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This one is nothing fancy, but it fit our workflow well. My SO has always saved recipes to a pinterest board - normally she brings a laptop to the kitchen and sets it up on a chair. We finally took this tablet (came from corporate ewaste) and stuck it to the wall. It's too old for most apps but it seems to work well for this. We installed pinterest, and a podcast player. Eventually I'll check if there's a good replacement OS for the expired android version, but I figure we'll do a bit of a trial run, see how it's working for us and what we need, before starting with that.
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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/9263490 > Pictured: three glass bottles in a row. On the left, it's a full bottle of soy sauce. In the middle, it's an empty bottle with the label removed. On the right, it's another empty bottle with a rooted pothos cutting in it. > > My workplace provides snacks and some condiments for folks. When the soy sauce runs out, I do my best to snag the bottle. It looks like it ought to have a potion in it. A plant is the next best thing!
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Getting kicked out of junkyards (right to repair needs to evolve)
I’ve been kicked out of local junkyards ½ dozen times or so now. It’s a tricky game of trying to reach the waste pile when no one is looking, and also seeing who is on duty in hopes of at least ensuring that the same person doesn’t experience the pattern of kicking you out multiple times. Perhaps they would get aggressive and even block you from dumping stuff if you’re kicked out too much. Strictly speaking, it’s theft to take stuff from the junkyard. To be clear, the junkyards in my area do not sell parts. They just melt and refine the waste. The melt value is naturally less than the as-is value to someone who would repair or reuse. IMO, the #rightToRepair movement needs to expand to give the public access to junk before it’s recycled or dumped into landfills.
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The art of recycling/repurposing broken-up concrete (sometimes apparently called ‘urbanite’)
I stumbled onto this article while working on a photobash of a solarpunk scene. I think it does a good job of explaining the concept but there seems to be something wrong with its certificates, which might throw an error in your web browser. https://nwedible.com/urbanite-broken-concrete-retaining-wall-as-a-garden-feature/ Just in case you don't want to check the link I'm also going to plagiarize a few quotes and images from the article: ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/3cb22499-133e-4851-b41c-36a56b0a9134.jpeg) "The marketing term for “old chunks of broken up concrete” is urbanite. Urbanite has a lot going for it: it’s durable and heavy like natural stone, reusing this product in garden and landscape design takes it out of the waste stream, it’s often a uniform thickness which makes it easy to stack or lay as a permeable patio surface, it’s often available in most urban locations, and it’s frequently free for the hauling. Free is good. Drawbacks to urbanite can include potential contamination – this is more of an concern if your urbanite comes from a torn out commercial parking lot where all manner of auto fluids may have seeped into it than from the neighbor’s pool deck tear-out. Concrete itself can contain additives that might pose a health or contamination risk, although my feeling is that old, weathered concrete has probably already leached the worst of itself out somewhere else. I probably wouldn’t use urbanite to build edible garden beds, but I can see great potential for turning this waste product in retaining walls, steps, and patio areas." ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/03d949aa-259f-45a8-b29f-a6f0a39170b2.jpeg) ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/95b77301-52eb-4aa4-ba21-8db8177cfb5b.jpeg) And a few examples of recycled concrete patios: ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/862b0922-0f4e-4100-91e3-7741235bfcd4.jpeg) ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/1691c956-6b65-404b-8486-64067d07e814.jpeg) ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/8f593656-6cfd-4c1c-8fb5-3a45e74c2a04.jpeg) This last one came from https://www.terranovalandscaping.com/90/, which has a few other examples, including raised beds, so perhaps they knew their source of concrete was clean, or weren't worried about the potential for contanimation? ![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/fb7cb137-417d-4c98-a157-c5e72b235a9a.jpeg)
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![](https://slrpnk.net/pictrs/image/9a0a8087-e889-42dd-9d19-dcbdaca3dc80.jpeg) > ([Image Source](https://superbee.me/refresh-wool-dryer-balls/)) 100% wool dryer balls are growing in popularity to the point where I have even seen them at my local dollar store, and for good reason. They can save you money in laundry costs. If you are someone who uses dryer sheets, these wool balls are a great alternative that removes static from your clothes and [can decrease drying time by around 30-50%](https://davidsuzuki.org/living-green/wool-dryer-balls-shrink-drying-time/). So, you save money by not having to buy dryer sheets, as well as on electricity. All you do is toss them into the dryer with your clothes! > "Per Toner, “Dryer balls excel in reducing drying time due to their ability to create space between clothes. This separation facilitates better air circulation, leading to faster drying and potential energy savings.” | [bobvila](https://www.bobvila.com/articles/what-do-dryer-balls-do/) I have had mine for many many years now, and they are still in great shape. When or if they do ever break down to the point of being unable to use, the wool is biodegradable. Just make sure that what you buy is 100% wool. If you are crafty (and have access to wool) you can also make your own fairly easily. https://youtu.be/de644Zwtnbg
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How to live without plastics for a month, according to the founder of a global movement
Plastic Free July is upon us! Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, founder of Plastic Free July, encourages people to take the challenge with friends, start small and keep a “plastic-free kit” on hand.
