This year, Seattle’s arts and music festival, Bumbershoot, has followed in the steps of festivals around the world and gone carbon neutral. What that means is they’ve paid for all of the carbon that needs to be offset, including that created from round-trip travel for performers, and that which is created as a result of the festival itself.
Multi-disciplinary artist Jasmine Zimmerman‘s Bottle House ties in perfectly with this theme of going green. The purpose of her igloo created out of used water and pop bottles is to drive home the message that Americans consume more than 70 million bottles of water, in disposable plastic bottles, every day. As only one in six bottles are recycled and only half of U.S. residents have access to curbside recycling, the number of plastic bottles that are incinerated or sent to landfills are gigantic.
According to the message posted on the igloo, there ARE some things you can do.
– Employ a water filter at home.
– Take water with you in a permanent container.
– Refill your soap / shampoo / conditioner bottles at your local co-op.
– Reuse any plastic containers, rather than disposing of them.
For more resources and information, visit the Container Recycling Institute or Fast Company.