"XSProject Turns Jakarta's Excessive Trash into Treasure"

Indonesia is a land of intrigue, beauty, and deep cultural strong holds. But the uglier side of this exotic culture comes in the form of an enormous trash problem. Heaping trash found in the streets, water, and seemingly everywhere that the eye can see.

Artist Ann Wizer launched XSProject in an effort to begin to find a use for the incredible excess of consumer waste found in Indonesia’s capitol Jakarta. Her fear was that she would put the trash collectors out of business (a major employer for native Indonesians) so instead she started purchasing the trash at an above market value from the trash collectors. With the help of her team, she then began to turn the trash into all sorts of consumer items like tote bags and foot pillows. Each item is unique and made from everything from toothpaste tubes to drinking straws.

the link

Okay, while the notion of using a 'drinking straw' made from trash makes me fell a bit uneasy the project itself is really pretty bad ass. I have often pondered the potential for making 'trash' into something more usable. Generally my ideas swim around hte possibility that all trash from everyday things like food stuff and the like were high bio-degradable and could be used in the garden as a compost item.

What it really comes down to in many ways is rethinking how we make things. Rather than maintaining the status quo of making things to die and be dumped into landfills things could be designed to be made to die recycled and reborn.

Anyway, this is a cool story and highlights to potential that exists for changing the current way in which we function. enjoy!

[edit on 30-8-2009 by Animal]