancake.

From this point on I opted for outdoor cooking. Using an open fireplace would give me a more intense heat, and being outside meant I wouldn't need to worry about getting bad smells throughout the house. My second attempt created a large creen/grey sheet, solid, yet able to be cut into pieces.

My next piece comprised two seperate cooks merged together, the first was perfect, using colourful plastic ropes. The second was awful, it burnt and turned to charcoal, I had used a rubbish grade of plastic. However, I was still able to chop and drill into the block.

Now I would focus my experiments a little more.

My first focussed experiment. Melting milk bottles into a goo I poured it into a cubic mould. Once cooled and removed from the mould it was scalded on the outside, once sanded away it unveiled the light coloured marbling seen here.

The next experiment was melted to extreme heats to the point that the plastic turned to liquid. The molten plsatic was poured into a mould and after bubbling, cracking and eventually setting and cooling I took to it with a band saw, exposing these brilliant marbling patterns.

My final experiment had colour. Vibrant colours that I wanted to bring out and expose. By drilling through it I exposed the colours hidden in the center.

Although it does just look like a block with holes in it, that isn't the point. The point is that by creating your own plastic mould you can create anything. Any shape that you can come up with has the potential to be made out of the rubbish found on the beach.

A very exciting prospect.


If you were curious about the end results of my first project in experimenting with materials have a look here:
http://jrhdsdn.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/final-digital-hand-in-project-1.html

And here is the rest of my Design blog if that interests you:
http://jrhdsdn.blogspot.co.nz/search?updated-min=2015-01-01T00:00:00%2B13:00&updated-max=2016-01-01T00:00:00%2B13:00&max-results=20