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Using broccoli stems as pickles
After eating the last pickle save the jar of pickle juice. Then when a broccoli stem becomes available cut the tough outer skin off, chop it up and toss it in the pickle juice. Works well. They reach a taste that’s very close what the pickles tasted like. After 2 or 3 cycles of that the pickle juice starts losing its strong punch. Adding vinegar and a sweetener can help at that point if you don’t have more pickle juice by then. Otherwise broccoli stems are not too versatile. They’re not that great in veg. stock because they bring a bit of bitterness. So I only use like ½ a stem in a pot of broth (which is wholly from veg scraps). My next experiment (untested): reusing juice from a jar of jalapẽnos to pickle broccoli stems.
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We turned 5 1/2 gallons of expired milk into Farmer’s Cheese (Tvorog)
My SO's company handles food. Sometimes that food goes bad. In this case, they got a whole shipment of milk days away from its expiration date (at which point they can't serve it, and local food pantries very sensibly won't accept it). Luckily, they're not committed to dumping it down the drain, and they'll let us take it. Sometimes it's still okay to drink, but usually we take it so we can make farmer's cheese. This is a soft, mild cheese which makes an awesome dip/spread, or which is useful as an ingredient in other foods. It's super easy, and requires no aging, just heat and vinegar. This was our biggest batch yet. We normally use this recipe: https://www.olgainthekitchen.com/homemade-farmers-cheese/ though we add additional seasonings depending on how we plan to use the cheese. Step one is to bring the milk up to temp. The recipe will have more details, but the important thing is to stir it to keep the milk from burning and not to bring it all the way to a boil. We wait until there's a sort of bubble froth along the edge of the pot. Once it's hot, its time to mix in the vinegar. You want 1/2 cup of vinegar per gallon of milk. Stir it and you'll immediately see the milk separate into clumpy white curds, and the thin yellow whey. If it doesn't separate, hey just add more vinegar. Strain it through a siev or cheesecloth. You can speed things up by squeezing it a bit, but be careful since it'll be hot. Let it drain a bit and you've got farmer's cheese. You have tons of options from here. You can keep draining it in the fridge if you want it kinda crumbly, or you can run it through the food processor with a bunch of seasonings to make a nice smooth, spreadable dip. We have a cheap jalapeno cilantro mix we really like for making a dip for crackers. You can also use it as a filling for stuffed shells, or mix it into a white sauce for pasta. Alternatively, leave it unseasoned and use it to make syrniki, a kind of traditional Russian cheese pancake which is really good. (I've posted about this previously here: https://imgur.com/a/vqk4r4B and the recipe is here: https://www.alyonascooking.com/syrniki-recipe-cheese-pancakes/ ) Like I said, this is our biggest batch yet. Five and a half gallons of milk condensed down to one large bag of cheese. Our plan is to portion off enough for any meals that'll use it this week, and then to freeze the rest.
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I saw a video about ten years ago on crocheting with plarn (plastic bag yarn) and I thought it was such a neat idea. There was just one problem: I didn't know how to crochet. So, I started hoarding all my plastic bags (even more than I already was) thinking, "Oh, I'll learn how to crochet one day!" I finally learned to crochet a few weeks ago and now I'm working my way through my massive bag stash. I left the tail ends on and tried to tie them into decorations so I wouldn't waste any of the plastic. I am way too excited about my trash bag bag. :)
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Tesco’s Laser-Etched Avocados to Save on Packaging Waste - Core77
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16216407 > I'm sharing this because any reduction in unnecessary packaging waste is good for the planet - and because I think laser-etching avocados is funny. 🙂
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Umatilla tribes to launch food waste reduction project in northeast Oregon reservation
>The tribe will also install a small biodigester, which will use bacteria to break down organic material in the absence of air — referred to as an anaerobic environment — and turn it to methane for cooking and fertilizer for the tribe’s community garden.
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Beer bottles can get quite nasty before people return them – how good are industrial beer bottle dishwashers?
It doesn’t take long for mold to grow on empty beer bottles. Considering beer bottles get returned for a refund, you have to assume that the brewery will make an effort to reuse as many as possible. I toured a brewery once and they showed us the big industrial bottle washing machine. They said the bottles get scanned for cracks using a laser, and rejects obviously get tossed. The question is: what about mold, which adheres quite well to the corners of the glass? I wonder if the laser also detects bottles that didn’t get clean. Or if they just figure the temps would kill everything and just be considered safe enough from there.
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“City Experiments with Reusable Cups at Starbucks, Taco Bell and 30 Other Restaurants–with Return Bins all over town”
> Around 50 billion disposable drink cups are used every year in the US, but in the city of Petaluma, we will see if Americans have the discipline to reduce this footprint. >The city numbers around 60,000 people, and will participate in the Reuseable Cup Project. The aim is to furnish 30 local restaurants, from Starbucks to Taco Bell, with identical, durable, plastic drink cups, which customers and diners can use and then either leave on the table, or deposit in a network of dropoff bins around the city.
