Only 20 days left to back up the project!

Do you know the Landfill Harmonic project?

A documentary about the story of the people of Cateura, Paraguay, a slum built on a landfill where residents pick through trash to make music instruments. Imagine a cello made of oil can? That’s amazing! The orchestra, its creator and the players are an example of human strength, solidarity, creativity and truly give hope in a better future.

This project will become reality only if we show our support. The Landfill Harmonic is part of the Kickstart project and if like me you too become a “Backer” a movie about this inspiring project will be released soon. This project is not only changing lives but it also contributes to a better environment. All instruments are recycled, literally made our of trash. Let’s help these kids to have hope and inspire a better future through the music.

C’mon show your support! CLICK HERE NOW TO BACK UP THE PROJECT!

Landfill Harmonic: Inspiring dreams one note at a time! Click here to watch the trailer.

I’ve made my donation today and I hope you too will show your support.

Only 20 days left to back up the project!

Related articles

• Trash making treasure! Landfill Harmonic (sustainableandfashionable.wordpress.com)
• Recycled Orchestra turns trash into music and despair into hope in Paraguayan slums (treehugger.com)

Everyday is Earth day!

I saw a lot of people commenting about Earth Day on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and personal blogs. It’s good, but does everyone incorporate sustainability in their daily lives? I really hope that people get more conscious about sustainability and use it in their day to day life. I know it’s hard, but we can do it slowly, step by step…

Reducing the time in the shower, closing the tap when brushing your teeth, recycling as much as you can, driving less and walking more… all these small things are easy to do. I can do it, you can do it! So let’s make Earth day EVERYDAY!

 

Everyday is Earth day!

 

Related articles

• It’s Earth Day! (earthrangers.com)
• In the Spotlight: Go Green With These Bloggers for Earth Day (csuitementor.wordpress.com)

Watch the play, eat the stage!

The other day I went with a friend to ‘Earthly Activation’, an informal talk about sustainability presented by Melbourne’s architectural and design community. The event was held at the Section 8 pub in Melbourne.

A nice hot day, where some fantastic speakers gave great insight on relevant topics such as the current food system, ethical food, organic food certifications and sustainability in all its forms! It was a really good discussion and I learned a few things about traditional and organic food systems in Australia. But what I really loved was Tanja Beer’s presentation about “The Living Stage”.

This presentation was really surprising! I’ve never heard about this concept of “Green Theatre” or “Living Stage”. The “Green Theatre” offers sustainable solutions for theatrical design to support the ethic of ‘ecological design’ in the Performing Arts. The main idea is to demonstrate to the community that we can create exciting artistic projects and ideas with minimal effect on the environment.

The Living Stage

Tanja shared her experience with the audience and explained how she started integrating sustainability into her work. She presented the concept of “Living Stage” which is an eco-scenographic concept that combines stage design, permaculture and community engagement to create a recyclable, biodegradable and edible performance space. She uses plants, vegetables, fruits, salads or even soil.

Imagine a stage that you can literally eat after the play! How crazy is that?! I have never seen this before and I really love the idea of being able to eat the stage! Such a cool idea!

Instead of using traditional construction materials to build the stage, they use recycled materials, plants and a veggie garden that is cultivated by the community. She said that the actors also play with the elements on the stage interacting with the audience. Those plays are for sure an exceptional experience for the public.

She brought some salads from one of her “Living Stages” for us to try and of course I didn’t miss the opportunity to scoff the salad! The taste was so good and healthy! I have just one thing to say! Great job Tanja! It’s a beautiful and creative way to integrate sustainability with design and performing arts. Well done!

If you want to know more about Tanja’s creations and her extraordinary work, visit http://tanjabeer.com/

http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/-2gb5z.html

Growing lemons leaves

Trash making treasure! Landfill Harmonic

I received this video from a friend on my Facebook. I had to share this with you guys! These kids are just awesome and their story is so inspiring! Stories like this give me faith in the humanity and make me believe that together we can make a better world.

Landfill Harmonic reduces landfill and give hope through the music. A documentary about the story of the people of Cateura, Paraguay, a slum built on a landfill where residents pick through trash to make music instruments. A cello made of oil can, amazing! The orchestra, its creator and the players are an example of human strength, solidarity, creativity and truly give hope in a better future.

I really love this trailer and I can’t wait to watch the movie!!

Please, like it, share it and tweet it! Let’s spread the word about this amazing project.

http://www.facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie

Related articles

• Cateura, Paraguay’s residents live on top of a landfill… (thekidshouldseethis.com)

Recycling cooking oil into soap bars

Santa Catarina has just entered the Guinness Book of Records as the city that recycles the most cooking oil in the world. There are 10.000 litres of oil recycled per day! It is a great example for many people around the world.

The project “Floripa in the Guinness” was started by the Associação Comercial e Industrial de Florianópolis ACIF and the company Ambiental Santos, a pioneer in Paraná in the collection and recycling of discarded vegetable oils and fats from the food industry and the food trade.

Soap bars made with cooking oil

This partnership started a few years ago and was known by the name of Project Re-Oil. The project has been a great success transforming used oil into cleaning products like detergent and soap bars that are used in schools or exchanged for books and school supplies to poor communities.

Cooking oil thrown in the sink outlet causes clogging of the drains and pollutes the environment. The pollution of the environment caused by the cooking oil causes the death of plants and animals.

 

Imagine all this oil dumped into the sea…

Did you know that 1 litre of cooking oil dumped into the sea or rivers can pollute about 100,000 litres of drinking water?

The community participates by donating used oils. Schools involved in the project educate children on environmental issues and even teach them, in biology classes, how to turn cooking oil into soap bars.

This is proof that it is indeed possible to change the behaviour of the population, teaching children and adults that we can protect the environment. This example of community work should be followed in other cities and even other countries.

I’m glad to see that a Brazilian city is setting an example for the world. Actions like these deserve to be shared on social media and traditional media channels. If you think so, share this article, send it to your friends and show that it is possible to build a better world.

Kids showing the good example in the USA.

Related articles

• Large barrels of cooking oil dumped in park (krem.com)

Recycled objects. Get inspired!

Today I would like to share some cool ideas of recycled objects. I hope this can give you ideas and inspire you to do the same!

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Cardboard Life Cycle

Great recycling idea to do with your kids!

Collect all the old coloured crayons chop them off and bake them in a mould with a funny shape. The picture below shows a little Valentines Day gift/card, but you can make it for many other occasions.

For example, you can give them as a giveaway in the next birthday party of your child. Kids will love it! New coloured crayons with a funny shape! Touch down!

DIY PET Broom

I’ve posted this DIY once, but it was in Portuguese. Many people asked me to post the English translation, so here it go! Happy DIY!

Material:

19 x 2-litre PET soda bottles; 1 broomstick; scissors; retractable knife; hole puncher; wire; hammer and nail

Steps:

1^st – Remove the label from the bottles;

2^nd – Remove the bottom of the bottles using the knife;

3^rd – Cut parallel lines (0,5cm) up to the top edge;

4^th – Remove the neck of the bottles with the scissors;

5^th – Make 17 bottles without the neck and one with it;

6^th – Fit the 17 bottles one by one through the neck of the bottle with the neck;

7^th – Cut the top part of another bottle and fit it on the top of the broom you just made;

8^th – Make two holes and pass the wire through all the bottles;

9^th – Fasten the ends of the wire on one side;

10^th – Tie the base of the broom to the broomstick using two nails and your broom is ready!

Broom made with PET bottles