Products & Ideas...

I got an email with the subject line: "What does a pile of 426,000 cell phones (the number retired in the US everyday) look like?" I clicked on the link and was mesmerized by artist Chris Jordan. On his series "Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait" he wrote "Each image portrays a specific quantity of something: fifteen million sheets of office paper (five minutes of paper use); 106,000 aluminum cans (thirty seconds of can consumption) and so on. My hope is that images representing these quantities might have a different effect than the raw numbers alone, such as we find daily in articles and books. Statistics can feel abstract and anesthetizing, making it difficult to connect with and make meaning of 3.6 million SUV sales in one year, for example, or 2.3 million Americans in prison, or 410,000 paper cups used every fifteen minutes." From far away, the huge 5'x6' (or bigger) photographs don't look like anything except flat color, stone, landscape, or a model, but when you move closer, the pile of waste is shown. It's like an allegory of how disconnected we are from the problem of overconsumption (as discussed on the Living Ethically and Sustainably Web page) and we have to step closer to see how to fix it.

I sent the link to my friends around campus and they said that our very own Ithaca College Handwerker Gallery has the exhibit! I was so excited to spread the word! On the reaction wall at the exhibit some comments have been: "...cell phones from a distance seem like stone...they look natural from far away and then we pummel it with trash," "USA is home to 5% (or less) of world's population, but consumes 30% (or more) of the world's resources," "What hope or solution does this exhibit offer? How can we become less of a consumerist society?"

Just to start us off on the track to becoming a more sustainable society:

1. Reduce what you buy and use on a daily basis
2. Reuse - "Paper or Plastic?" How about Neither? (an organic bag that says "neither" to paper or plastic)
3. Recycle - recycle everything your town recycling plant can handle
4. Compost your food left overs
4. Redistribute - Donate to a thrift store near you, so someone else can use them and you can get a tax write-off!

There's many other things you can do, and most blogs on Riverwired.com can help you out. Chris Jordan just shoves it in our faces that we really need to make these changes ASAP because the waste is piling up faster and faster. I cannot imagine what I would do if I was personally in front of 410,000 paper cups. We should work on these lifestyle changes together to make Chris Jordan's art a little smaller and our planet a little cleaner.