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This is for the crafty girls who want to save money, goes the voiceover on a recent TikTok, panning over the cheerful purple-and-gray exterior of Savannahs Starlandia Art Supply and its shelves stocked with art supplies. You need to be going to creative reuse stores, which are like thrift stores, but for crafts. Another TikTok keeps it even simpler, with the text pov: you find out thrift stores for arts & crafts exist, overlaid on a montage of the treasures available at Seattle Recreativepaint brushes, markers, a whole wall of yarn. In fact, there are dozens of these “creative reuse centers” spread out across the country, from Anchorage, Alaska, to Atlanta, Georgia. Some centers have been operating for decades; others have sprung up since the pandemic, amid renewed enthusiasm for crafty hobbies. They sell everything from crayons to stamps to beads to fabric, and their mission is explicitly tied to sustainability. Organizers say theyre getting more and more emails and calls from people interested in establishing their own local spot. And yes, the young people on TikTokwho love craftingare very enthusiastic about the idea. It’s likely that interest will only grow with news that the fabric store Joanna decades-old stalwart for sewers, knitters, and other craftersis closing all its remaining stores. My feeling is every municipality should have one of these, says Barbara Korein of Retake/Remake in Peekskill, New York. [Photo: courtesy of the author] Retake/Remake is a bustling little spot tucked into a converted turn-of-the-century hat factory in northern Westchester Countyand its my local creative reuse center, a regular stop on my Saturday morning rounds and my go-to for everything from old National Geographic maps for Girl Scout projects to cross-stitch materials to slightly patchouli-scented wrapping paper. Retake/Remake accepts donations on the first Tuesday of every month and typically gets around 1,000 pounds of materials, says Korein. Weve converted about 113,000 pounds of waste from the waste stream. The items are affordably priced when they put them out on the shelves, too: I once bought several skeins of hand-dyed yarn, a merino wool and alpaca blend, for $10 each, with an original sticker price of $32; Ive bought needlepoint canvases, which are famously pricy, for as low as $1. [Photo: courtesy of the author] The concept is an elegant solution to a longstanding problem: Generally, traditional thrift stores dont know what to do with half-used art supplies. Its an easy thing to identify and its a hard thing to donate, says Korein. Often, they go straight into the trash and eventually the landfill. But theres demand for that half-empty box of crayonsteachers, for instance, who often spend their own money on classroom supplies. Many creative reuse centers have special programs to serve this group: Austin Creative Reuse, for instance, has a Materials Mobile, which brings a truck full of no-cost supplies straight to educators. Creative small businesses often turn to these stores, for instance, and artists are a core constituency: If you have $20 left for your art supplies, and you go to a traditional art center and buy a $20 tube of yellow paint, then whatever youre painting is going to be yellow, and also its going to be paint, says Jenn Evans of Austin Creative Reuse. But at a creative reuse center, that same $20 might buy a variety of paints and materialsand broaden artistic horizons. It allows the artist to create artwork from their brains and their heart and not just have it limited by the materials that they can afford. [Photo: Austin Creative Reuse] Weve seen all people from all walks of life come in, says Ulisa Blakely, Director of Programs and Development at The Wasteshed in Chicago. But the patterns we typically see are students, teachers, artists whether theyre emerging or established, and also a lot of BIPOC people, which is awesome. [Photo: Austin Creative Reuse] The basic idea has been aroun for decades: The countrys first creative reuse center, San Franciscos SCRAP, was opened in 1976 by Anne Marie Theilen and artist Ruth Asawa. SCRAP grew out of a program by the San Francisco Arts Commission to bring working artists into schools, but money for supplies was scarce. Two years later, New York Citys Materials for the Arts was founded by Angela Fremont, an artist working at the Department of Cultural Affairs; its now a 35,000-square-foot behemoth (though shoppable by appointment only) supported by the City of New York. [Photo: Anthony Sertel Dean/courtesy