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Picture frame made from salvaged wood
This is my first step-by-step post using our local movim microblog rather than imgur. I'll upload it to [imgur](https://imgur.com/gallery/FQO6MJU) later as a backup but I'm seriously impressed with movim, very glad to have a noncorporate place for my projects. Let me know if there's any issue with [the link.](https://movim.slrpnk.net/blog/jacobcoffinwrites%40slrpnk.net/picture-frame-made-from-salvaged-wood-ftNKhh) This is another quick one but at least I remembered to take pictures for most of it. I don’t enjoy oil painting as much as I do [photobashes](https://jacobcoffinwrites.wordpress.com/postcards-from-a-solarpunk-future/) and other digital art, but it’s still a lot of fun in the right moment. I needed a picture frame for a recent one, to complete a gift to a relative. It was on a stretched canvas, rather than canvasboard, so the frame had to be deeper than normal. So decided to just make it from scrap lumber I had squirreled away. I started with this stuff. These 1 ½” by 1 ¾” boards were part of a kind of disappointing haul I got from my local Everything is Free page. I don’t remember what it was I thought I’d find there, but by the time I got to it, all that was left was this tangle of busted-up boards from inside some kind of homemade builtin cabinet. They were cracked from their demolition, and full of wood screws, but I took them because there was still plenty of good material and I think I wanted to justify the trip. I pulled all the screws and used them in another project, and when I went looking for material for the picture frame, they were pretty much perfect. Plenty of material, and I didn’t have to worry I’d use it for something better. The painting was of a rustic cabin, so the frame was going to be a bit rustic anyways, so a little battle damage was no big deal. I measured and marked them based on a picture frame my grandfather had made (I would have used it instead but it wasn’t deep enough for the stretched canvas). I cut them to length, then down to 45 degrees on my miter saw (it makes squaring up lumber and doing corners absurdly easy, I used to do them all by hand and getting them to fit was much more art than science back then.) Once I was looking at it, I realized the frame was a bit too thick, and decided to remove about half an inch in depth from the four pieces. This would be quick work on a table saw, but I don’t have one, so I marked a line and used the band saw. Then I sanded up all the sides on a belt sander until they looked good. There was a bit of stain left in deep spots from the original project, and I tried to keep some of it – I like a little character and history from the life of the piece. This wood was a part of someone’s home, they knocked it out with a sledge hammer, a weird goblin man came by on trash day and took it, now it’s a picture frame hanging on a wall. Then I had to use the router to notch the back of all the pieces to hold the actual canvas. My router was a recent junk store find, it’s the old craftsman kind that’s a hand router bolted to the underside of a little fiberglass table. I screwed it to the workbench over the lathe, down on the far end, since its out of the way and that’s my heaviest workbench. I have plans to rewire the router, so you can turn it on and off with a proper tool switch, like I did for the drill press, but I haven’t done that yet, so turning it on meant reaching underneath, feeling for one of the handles, finding the trigger and the locking button, and setting them, at which point it begins to spin. It’s awkward and I wouldn’t want to have to do that in an emergency. This was my first time really using a router on my own projects, so it wasn’t quite as pretty as I’d like, but overall it looks fine. I definitely want to replace the small, two-part fence with a taller one that runs end-to-end and gets closer to the blade. That would reduce the piece’s ability to wobble when its only braced against one of them. Once the notch was cut I found the 45 clamp didn’t work that well so I stuck each joint together with a big dab of wood glue and a couple small dabs of super glue. The super glue gives you just enough time to get the pieces where you want them, and sort of acts as the clamping force for the wood glue, which takes much longer to dry. Once it was dry, I stained the frame with Sedonia Red, it came out a sort of pink color but I think it’ll be a good fit for the white cabin with red trim in the painting, and the recipient can always hit it with a second coat of a darker stain if they choose. The last step was to add a cable to the back. They make little metal picture frame hanger things, and I thought about just cutting and bending one from a soda can, but to be honest, I kinda hate those hangers. I don’t think they work well and they feel unreliable to me. Usually I just use a strand pulled from some damaged CAT 5 wire, but this time I happened to have this metal cable left over from… somewhere? I honestly can’t remember what it came from. But it’s the sort of thing I keep because it doesn’t take up much space and it’ll be useful eventually, and sure enough it was! The loops had already been cut, so I just drilled a hole through the little aluminum clamps at either end, used the vice to squeeze them down on the wire a little extra, and used them to attach the cable to the painting. I measured both holes from the top, and predrilled them with a thin bit to make driving in the nail easier (since I didn’t want to break the picture frame. As a very last touch, I cut a tiny sliver of wood and glued it into a notch where the miter saw ripped out a bit of wood at the top left corner. A little stain blended that back in nicely. Overall, not bad for my first picture frame. It’s a little rough, but it’s supposed to look that way.
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The Free Store Project
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/14508843 > Here is a map of current free stores in New York. > > https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/viewer?mid=1LiHVRiKFOtkx0LwDIczp4KoseLhdDg9n&ll=40.75095081144914%2C-73.95967585&z=12 > > Also a similar project called the freecycle network lists towns across the world. > > https://www.freecycle.org/find-towns There's also [Buy Nothing and Everything is Free](https://slrpnk.net/post/354527)
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publication croisée depuis : https://feddit.org/post/3142575 > [Source.](https://www.statista.com/chart/24350/total-annual-household-waste-produced-in-selected-countries/?utm_souce=Blog&utm_medium=RSS)
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19 herbs, spices, sweeteners, and acids that make your food last longer
cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/6224624 > If you incorporate these ingredients in your cooking, your left-overs will last longer: > > * honey > * salt > * garlic > * sugar (only in high amounts according to feedback; small amounts *shortens* the life) > * ginger > * sage > * rosemary > * mustard > * cumin > > From [other articles](https://scribe.rip/https:/medium.com/@stopfoods6/6-spices-to-preserve-food-naturally-c883b0e10132): > > * black pepper > * mustard *seed* > * turmeric > * cinnamon > * cardamom > * cloves > > Acids mentioned by others: > > * vinegar > * citric acid > * lemon/lime juice
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Anyone stock-piling broken electronics, waiting for a right to repair?
I’ve been stock-piling electronics that either people throw away, or things I bought 2nd-hand only to find they are broken. Looks like the right to repair law is in very slow motion. Not yet enacted be the European Commission. And once it is, member states have like 2 years to actually enact it in their law. Probably even more time before consumers begin to see results. (edit) I think some US states were the first to enact right to repair laws. So some consumers could perhaps pretend to be from one of those states to demand things like service manuals. But parts and repair is likely more out of reach ATM.
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smashing tiles b/c they’re 1 yr old – also, Amazon’s destruction of new stock
As I entered a building supply store someone was smashing all the ceramic tiles that were on the wall. He was about ¾ through them all. I said: hold on.. I’ll take those sample tiles that are still on the wall. I can find a purpose for them even if each one is a different color. He said he could not justify to his boss giving them away and that he would get in trouble. He asked if I wanted to buy them. But a mixed bag of random tiles is worth close to zero to me without having a project in mind. Of course the problem is the business makes nothing off them if they give them away and they risk losing a sale if someone does a project with them that otherwise would require a purchase. The bizarre thing is this happens every year because (like clothing) the tiles go out of fashion annually. Most are solid colors so hard to get my head around how a solid color tile would go out of style so quickly especially when a vast majority of them are very neutral colors (which are quite forgettable). Who walks into your kitchen and says “dude, you’re out of fashion.. those tiles are over 1 year old?” Along the same lines, [Amazon destroys](https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-21/amazon-destroying-millions-of-items-of-unsold-stock-in-one-of-its-uk-warehouses-every-year-itv-news-investigation-finds) copious amounts of goods that are still new in packaging instead of selling them to an overstock specialist or donating to charity. An Amazon insider told me it’s because the warehouse space is limited and they prioritize whatever stock moves the fastest. So the slower moving stock gets destroyed just because of a space issue. They told me management is very strict about who has access to the area where these products get staged for disposal. They make sure to select someone who will follow through and won’t take the stuff home or give it to someone who will put it on eBay (they don’t want to compete for sales with a competitor selling their own dumped stock). That’s like reason# 50 why I boycott Amazon.
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(Sweden) Christmas tree wood used to build world’s tallest wooden wind turbine
This is probably the best use of Christmas trees (though it’s up for debate whether it’s a good idea to cut down spruce trees to begin with). Side note: it was hard to find this story on a website that’s not exclusive access or enshitified. Even the company who built the turbine (#Modvion) has a tor-hostile website themselves. According to the [BBC Newsroom](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w172z2tr14v7h7z) they use glue instead of bolts to hold it together.
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I love wrapping Christmas presents. But I haven't bought wrapping paper in over a decade. Even before I found zerowaste as a concept, I enjoyed the thrift and challenge of reusing old paper, working around tears, tape, and crinkles. I've always been kinda weird so my family went along with it, until it's now part of our tradition and they help me gather up the big scraps after everything's been opened. My advice, if you want to try this: - Tape the paper to the present first so you can sort of cinch the paper tight. That pulls a lot of the wrinkles and folds out of it and makes it look nice. - Fold it at the corners for a sharper look. - Use the gift/name tags to cover any damaged spots. I use the ones charities send in the mail after you donate once five years ago. Or blank bits of the sticky paper from the sheets of mailing labels. - Consider other sources of paper - I've also used posters that didn't print right and regular newspaper Benefits/reasons my family puts up with it: - It can be surprisingly nostalgic to see paper from last year and remember projects and things we gave back then. I've kept some pieces going, showing up again and again in smaller pieces for like five years now. - Fancy paper: I try to prioritize the really fancy/pretty stuff from years past, the shiny foil papers etc. it's nice to get extra use out of that. - Humor: most of us live separately now so everyone tends to wrap their presents with their own paper, which kinda indicates who it's from. Except me - my presents look like they came from everyone else, which is sometimes surprising or funny.
