The Juries Out

Posted on April 10, 2025 by Rubbish Renewed

The Garment Submission Deadline passed last Friday, April 4th at midnight. An exciting and stressful time for designers who hope to feature their artistic expression and personal statements about Transforming Trash, Inspiring Community for a Sustainable Earth on the Rubbish Renewed Runway.

This year we have more submissions than space available, with student designers from 17 Central Oregon Schools! These designers range in age from 3rd grade to a college sophomore. We have a wide array of adult submissions from several designers new to Central Oregon, a few designers back to Rubbish Renewed after a long absence, and some of our favorite material manipulator, trash fashion designers in the area.

You’ll see some of the traditional trash manipulated year after year on the runway – plastic bags, jeans, candy wrappers, drink cans, produce mesh, mailers… Some materials that are new this year to the Rubbish Renewed runway – political signs, retired chainsaw chaps, and raft parts salvaged from the Colorado Bridge wave cleanup…

Rubbish Renewed is just 1 month away! We can’t wait to see you for our 13th event and showcase designer creations that celebrate the actions we can take to elevate the sustainability of our Central Oregon communities.

Scan QR code below for Tickets or link from the button in the sidebar

Sustainability Intelligence

Posted on November 13, 2024 by Rubbish Renewed

I recently arrived back in Bend after several months of traveling abroad, hiking, visiting family, and teaching. Spending time in other countries stimulates my sustainability intelligence.

We walked 100+ miles in northern England of the Coast-to-Coast trail and observed the lack of trash along the way. In the UK “The Right to Roam” is embedded in the culture, and these pathways, even more broadly accessible in Scotland, have been used for centuries. There is a code of conduct to preserve these public accesses environmentally and culturally. And people follow it.

In Brussels, we spent Sunday, September 22^nd, World Car Free Day, cycling miles throughout the car-free boulevards from Watermael-Boitsfort to the Grand Place and beyond. A city of millions freeing all streets of cars for 1 day a year!

And in Reykjavik, Iceland all people and businesses are obligated to sort their refuse into 5 categories: food waste; paper; plastic; cans/bottles; and trash. In fact, it won’t be picked up if you haven’t complied. What they do with it after that I’ll save for another conversation.

These experiences inspire me to think in new ways about what we can do here at home, in our Central Oregon communities. It’s time to take action.

More on the Right to Roam:

Fi Darby – What is the Right to Roam in England

Gov.UK – Use Your Right to Roam

The Guardian – The Long Legal Fight for the Right to Roam England’s Countryside

More on World Car Free Day:

UN Environment Programme – World Car Free Day

Brussels Times – Most Beautiful Brussels Car Free Sunday in Pictures

Portland.Gov – Sunday Parkways

More on Iceland’s Waste Plan:

Recycling International – Recycling in the Land of Ice and Fire

The Reykjavik Grapevine – Making Sense of Recycling in Reykjavik

Umhverfis Stofnun – A New Law on Waste Takes Effect

Green by Iceland – Recycling Plastic with Geothermal

Community Action: 2024 Business Challenge Gallery Posted

Posted on November 11, 2024 by Rubbish Renewed

In Bend, we have the power to create a holistic sustainable community. More than just action around waste, it’s about access to affordable housing, supporting local farms and food production, prioritizing employee well-being, creating green-spaces and access for recreating and habitat in these, shifting status quo policies surrounding waste and distribute items for reuse, establishing safe routes for biking and walking… The 2024 Rubbish Renewed Business Challenge participants are making a difference through local, community focused practices, that empower people, and ultimately contribute to a better world. It’s more important than ever to step up and get involved.

That’s why we love the Rubbish Renewed Business Challenge! We get to highlight the sustainable work of local businesses who take community action. Link to 2024 Business Challenge Garment Gallery.

Pictured: Bend Anesthesiology Group “AETERNUM”, ReStore “AMPED-UP EVERYDAY HERO”, Lonza “SCIENCE WEATHERS THE STORM”, Humm “TIDE TOGETHER“

This year ReStore, Gear Fix, Lonza, Humm Kombucha, and Brave Collective returned to the competition and Bend Anesthesiology Group, Jackson’s Corner, and Oregon Adaptive Sports joined for their first Business Challenge. They came together to celebrate sustainability, support Realms education, and compete for the Coveted Trash Trophy.

Celebrate environmentally conscious businesses by experiencing the 2024 Business Challenge Garment Gallery through the diverse photos from Joe Kline, Kimberly Teichrow Photography, and Melissa Dholakia.

The Walk Our Talk Zero Waste Event System

Posted on April 30, 2024 by Rubbish Renewed

Thanks to The Environmental Center ReThink Waste and their Community Innovation Grant, Rubbish Renewed is creating the Walk our Talk Zero Waste Event System! It provides a loanable service/sorting/waste reduction system including reusable service-ware, collection tubs, signage, educational materials, and guide to create and promote a successful low-zero waste event!

Last weekend at the Banff Film Festival on Tour at the Tower Theater we were able to try it out on a small scale. They used 3 sizes of cups in the bar and the bus tubs and signage to keep 100’s of disposables out of the landfill!

We will have the full system up and running at The Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show just 11 days away, on Saturday, May 11^th. Get your Rubbish Renewed tickets today!

This system will be available to borrow starting Fall through our partnership with Bicycle Rides Northwest. This is a community effort to create access to reusables for more Central Oregonians!

Material Manipulation from Waste to Wearability

Posted on February 3, 2023 by Rubbish Renewed

THE REINCARNATION OF EARLY 20^TH CENTURY WOOL COATS

My great uncle made braided rugs during the Great Depression and World War 2. Living in Roundup Montana, the winters were long and cold. He gathered worn out woolen coats and scraps from family and neighbors, and spent hours deconstructing garments, stripping fabric, and manipulating the newly formed strips into braids. This rubbish renewed process was normal during those lean times, making use of material that was finished from its original purpose, into something new and enduring. I grew up with Uncle Albert’s brightly colored, patterned rugs. One he made in later years still covers the floor of my childhood home, strong and seemingly unworn.

