I guess the sod-covered picNYC table also served two purposes – it’s a table and a litterbox – but the Raintree idea from Christina Bertea is truly a dual-use product. During the summer, the Raintree is an outdoor clothes dryer and in the off-season, it’s a raincatcher that can collect 3 – 65 gallon drums of water during San Francisco’s rainy winter. The Raintree is made out of plywood scraps, an umbrella stand and vinyl from recycled convention banners. Jubbling 101.
Double-Duty With The Raintree Raincatching Clothesline
December 16, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Home Built From Junkyard Car Parts And Poplar Tree Bark.
December 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Thanks again Faircompanies.com for posting another Macgyver inspired video. This one is about a couple in Berkeley that built a house out of old cart parts and furniture factory waste tree bark. The builders/designers, Karl Wanaselja and Cate Leger, spent months searching their local junkyards for the right parts including the side windows of Dodge Caravans which became the awnings for their home. Car roof sections and Poplar tree bark was used as siding in this shining example of junkyard Jubbling.
Cate Leger and Karl Wanaselja designed their home in their backyard office that was built out of an old shipping container. Their goal was to use precycled material before it went through the energy intensive recycling process of getting melted down.
Watching the video of their completed house reminded me of a local home [pictured below] that had Cate and Karl duplicated, might’ve saved them quite a bit of time.
Using Captured Rainwater To Flush Your Toilet
December 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
This captured rainwater toilet flushing project looks neat but looks like a lot of work. [Treehugger.com]
Man Illegally Dumps Over 1 Million Tires Across England
November 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It’s amazing the bad things people will do when money is on the line. In an effort to avoid tire disposal fees at official waste sites, Carl David Steele of FCM Logistics Ltd. collected and then illegally dumped 1 million+ tires across England from October 2009 until January 2011. His operation first received the attention of the Environment Agency in 2009 for storing thousands of used tires without a license. Little did they know at the time but the EA only saw the tip of his soon-to-be illegally dumped tire empire. Mr. Steel will serve 15 months in prison for his crime and it will cost everyone else approximately $800,000 to clean up his mess. [Guardian and Lynn News]
And in fabricated news, the new Carl David Steele Tire Playground will be opening near a refugee camp on the Thai border in 2014. Designed by AnneMarie van Splunter and built out of used tires, the huge and freakishly crazy “Rubber Tree” will be the ideal playground structure for kids whose parents are not in a position to complain about how unsafe it is. [Inhabitat]
Nyan Cat: A Jubbling Halloween Costume
November 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
My son Harrison always finds a way to be happy and his Halloween costume choice this year is a perfect example. He chose Nyan Cat which is basically a cat with a pink pop-tart body and flies through space with a rainbow trail. Nyan Cat built a dedicated following as an internet meme but in my mind, Nyan Cat was a Jubbling Halloween Costume idea that took about an hour to make with stuff we would normally recycle or throw out. An Amazon box for the body, leftover streamers for the rainbow and a rope recovered from a broken cat toy so Harrison can wear the costume around his neck.
Harrison loved the costume and so did the few people who knew about the pop-tart cat. Unfortunately, more people thought he was a little girl than knew who his character was and that is my bad; I forgot to break out the Flowbee.
Here’s the video of Nyan Cat in action and the soundtrack you’ll hear was running through Harrison’s head the entire time he wore the costume.
Sorry kids, we’re eating your science project tonight.
October 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
There’s something to the whole eating bugs thing as long as People for the Ethical Treatment of Insects (PETI) are out of the way. Don Bugito’s Prehispanic Snackeria focus is mealworm larvae based foods that are high in protein and loaded with vitamins and minerals. Probably the most important advantage of eating mealworms is that they occupy a low rung of the food chain and so the energy transfer is not as wasteful as other animal based proteins. Another advantage is that for now, Don Bugito’s booth at the local food festival is going to have a shorter line.
Blank us on ......