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Fancy extension cord repaired with an old plug
This is a quick one, not an impressive repair, but maybe a nice demonstration of the perks of keeping stuff until its useful. I found a multi-socket extension cord/usb charger while digging through ewaste (I fix up laptops and give the stuff I find away on my local.Buy Nothing -type group). Someone had really yanked on it (probably the plug was stuck behind something heavy) and when it came free, two of the prongs were bent, and the ground prong was ripped out altogether. I had a spare 120v plug - about a year ago, I took some old extension cords from an estate cleanout. Awhile later, while helping a friend build an arcade cabinet, I dug one out and cut the socket off it to wire the cabinet up for electricity. Unfortunately, the sheathing around the individual wires inside the cord had crumbled away to almost nothing, and it wasn't safe to use. I gave the copper to a friend who sells metal to a junkyard, and kept the plugs from either end. The actual rewiring isn't difficult, just stripped the wires and attached them to the correct terminals. I used an old neon tester my neighbor gave me to check my work. It lit up just fine and I didn't trip the circuit. Later I plugged a bricked, ewaste 1st gen ipad into the usb socket and it started charging just fine. So it looks like this worked out So there's my excuse for why I keep all these odds and ends.Even when it's something as simple as this, there's something wonderful about being able to take multiple pieces of junk, combining them, and suddenly having a useful item.
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Operation “CleanUp” for less litter in Wallonia is 10 years old
Article in French. Feel free to use a transaltor. A french speaking zero waste community has opened : [!zero_dechet@jlai.lu](https://jlai.lu/c/zero_dechet)
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Lidl’s “zero waste” program is a good idea, but inconsistently implemented
This is the machine translation (Argos Translate) of Lidl’s “zero waste” announcement: --- The revenues generated by this initiative will be fully donated to the Belgian Federation of Food Banks Monday, 10 February 2020 — The Lidl supermarket chain launches the "Good appetite, Zero gaspi" project in all its Belgian stores. The goal of this initiative is to limit food losses and to allow Lidl to reduce food waste by 25% (as compared to 2015) by the end of 2020 and 50% by 2025. The discounter sells products that are always consumer-friendly at broken prices such as cartons of fruit and vegetables of 3kg for 1€, meat and fish to be consumed the day for 0,50€. Revenues generated by "Good appetite, Zero gaspi" will be donated to the Belgian Food Bank Federation. Broken price products to stop food waste The "Good appetite, Zero gaspi" initiative will significantly reduce the food losses of the ensign. “By 2020, we aim to reduce food losses by 25% compared to 2015 and 50% by 2025. Since today, the "Good appetite, Zero gaspi" project has been implemented in Belgium, where every day we present to our customers different food products that are always consumer-friendly at a small price: * 1€ for dry products with slightly damaged packaging and cartons of 3 kg of fruit and vegetables * €0.50 for all types of meat, fish and pastries to be consumed on the day * €0.20 for dairy and ultra-fresh products (compound salts) to be consumed on the day. » Philippe Weiler, Lidl Sustainability Manager Lidl Belgium has a structural agreement with federation of food banks in Belgium. The revenues generated by this initiative will be donated to these two associations. Lidl wants to be a state-of-the-art sustainability supermarket by 2020 Lidl has recently presented a new sustainability strategy composed of 20 ambitious goals by 2020, and a goal is dedicated to food waste. Philippe Weiler: "To achieve this goal, we must both fight food waste and revalue food surpluses. » --- Ideally the staff should notice that something expires today and put a zero waste sticker on it which marks the price down to €0.20 or €0.50, depending on whether it’s meat or veg. The problem is they are not diligent about spotting the expiring food. And worse, there are inconsistencies: * Lidl store 1: if you point out an expiration date of today to the cashier, they will ring it up under the zero-waste pricing (€0.20 or €0.50). The sticker is not needed.. just there to highlight the low price customers. So while standing in line it’s wise to check dates for stuff expiring today to lower the price. * Lidl store 2: they are apparently deliberately not putting the zero waste sticker on things expiring today. If you point out the expiration to the cashier, they refuse to alter the price. They even called the manager over who said “no zero waste sticker, no discount”. * Lidl store 3: sloppy about which sticker. Sometimes meat gets the veg price (€0.20) and often veg gets the meat price (€0.50). And the cashier refuses to correct mistakes. So unfortunately every store is different and #Lidl HQ says that’s expected. I have no idea what happens when something expires on Sunday, when they are closed (I saw a pastry on Saturday that expired on Sunday but didn’t think to ask for zero-waste pricing). They certainly will not sell something that is past the date under any circumstances. update --- I’ve found there are differences based on the item involved as well. Shops are not at all fast and loose with the zero waste discount if it’s a pie which goes from €5.50 to 50¢. * Lidl store 1: Refused to give me zero-waste pricing on a pie first thing in the morning, but they allowed the zero-waste pricing on a salad and some pasta. They said they will only markdown the pie in the afternoon. Next day I found another pie expiring that day. It was 1pm but they blocked me again, saying it had to be after **4pm**. The goal posts keep moving! * Lidl store 4: Refused zero-waste pricing on a pie mid day, but said after **5pm** they would. * Lidl store 5: Was there shortly after 5pm and happened to find a whole pie with the zero waste sticker (50¢). That must be very rare. update 2 --- * Lidl store 1: found an item on Saturday that will expire on Sunday. Zero-waste pricing refused. update 3 --- None of this matters because [we should be boycotting Lidl](https://slrpnk.net/post/8258852) anyway.