Materials for The Arts] The idea percolated around the country over the years that followed, often in association with other reuse organizations. But it seems theres been a jump in the past decade, and its accelerating. Each center serves as a catalyst for the next oneKorein, for instance, volunteered at Materials for the Arts for a decade and served on their board. The more centers there are, the more people become aware of this idea, says Evans. And it turns out to be a pretty seductive idea. [Photo: Anthony Sertel Dean/courtesy Materials for The Arts] New technologies are making it possible for word to spread faster, too, and TikTok in particular can translate directly to increased business. Kimberly Maruska, executive director of SCRAP Creative Reuse (which is unrelated to the San Francisco original and has four locations across the country), says that after a popular TikTok featured their Ann Arbor outpost, they saw a huge jump in sales and new customers who cited the Tiktok. Those people are still coming in, says Maruska. They didnt stop. Part of the appeal of creative reuse centers is their sheer practicalitywhy trash perfectly good materials, when teachers and artists are both famously cash-strapped? Theyre handy for businesses with leftover materials, or individuals who want somewhere to take emotionally complicated donationspeople who dont knit, for example, want their beloved great aunts yarn stash to go to somebody wholl appreciate it. [Photo: Anna Droddy/courtesy Materials for The Arts] In general, being creative is getting very expensive, says Evans. Creative reuse centers are a way to try something new without a huge financial commitment, and even seasoned crafters are keen for more affordable options. But theres a broader, less concrete appeal, too. Its an easy way to get involved in grassroots causes, says Blakely. Its an approachable step into a more sustainable life, and thats by design. We attract people to the idea of creative reuse by offering them low-cost art and craft and school supplies, says Evans. But then once they come to us, we want to open a conversation with them about the environmental aspects of what theyre doing and to celebrate the fact that theyre shopping secondhand. In an era of fast fashion and haul videos, creative reuse centers offer a particularly charming glimpse at another path. Creative reuse centers serve as community hubs, too. Centers generally offer programming beyond the materials. The Wasteshed and Austin Creative Reuse have both hosted trash fashion shows, for example, where competitors have to use provided materials in a kind of creative reuse-themed Project Runway. We create communities around us, says Maruska. Were taking in donations from local community members, businesses, were having educational programming, were partnering with other local nonprofits or libraries or schools. Most of these centers are nonprofits; theres little chance of a financial jackpot, and its a mission-driven labor of love that tends to attract passionate people. It really feels good to be part of something that everybody seems to benefit from, says Korein. All those aspects combine to create the quality I personally love best about Retake/Remake, which is that it allows me to imagine art as a practice for its own sake. I dont have to produce anything gallery-worthy; I dont have to justify it as a potential side-hustle. It doesnt even have to be particularly good. It can just be for meart as part of a straightforward human impulse to create.
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E-Commerce
The color of your house matters beyond aesthetics. An extensive body of research shows that painting buildings white (which reflects heat) can make them cooler, and painting them black (which absorbs heat) can make them warmer. This is the reason why most houses in Greece are white, and many houses across Scandinavia are black. But what about the rest of the world, where temperatures often shift with the seasons?Industrial designer Joe Doucet has developed what he calls a climate-adaptive paint that can change colors based on the temperature outside. The patent-pending formula, which is known as thermochromic paint, follows the same principle as 90s mood rings. Except instead of jewelry changing color, its the entire facade of a building. If the temperature outside is below 77F, the building will be black. If its above 77F, it will turn white.The formula can be mixed with other tints, so if you want a blue house, it would simply look light blue in the summer and dark blue in