Dumping ground

Here’s one for the “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” file ...

The leaders of our little township in decidedly non-tree-hugging northern Michigan are trying to do the right thing with recycling bins set up at the fire station.

They’re meant for newspaper, plastic, glass and cans.

And what do they get? Two bags of trash, a broken washing machine and a decrepit gas grill.

I have endless stories about my experiences in creating Recycled Beauty photos. Most are hysterical. I’m fairly certain, this scenario will give you a good hearty laugh. Here goes a story about sorting through bottles and cans in search of #1 PET plastic. 

I was in need of lots, lots and lots of #1 PET plastics for a photo illustrating that recovered #1 PET plastic is made into Repreve fabric and products. As with any Recycled Beauty photo, visual variety is crucial. Showing diversity among brands, shapes and sizes is a means to catch more peoples’ familiarity with what #1 PET plastic actually is. Plastic bottles is the most common use but #1 PET is also vegetable containers and some bathroom products. 

Some people get weird when strangers sort through their recyclables. I get it / I don’t get it. Anyway, I figured devouring a neighborhood with a high set-out rate of recycle bins in the middle of the night before collection day was my best bet for reaching the largest selection and volume of free #1 PET plastic. 

It was midnight. My neighbor joined the adventure for fun but also safety. Doing this kind of thing seemed normal and in-character for me. Whereas, he was in hysterics most of the time calling his friends reporting our latest findings. That made me ponder perhaps this was more weird than I thought. I smiled for the weirdness and felt satisfied that I was on task and getting what I needed.  

We decided to hit one more strip of hours, after two hours of rummaging through recyclables. All of a sudden a guy yelled at us from about 2 houses down saying, “I have a ton of cans over here if you want them”. I yelled back saying, “Thanks, but we’re actually looking for #1 PET plastics”. Silence. That made me laugh hysterically. Okay, maybe it was more weird than I realized. 

It was fun searching for such innocuous material like bandits in the middle of the night. It’s not that rummaging through discarded waste is my big dream. Rather, I find the treasure hunt for the most obscure shaped containers that fit within the #1 PET plastic criteria to be thrilling. More importantly, it was the thought of all that pre-production fun leading up to creating a captivating photo could inspire / educate / change peoples’ recycling habits. That's awesome! Seriously, who wants bottles and cans when there’s #1 PET plastics?  

Stay tuned to hear a story about the making of the #1 PET photo... 

Please take a look at the Recycled Beauty portfolio. It’d be great to hear what you think!