Transcriber: Masako Kigami Reviewer: Reiko Bovee
I am a creative reuser.
And I am not alone.
If you are not one yourself, you probably know someone
who gets great pleasure out of finding new uses for discarded items.
And of course, this is the way
most of humanity has been since the beginning.
It has only been in the last 50 years
that our culture's reached such a prosperous state
that we have been able even to think about throwing away things
that still have some useful purpose.
It's even become a badge of wealth and power
to be able to throw away or destroy items of value,
and the role of the less privileged,
to scavenge through cast-off materials.
And it has only taken the last 50 years
of mass manufacturing and consumerism
for our throwaway culture to completely devastate
our planet's environment.
We are literally swimming in trash.
Recent studies indicate
that there are over 40 million pounds of plastic
floating in the North Pacific Ocean alone.
There are landfills dotted across our planet,
seeping pollutants into the soil and the air
and making us sick along with the animals
that don't know the difference between a seed and a plastic pellet.
We, as a culture, need to find a way
to creatively reuse this trash we discard,
before we destroy this precious environment
that we rely on for our sustenance.
I am encouraged by a new, creative perspective emerging
that may help turn the tide on this problem.
Creativity leads to survival.
We should all be exercising these parts of our brain.
For the last 14 years,
I've been serving on the board of the Center for Sustainable Living,
a community environmental organization
that supports local projects that educates the public
on issues such as bicycle maintenance,
wildlife habitats and renewable energy.
I have been looking for a fundraiser for the Center,
that would convey our message of sustainability
in a fun and entertaining way.
And then, six years ago,
I happened to tap into the budding phenomena of Trashion,
and that's turning trash into fashion.
And soon was born the Trashion Refashion Show.
In these images, you're seeing designs from the last four years
of these Bloomington Shows.
The Trashion Refashion Show invites community members
to exercise their problem-solving skills
and design fashion from trash,
that's the Trashion half of the show,
and from used clothing,
that's the Refashion half of the show.
And really the part of the message that can have
a more immediate impact,
encouraging people to repair and alter
the clothing that they already have
can greatly reduce the over 10 million tons of textiles
that we throw away each year, here in the United States.
I also cofounded a group called Discardia,
whose mission is to divert items from the landfill
by finding new uses for them.
Discardia holds a mending day, once a month,
at the public library,
where we mend clothing,
or we show people how to do it themselves,
or just teach people how to sew,
because that's something that we stopped doing
in the last 50 years.
Nothing gives me greater pleasure
than helping a child make clothing for their stuffed animal
and showing them how to use a sewing machine for the first time.
We sew on buttons. We patch holes.
We help people alter their clothing to fit their bodies.
But we also make dresses from table cloth,
wallets from inner tubes,
bicycle inner tubes,
and floor pillows from old rags.
What I had found by working with these people in the community
is that there's a real thirst for these skills.
There's a great sense of accomplishment and self-sufficiency
that comes from being able to fix and make your own things.
There are now hundreds of Trashion Shows
taking place annually in this country alone.
And I'm always amazed at how excited people get
or just thinking about the possibilities
of how things could be reused.
I hope that we will expand this kind of learning,
especially with young people,
and fortunately most of these shows
are taking place in schools.
So apparently,
when you're engaged in creative problem-solving,
you're using many different parts of your brain.
And the more you do it, the more creative you become.
And everyone feels good when they solve a complex problem.
It's like a feeling that you get
when you first learn to tie your shoes or ride a bike.
If you could all engage in creative problem-solving more often,
I think that we could find some of the answers
to our pollution problems,
and some solutions are emerging,
such as stretchy fabrics and carpets
that are made from recycled plastic bottles,
home insulation made from old blue jeans
and recycled glass turned into countertops.
So, next time you go to throw something away,
think twice or maybe three times
about how that item could remain useful to yourself or others.
You'll be exercising your brain in a way
that could be very beneficial to you and the planet.
Thank you.
(Applause)