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Mid-Century Desk Restoration
One of my hobbies is fixing up old furniture to give away. This one was interesting because I was able to combine two pieces of damaged furniture to produce something decent. (This is a somewhat challenging one to write up because despite having the thing taking up most of my basement for months, I somehow failed to take any in-progress pictures of the desk itself. This is probably because almost all of the work was done on the desktop instead, but it's still kind of annoying. There's still a bunch of photos of the project in the imgur link though) So almost a year ago, someone on my local Buy Nothing page offered up a mid-century desk. The kind with two file cabinets, pull-out writing surfaces, a central drawer, and a panel in the back. It even had the feet. The only problem was that it was missing the top. It seemed like a fun restoration job, so I stated my interest and they let me know where to pick it up. Once I got all the parts home and took some measurements, I put up a few posts on the page over the next few weeks asking if anyone had an old tabletop with the right dimensions. And someone did. She had the absolutely perfect top for this project. It was an old ikea table of the exact right dimensions, which had been stored in an open-sided garage for years. The finish had weathered off, the wood had bleached silver, birds had dumped on it, and the metal legs had rusted to the point where even I didn’t think they were recoverable. In short, zero guilt for taking the top and redoing it to match the desk (I always hate ruining one thing to make something else, but this wasn’t very fixable as a table). I spent the next few weeks sanding it down until I just had bare wood, and had removed most of the water damage. Then I stained it, in two coats, of two different shades of brown, trying to hit the sort of medium shade the rest of the desk was made in. All my stains and urethane are also secondhand. The top came out slightly redder that I'd have liked. I’d say the desk has a more yellow-brown tinge, but all in all, I was quite pleased with it. I applied several coats of polyurethane (using a brush because I’m a furniture refinishing monster). This was somewhat tricky because I was working outside - the local bugs decided to explore it and I had to keep chasing them away/rescuing them. Once it was dry, I removed the rest of the table hardware (boards that ran width-wise across the underside, and which held the screw-in metal plates for the table legs to attach to). I saved the hardware because it’s always useful eventually, even if I don’t think I can fix the rusted-out galvanized table legs. Assembly was as simple as putting the desk together, marking my drill bit for depth with some tape, and predrilling holes for some short screws, to attach the metal brackets on the desk cabinets to the underside of the top. Finding a home for it was a little more difficult but the Buy Nothing page came through. I offered it to a person who was acquiring furniture for their neighbor, who was planning to host refugees in a spare mother-in-law type apartment. They ended up not needing it, leaving her with a pile of disassembled desk stuck in her garage. She was a good sport about that though, and a month and a couple posts later, we found another taker, who was happy to get it all set up. So now a incredibly sturdy, absurdly heavy old desk, and an old ikea tabletop are back in use and hopefully will be for many years to come.
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Using fish skin from Tilapia as a band-aid (better than gauze)
Fish skin is being sterilized and used for skin grafts on burn victims in #Brazil and #Colombia (on both human and non-human animals). It’s superior to gauze and ointment. IIRC, pig skin was used at one point. Apparently fish skin is better at sealing moisture in? Anyone taking bets on whether folks in the Goth scene will start grafting fish scales on for fashion? This BBC episode covers it (among other unrelated topics): https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4wkk This (⚠enshitified) ABC News article covers how the fish skin is used on wildlife rescues: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/fish-skin-heal-burn-wounds-work/story?id=57122126 ^ ⚠warning: that shitty website plays videos automatically, thus drains bandwidth for those on limited connections. (And wtf.. why isn’t there a conventional way to tag such URLs to spare us from verbosity?)
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My mother-in-law made these from her mother's bottle collection. The bottles were found near old cellar holes- they were discarded by the people who used to live there. We think they're somewhere around one hundred years old. Cleaned up, they make a beautiful display for plant cuttings!
