What is a gyre? And how does this natural phenomenon demonstrate the impact of our plastic trash? Anna Cummins and Marcus Eriksen of 5 Gyres Institute explain how we can understand the international issue while acting locally: 

“It is impractical to try and scoop out trash out of the ocean. What we can do is wait for it to wash ashore. So to clean a gyre, clean your beach, clean your watershed, clean your street. As close as you can get to the source, is a better way we can solve the problem of plastics in the ocean”

Have a large, heavy item to remove? Here’s how they handle it in Japan! This 2011 video was filmed in Iwaki City (after the March 11 earthquake that year) by local volunteers helping to paint and clean up local shops in the city. They stopped working to watch post-earthquake clean up of these huge metal pieces by a garbage truck with a giant claw.

More machines and more vehicles in the archives.

Cateura, Paraguay’s residents live on top of a landfill that gets 1,500 tons of solid waste each day, exposing the impoverished communities to unhealthy conditions. Most of the town works in the dump as recyclers, including many of the young people. 

When local teacher Favio Chavez decided to teach the town’s children to play music using his own instruments, he soon had more students than instruments. The solution? He started teaching the students on instruments upcycled from trash and the Recycled Orchestra was born.

This trailer for the 2014 documentary, Landfill Harmonic, introduces the story of this youth orchestra and their community’s inspiring resourcefulness. The filmmakers also hope to bring attention to Cateura’s need for improved living conditions. You can follow them here: @landfillharmoni and facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie

via Shareable.

Portuguese toy designer Marco Fernandes reuses parts from computers, televisions, DVD players, stereos, old toys and other old electronics to build unique robot toys, all by improvising with what he has. The R³bots light up and come with a display case created from jars, old lamps, plastic boxes and other assorted parts.

The entire R³bots series is here on Behance where Marco writes, “reuse, recycle and customize instead of mass production.”

via Laughing Squid.

In the archives: art from found beach plastic.

Created by Matthew Amonson and Jeremy Bronson of Studio Nos for Sesame Workshop, this film about an apple tree uses paper in a subtle and lovely way. They’ve created a few of these stop motion pieces about nature and growth. This one is called Rejuvenation: 

And this one is about frogs: