Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Happy birthday earth

Well, our little planet is having its day today. In that spirit, I want to bring up a very well-known triumvirate of words:
Reduce, reuse and recycle.

There's a reason that recycle is number three. It's the one you should do as a last resort. If you reduce the amount of things you buy, you save a lot of needless energy from being expended in manufacturing. When you re-use, you increase the useful life of what you already have. Recycling, if you're not reducing your consumption or reusing what you own, can actually be counter-productive, if you factor in the costs of processing. Here in Los Angeles, recycling is akin to picking up the trash twice a week.

My favorite way to go green? Dumpster diving. Everyone's a winner that way. I've retrieved a cane chair from the trash of a local cafe, and it now sits in my mom's garden, and it looks good. Pictures are forthcoming.
To see just how cool the results can be, check out http://finedivingchicago.com/

So, readers: do you have any good tales of found furnishings given a second chance?

2 comments:

  1. Probably about 99% of my furniture and decor is pre-owned and that may be a conservative estimate. I found my couch on a corner and spent about an hour sitting on it in 90 degree weather so no one could take it before my friend came to help me drag it away. Dumpster furniture is the best because if you don't feel like using it anymore, you can just toss it back out onto the corner without feeling guilty. Oh yeah, and it helps the environment too.

    ~Amanda

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  2. Amanda, that's a good point about dumpster furniture being 100% guilt free. I'm curious to see this couch.

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