the winter. Its phenomenal to think about the built environment changing with the seasons as nature does, says Doucet, who estimates that painting a building with this climate-adaptive paint could save an average of 20 to 30% on energy costs.The power of paintMany cities have turned to paint to alleviate urban problems like the heat island effect. In 2019, teams across Senegal, Bangladesh, Mexico, and Indonesia painted a total of 250,000 small household rooftops with white reflective pain as part of the Million Cool Roofs Challenge. In 2022, the city of L.A. covered 1 million square feet of streets and sidewalks in Pacoima, a low-income neighborhood, with solar reflective paint. Surfaces cooled instantly by 10 to 12F, and a year in, studies showed that the ambient temperatures throughout the entire neighborhood had dropped by up to 3.5°F.[Image: courtesy Joe Doucet and Partners]A climate-adaptive paint could make a difference for houses and apartment buildings, but also large industrial facilities like climate-controlled farms and warehouses that would otherwise turn to AC or heating to maintain a desired temperature. It costs to heat and cool a large structure so anything you can do mitigate that cost makes sense commercially as well, says Richard Hinzel, partner and managing director at Joe Doucet and Partners.Doucet first had the idea for a climate-adaptive paint while renovating his own home in Chappaqua, New York. I put off what color it should be because I wanted to have an understanding of what color did in terms of energy use, he recalls. The designer, who recently gave wind turbines a much-needed design makeover, built two scale models of his house, with the same kind of insulation material he used in the actual house. He painted the first model in black and the second one in white. For a year, he measured the surface outside and inside both models, and found that, in high seasons like summer and winter, temperatures between the two varied by as much as 13F. More specifically, in the summer, the white house was 12F cooler inside than the black house, while in the winter, the black house was 7F warmer inside. He says the opposite was also true. The black house was 13F warmer inside in the summer, while the white house was 8F colder in the winter. [Image: courtesy Joe Doucet and Partners]Doucet obtained these measurements from a scale model, not a full-sized house, but he notes the only difference between the two would be the time it takes for each space to heat or cool. A smaller pan heats up and cools down faster than a larger one, but it does not get hotter or colder, he says by way of example.At the end of the experiment, it occurred to him that the answer to his original questionwhat color to paint his housewas to paint it black in the winter and white in the summer. But that wasnt a practical solution.The more practical solutiona paint that can be both at oncetook two years to develop and about 100 more models to get the formula right. The team used commercially available latex house paint as a base, then mixed in their own proprietary formula. But crafting a formula that can sustain the transition from light to dark without degradingand therefore ending up greyproved difficult.If youve ever had transition glasses that got stuck on dark and never returned to clear, you understand the problem. If the paint degrades too fast and you have to repaint your house every month, then nobody will buy it.The first few formulas were degrading too fast, but the team eventually concocted a secret sauce that helps the paint last at least one year with zero degradation. This number reflects how long Doucet has been testing the paint in his studio. The final number could be even higheror it could not.The paint is yet to undergo rigorous lab tests, so many unknowns remain. Were not starting a paint company, says Doucet. Instead, his team wants to license the formula to paint manufacturers who would then take the climate-adaptive paint to the finishing line and launch it themselves.If the idea resonates and paint companies jump on the bandwagon, they will have to develop a competitive product that is both durable and priced accordingly. For now, Doucet estimates that theclimate-adaptive paint will cost about 3 to 5 times more than a standard gallon of paintthough he says youd quickly make that back in energy savings. Im confident that if theres a positive response, this could do very well on the market, he says.In the meantime, Doucet finished renovating his house and opted for black. I couldnt wait, he says with a laugh.
