“What one action can I take to lower my impact on the planet?”

• We generate 21.5 million tons of food waste each year. If we composted that food, it would reduce the same amount of greenhouse gas as taking 2 million cars off the road.
• Every year, each American throws out about 1,200 pounds of organic garbage that can be composted.
  

  Designer: Bend Community     Materials: tin can lids, 1950’s stained curtains

Looking at trash facts is mind-boggling. Each year at this time I peruse the internet for waste data to share with the Bend community. The goal is to reignite sustainable practices in ALL of us. For me, complacency sets in as the year rolls on. When I reconsider a pledge each year I’m empowered to act, focusing my sustainability efforts.

The first year of Rubbish Renewed I pledged to recycle the toilet paper tube. And since then, I have diligently complied.   The next year, I upped my composting efforts through making a pledge. To this day, I still meet this goal.

There is something about the act of making a pledge and watching it publicly displayed walking down the runway that motivates; it helps hold me accountable. This year I’m using a thermos to capture the extra water I heat for tea. Now, in winter, as the day wears on, I rejuvenate my hot beverage with captured energy. I’ll make a pledge today at Rescue Collective (our hosts for the Rubbish Renewed Community Garment creation) to change a habit and lower my impact on the planet!

Designer: The Bend Community
Materials: Bicycle Tubes, scrap plether

• If all our newspaper was recycled, we could save about 250,000,000 trees each year
• Each ton (2000 pounds) of recycled paper can save 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, 4000 kilowatts of energy, and 7000 gallons of water. This represents a 64% energy savings, a 58% water savings, and 60 pounds less of air pollution!
• In the United Kingdom, 65 percent of tea drinkers overfill their kettles and boil more water than is needed for a cup of tea. Turns out, that extra energy—the energy used to heat thrown out or leftover water each day—is enough to light all the streetlights in London for a night.

The Rubbish Renewed Community Garment offers a place to take a personal step towards walking more lightly on the planet. What will you do to generate less waste? Consume less? Ask yourself, “What one action can I take to lower my impact on the planet?”  Make a pledge. Start today.

You can help create the 2015/16 Community Garment at the Rubbish Renewed table at December’s First Friday (December 4th) at Rescue Collective, (910 NW Harriman St Suite 150).