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Chair Restoration (offered to our local Everything is Free group before staining so the recipient could pick the color)
This was a recent one, kind of the start of refinishing furniture with the intent to give it away on our local Buy Nothing -type page. We found this old kid-sized chair on the curb on garbage day. The finish (some kind of shellac, I think) was peeling or gone in places, the wood was a bit weathered, scuffed, and water stained. I sanded it down and posted a photograph of it with the bare wood, surrounded by cans of stain, to the facebook group, offering it up with a promise I’d stain it whatever color they picked form the pile (or provided themselves) and urethane it. I ended up having to do a little raffle as there was a decent amount of interest. The winner picked a nice medium brown color and I stained it and urethaned it. The person who received it was delighted – it turned out she was a retired teacher, and had fond memories of these chairs. She brought us a pot-holder her granddaughter had knitted to thank us for it (which was unexpected but very nice!).
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DIY Saddle Stand built from found materials for someone on my local Everything is Free page
One of my hobbies is restoring/building furniture in a zero waste kind of mindset, where all my materials are either from EIF or found on garbage day. Ideally the only waste is my own hours/calories and the electricity (though I do pay the local company for what they assure us is all green energy). If it’s okay with the instance, I’d love to share some of them here. (I think they’ll fit better here than in DIY as I’m not really giving the kind of thorough steps necessary to build one yourself) I’m fairly active on my local Everything is Free page, which has been awesome. It’s a wonderful community dedicated to helping each other and reducing waste, and my first real step towards meeting my actual community since moving to this city (besides meeting my neighbors in the building and next door). Awhile back someone posted an In Search Of for a saddle stand. They rented a horse but owned a saddle and apparently you can’t store them flat. They had a sewing machine case they were using for it, but were looking for a towel rack or similar that would look a little nicer. I have a decent little wood shop in the basement of our apartment, and have hoarded a lot of lumber (and more lumber shows up on EIF every day) so I offered to just build one to her specifications. It was a really fun project, she was super friendly and flexible about the design/timeline, which worked out well because it took me a little over six months to make it – though most of that was time spent waiting for suitable materials to show up. A quick search of the internet showed two types of stands I thought I could make – pedestal ones, and traditional ones with flat sides on either end. Flat sides were definitely more practical, as you can add a shelf to store things underneath, but they would have required 1”x12”s or something equivalent, which I didn’t have. So I decided to focus on the top and wait to see what showed up. The slats are cut from old oak floorboards I pulled from a dumpster when a local furniture maker/finish carpenter was retiring and cleaning out his workshop. We got talking and he gave me some nice stuff as well, including some thin slats of some exotic hardwoods neither of us could identify. The hardwoods and oak floorboards I ripped to the final size using a tablesaw and plainer. The project went on hold for lack of time and materials for awhile, until a neighbor threw away a nice pedestal table. They had disassembled the thing, including stripping all the hardware that normally hinged and supported the two leafs, so I didn’t feel too bad about taking its base right before the garbage truck got there (I took the top too, and plan to use it as well but I’ll get to that at the end) I was then able to work out a design for the stand using the pedestal. I drew up two endcaps and cut them from some beautiful oak cabinet wood the furniture maker had given me (getting both endcaps out of the piece was tricky). Then, to support all the slats, I cut two smaller versions of the same shape from scraps of an ikea bookshelf I’d used in building an arcade cabinet (a different, more ambitious zero-waste project). The smaller pieces were pine, which wouldn’t match the oak base in grain, but it wouldn’t matter because they’d be hidden by the bigger endcaps and the slats on the tops/sides. I assembled these pieces, stained them to match the base as closely as I could get it using stains I already had (mostly golden oak I already had, but also some very old stains from my grandparents’ basement which hadn’t been brought to the dump yet, and which helped get the different woods to match) and urethaned it with gloss polyurethane. To support the upper part I took the last piece of a very warped 2”x”6, I’ve been slowly using up, sanded it until it was roughly square, and drilled holes so I could use the table’s original bolts to attach it to the stand. (I stained it as well). I leveled it the rest of the way and made sure the endcaps would cover it entirely by cutting a notch into either end. Then I set the top part on it, and drove six screws up through the bottom of that into either endcap. It’s not my biggest zero waste woodworking project, but I think it came out well, and they were really happy when they came to get it which was nice.
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Perfectly good LCDs are getting tossed. What about large flat screen TVs? Any fellow dumpster divers testing them? Is it designed obsolescence?