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E-Commerce
When plastic entered the design world in the 20th century, it was hailed as a wonder materialsomething strong, durable, lightweight, affordable, and malleable enough to sculpt into expressive, futuristic-looking forms. But the material lost its halo as the environmental consequences became apparent, plastic waste being one of them. The design industry has been figuring out what to do about this for years. Its tried recycling, reducing the amount of material in a product, developing bio-based compostable alternatives, or switching to something else entirely. But not all companies are able to easily switch up their production lines or find alternatives. Now, a growing body of research around plastic-eating microorganisms is reshaping how the industry is thinking about the material and its waste problem. Hellera furniture brand that produces high-end plastic furniture and home goods like Frank Gehry tables, Mario Bellini chairs, and Massimo and Lella Vignelli tablewareis now making all of its furniture with an enzyme that will accelerate the rate of biodegradation. The hope is that if its products wind up in a landfill or at the bottom of the ocean, that they wont be there for long. Ten years ago, we were all drinking out of plastic water bottles and nobody really cared, says John Edelman, the president and CEO of Heller. But we learned that plastics are bad for the world. The company began to make some products from recycled material, but we wanted to get to the next level and become more sustainable, Edelman says. How can we be good for the planet and create incredible design? He adds that the bioplastics and compostable plastics on the market now dont work for Hellers furniture because of performance requirements. Since everything is indoor-outdoor, it needs to withstand rain, snow, and the suns UV rays. [Image: courtesy Heller]Heres how it works: The powder enzyme, developed by a company called Worry Free Plastics, makes plastic more enticing for microorganisms to eat, essentially turbocharging a process that already takes place naturally. When the plastic is in a zero-oxygen environment, like a landfill, the enzyme activates and attracts anaerobic bacteria that break down its polymers. As they eat the material, they generate biogas and soil. If the plastic is exposed to oxygen, as it would be in everyday use, the material remains stable. According to Edelman, it will take approximately five years for a Heller product made with the enzyme to biodegrade.Philip Myers, the cofounder of Worry Free Plastics, says its enzyme works in fresh and salt water, commercial composting facilities, and soil. A third-party testing company using ASTM methods (which involve placing an item in a controlled environment for 45 or 90 days, measuring the material loss rate, then calculating how long it would take for the entire thing to degrade) found that Worry Frees enzyme could help a plastic bottle degrade, on average, in seven-and-a-half years and a plastic bag in five; the total time it takes depends on the density and thickness of the plastic and conditions in a landfill. Real-world environments are not as controlled as a labs and the actual degradation rate could be different. One landfill might be more potent than another one, says Stephen Andero, the vice president of science and innovation at Worry Free Plastics. After doing thousands of tests, no two are the same. That said, the estimated degradation time is significantly less than conventional plastic. A water bottle, for example, takes an estimated 450 years to decompose. The enzyme can also be added to all polymer plastics, including bioplastics like PLA, which arent composting as fast as manufacturers claim. Worry Free isnt the only entity to explore enzymatic technology and the role microorganisms play in accelerating the degradation of plastic. In 2016, a team of Japanese scientists discovered a natural bacteria that eats PET plastic, which changed how the industry thought of managing plastic waste. Some researchers are now trying to engineer extra-hungry, plastic-eating bacteria. A materials science professor at UC Berkeley recently developed an enzyme that can make plastic self-destruct when exposed to heat and water. All of this research is leading to a boom in the bioremediation business.Now, manufacturers are bringing this science into the products we use every day. To date, most of Worry Frees customers have been manufacturers of single-use plasticsitems like coffee cup lids and pallet film. Myers is just as eager to find more applications for his enzyme as Edelman is to address circularity at Heller.Most of Hellers furniture is rotationally molded, a process that involves putting a powder compound into a mold then heating it up. As it heats up, it coats the mold, and when it cools, it solidifies into the shape of the product. In order to make its furniture biodegradable, Heller mixes the enzyme into the power compound. Nothing else about its production line changes.Its a drop in technology, Myers explains. It doesnt require them to change their equipment, their processanything. Its plug and play. Heller began adding the enzyme to its production line in November last year. Its going to be in all of its rotationally molded LDPE products. As old inventory moves off the shelf, the biodegradable items will enter circulation. Theres nothing different aesthetically about the pieces, and the retail price is the same. Everybody talks a big sustainability game, but research shows they wont pay more for it, Edelman says. My goal is to do something that is sustainable and at the same price . . . We actually achieved our goal of not just using recycled products, not just being recyclable, but going back to the earth.While its not likely that people are buying $1,000 dining chair sets with the intent to throw them away, Edelman thinks that Hellers adoption of enzymatic tech can spark more brands to do the same. Sustainability is being applied to every product because the design firms are pushing it, he says. Theyre the catalyst.
Category:
E-Commerce
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