The rug that was in my aunt’s basement apartment, for as long as I remember, was an early version. When Betty passed, we discarded and distributed dozens of items. A few we kept. The rug, riddled with holes, was something to save for a later date. That time has arrived.

I transported the giant rug, weighing somewhere around 70lbs, back to Bend. Dragging it into my living room, like a body bag (luckily my partner was out of town), it was too big to unfold in my tiny Old Bend home. I left it in quarters and unlaced the braids, years of embedded debris falling free into the air and carpet (I donned a mask). Then the real work began.

I think unbraiding takes as long as braiding. The strands tangle and it’s necessary to cut out overly worn parts before separating the kinky quadra-folded strands into colors. The fabric unfolds in the process of washing each color group on the hand wash cycle in my front loader.

Now a ball of snarled fabric I untangle again, iron the lengths, and hang them to dry. The outside of the fabric is exceedingly worn even in areas without holes every inch. For now, I’ve rolled them up into spools by color and weight.

My next process is to cut the strands apart at the seams and remove those areas too perforated with holes. I’ll resew the bias cuts together with the insides now the face. My goal is to create a new coat, some parts re-braided and others sewn. I’ll keep you posted as my process continues on the reincarnation of an early 20th century wool coat.

Get inspired by the waste around you, and send us your material manipulation inspiration! What will you create for the May 20th, 2023 Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show!

The Birth of Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show – Part 1

Posted on October 19, 2018 by Rubbish Renewed

Designer: Mojave
Photo by: Tambi Lane Photography

It’s hats and sweaters and wintery things, coupled with an obsession for Project Runway, that inspired 2 teachers at REALMS Middle School to imagine Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show 9 years ago. The school had temporarily moved into D-Hall at Pilot Butte from the old (now demolished) portables. We had water and bathrooms for the first time, and were enjoying a warm central meeting place between classes where our office staff crammed between ovens and counters in the defunct home-ec room. Amy was wearing one of her Castaways skirts, beautifully crafted by Lloyd McMullen, and I must have been

Designer: Castaways
Photo by: Tambi Lane Photography

sporting some funky refashioned piece I’d created before teaching dominated my time. Although the exact words elude me now, Amy approached and exclaimed something like, “We need to start a trash fashion show to rise up the waste issue and these cool sweatery mashed up clothes people are making! Someone else is going to do it if we don’t.” It was that moment that launched us into the amazing world of trash fashion, and Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show was born.

Look for: Part 2 – The Covert Creation of Show #1, and 2018 Show Galleries posted soon!

9th Annual Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show Friday, January 25th 2019

We walk our talk.

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Rubbish Renewed

In 2015, where we saw crowds of close to 800 people, we generated a 1/4 can of trash. Two of Rubbish Renewed organizers got into the bin at the end of the night, on top of the ONLY trash of the night, to prove it!

We educate, we inspire, and we walk our talk. From the beginning, hosting a large-scale event with little environmental impact has been a core part of our mission. How do we host a fundraising event with crowds of close to 1,000 people in the course of an evening and not generate a ton of trash? We consult the experts. ReThink Waste and Bend Garbage and Recycling are two sponsors who help us get as close as we can to zero waste. Bend Garbage and Recycling provide the bins and service, while ReThink Waste runs and trains the crowd at the event, helping them sort their waste accordingly.

As you can see from the photo above, we’ve been successful!

Rubbish Renewed continues to divert a ton of trash from the landfill. Last year, Rubbish Renewed achieved their 2015 goal and again only filled 1/4 can full of trash. This has been possible by supportive sponsors, socially conscious participants, and policies and structures (such as mandating compostable serving ware throughout the event) that ensure we continue to divert waste from the landfill, instead of contribute to it.

Now in 2017, where we will see crowds on Thursday night of well over 1,000 people, wait to see if we can fit all three organizers in the 35-gallon bin destined for the landfill.

View the full video from 2015 on our Facebook page.

Reignite Your Sustainable Passion – Community Garment Creation

Posted on December 4, 2015 by Rubbish Renewed

“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).

Sustainable Holiday Tips

Posted on December 22, 2014 by Rubbish Renewed

We believe that small choices do add up. Consider making 2-3 changes this season and remember, it’s not about the stuff.

More tips to come.

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

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Rubbish Renewed

First Friday, Community Garment Creation

44,000

The number of miles of new ribbon (more than enough to wrap around the planet – and tie a decorative bow, of course) that shoppers wouldn’t have to buy if every family in the country reused just two feet of trimmings from previous years. To keep the ribbon of Christmases past from getting creased, wrap them around a paper towel tube and secure with masking tape.

2011 Community Garment
Materials: Surgical Drape & Soda can bottoms

You can help create the 2014/15 Community Garment at the Rubbish Renewed table at December’s First Friday (December 5th) at Hot Box Betty, (903 NW Wall St). Write your pledge for action directly on the tin can lids. Your pledge along with all the pledges collected in Bend will be featured prominently on the 2014 Community Garment at the January 15^th Rubbish Renewed Eco Fashion Show at The Bend Armory. Rubbish Renewed Community Garment 2014/5 By the Bend Community That’s YOU!

2013/14 Community Garment
Materials: Bicycle Tubes, Minty Blaster holes (a manufacturing by-product)

At First Friday also witness the first Rubbish Renewed past trash fashion live wax museum. Learn how some artists are inspired to lessen their waste by reconsidering the value of trash and transforming rubbish into wearable art.