In the past few years I have salvaged 4 LCD screens from curbs. All of them function without defect. I have no idea why people are tossing them out. One of the 4 was perhaps tossed due to size (it was about the size of a laptop screen). But the other 3 are a decent size. Most of them even have DVI connectors. I think one of the three only has a VGA connector, so perhaps the owner did not know that could be adapted. If you notice a dumped LCD, grab it. Don’t assume it’s broken. I also often see flat screen TVs being dumped. They are too big to easily carry on my bicycle so I’ve not made the effort to collect them and test them. Has anyone? I just wonder if I should make the effort. Why are people tossing them? Is it because ”smart” (read: cloud dependent) TVs are becoming obsolete and owners are not smart enough to use the HDMI inputs? Or is it more commonly a case of broken hardware? (update) Saw ~4 or so big flat TVs in the “proper” city e-waste collection. The city provides a pallet with walls (a big box) where people dump their electronics. Then the city goes through it and gives anything that works to 2nd-hand shops. They also try to repair some things. In principle, it’s a good idea to have a process like this. But I’m somewhat gutted by this: * no one labels the waste as working or not * the designated middleman who sorts through it does not bother testing most things.. e.g. printers are categorically destroyed. * the public gets no access to the waste in the step between salvage and dump (I need a spare part for a particular device and have no hope of getting it) * the stuff is just dumped unprotected in this big box. So other appliances get tossed on top LCDs and edges of those things damage screens in transport It’s illegal to dump e-waste on the street or in landfills in my area. They must follow the above process because persnickety neighborhood cleanliness people have pressured the gov to enforced the ban on curbside dumping. But curbside dumping is actually more environmentally sound because locals have a chance to grab something in a less damage-prone way.
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Farmers Don’t Want to Throw Away Food | Ambrook Research
At the height of the pandemic, farmers were forced to dump millions of pounds of perfectly edible produce. Four years later, they still need help with their surpluses.
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Shoe rack made from salvaged lumber
This one was scratch-built as a gift. They wanted a shoe rack and sent me some links of examples for sale on amazon. The designs weren’t consistent, so I took what I felt were good features from each and built one from lumber I had. Most of it was just pressure treated 2”x4”s someone on Everything Is Free had been looking to get rid of while cleaning out under his deck (these are the ones with thick, visible grain and a slight greenish tinge (always wear a dust mask while sanding but especially for these)) and older heat-treated 2”x4” whose origin I don’t remember. The top section's side plates and the supports for the lower shelf were cut from lengths of white-primed trim – these were edge-glued boards, meaning they were glued together from pieces of smaller scrap, and had zig-zaggy joints straight across the face of the lumber here and there. Because these joints are kind of ugly and not as strong as the regular wood, I cut sections from it that didn’t include them. Then I sanded off the white primer (wear a dust mask for this too) so I could stain them to match the rest of the piece. The hardest part was finding something for the shelves themselves. I had a few thin lengths but not enough, and ended up posting to the Everything is Free page with a couple example photos asking if anyone had something close. Within minutes a guy offered up some bedrails he’d found on garbage day. He had taken them so they wouldn’t go to waste but didn’t have a project in mind and was happy to offer them up. I sanded them down smooth and cut them to length. Wherever I can, I use wood screws as they’re much easier to remove than nails. But for a piece of furniture with very visible joints like this, I used finish nails almost everywhere. I also glued the joints as I nailed them so they wouldn’t work apart (this was especially necessary on the top, as the finish nails were thin brads and the slats liked to try to wander as I hammered others into place). Once it was done, I treated it to the usual stain and polyurethane (both left over from previous projects, the stain I think was second-hand). I was pleased with the final product - it's surprisingly sturdy for something without any 45's in the design - and the recipient liked it quite a bit, which is what matters.
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Plastic Owl necklace made from recycled HDPE (mold carved from wood scraps)
This was a kind of odd project, but I think it’ll fit. Back when I was researching ways to reuse plastic from 3d-printers, I ran across a thread discussing HDPE, turning plastic bags (if you can find only filmed HDPE ones) into printer filament through something like a filastruder, and that got me thinking about milk jugs. HDPE is a very strong plastic, is readily available, and can tolerate being re-melted better than many others. When melted and formed into shapes, it’s hard, and glossy/smooth. My experimental design was simple, a little owl figure (like a squishmallow) to make into a necklace for my spouse. I carved a simple wooden mold, and set up outside with an old toaster oven (the fumes can be dangerous, it’s important not to heat it anywhere near 400 degrees Fahrenheit – I found 250 to be more than sufficient). I cut part of a milk jug into thin strips and piled them on a piece of sheet tin and let them soften in the oven. Once they were soft and sticky, I used a pair of pliers to wad them into a ball and pressed them into the mold. It took a little clean up (trimming the flat disk of extra plastic which forms between the two sides of such a crude mold and adding the faint little face) but it worked alright. After a few tries, the soft pine of the mold started to compress a little, the softer wood around the dark grain receding slightly so the grain marked the plastic. It was an interesting one-off with some potential, but probably better done by people who know more than I do. I don’t generally like plastic projects like this because of the scrap which isn’t going to get accepted by a recycling center (if they actually recycle it at all) but I like the potential for local reuse of material and I could always melt it again. I thought about making a beta fish mold, so the disk of extra would form its fins, but never got around to it and let the project drop. As materials go, it actually feels pretty nice to touch and to carve, and I could see perhaps using it to make tool handles or something similar, if for some reason I wanted plastic rather than wood, which generally works best for me.
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