Bin lady

Last updated on August 8th, 2017 at 02:03 pm

It’s been quite a journey for Jessica:
When the aptly named Jessica Root was 4 or 5 years old, her mother, Keli Solomon, took her to the Earth Day celebration in Central Park. In grade school, she dressed up for Halloween one year as a recycling bin.
That was only the beginning for Garbage Girl, who now works in TreeHugger.com’s elite video propaganda unit:
Root’s first project is a contest called Convenient Truths—a logical next step from Al Gore’s documentary “An Inconvenient Truth.’’

What TreeHugger wants people to do is submit a one-minute to two-minute video showing how they’re reducing their own carbon footprint and thus slowing global warming …

Root said the videos could be about something as small as carrying groceries in reusable cloth bags. They could also be about something as grand as an architect’s plans for a solar home.

“They could be about composting,’’ she said. “They could be about changing the filters in your air-conditioner.’’
They could be about alternative fuels; nitro-methane, for example. I might submit this, which demonstrates a DIY method of carbon wheelprint reduction.
Posted by Tim B. on 12/31/2006 at 03:23 AM
When the aptly named Jessica Root
Not so aptly named in Australia by the sound of it…

Posted by Dan Lewis on 2006 12 31 at 03:41 AM • permalink

“Root said the videos could be about something as small as carrying groceries in reusable cloth bags.”
Yeah, that would be great, if only they can find people who use “cloth” bags.

For several years now, thanks to people exactly like Ms Root/s, every idiot in Australia uses those .99 cent green or brown reusable bags (a whole gaggle of them, since one would hold bugger all groceries), made from the very same non-biodegradable stuff that wheelie bins are made of – your know the stuff that never ever, ever, ever, ever breaks down.

Yep, thanks to people like Ms Root/s, 100% biodegradable bags made from corn flour were shelved in preference to “reusable” bags made from hard indestructive non-biodegradable crap. (Has anyone noticed how quickly the stitching comes undone in those “reusable” bags?).

Posted by Ck on 2006 12 31 at 04:00 AM • permalink

Here’s a surefire way to eliminate methane gas.

Posted by David Crawford on 2006 12 31 at 04:41 AM • permalink

Agent 86 was way ahead of his time.

Posted by Penguin on 2006 12 31 at 04:56 AM • permalink

Hmmm.

I’m currently in the midst of designing a 4-wheeled cart propelled by a series of cams and pistons driven by two people humping. Sort of a treadle-car, but with a small bed in the back sited atop of a very large treadle.

And yes I’m sure the thing would work with a couple people just jumping up and down on the treadle. But really. What’s the point of that?

Oh and pretty young buxom ladies looking for a test drive are extremely, if not exceptionally, welcome.

It may not reduce my carbon footprint. But at that point, who cares?!

Posted by memomachine on 2006 12 31 at 05:08 AM • permalink

#5. ed

How many does it…..ahem….“seat?”

Posted by Penguin on 2006 12 31 at 06:25 AM • permalink

Golden opportunity here folks! Send in your vids of your own unique contribution to the Earth’s carbon cycle. For example, show yourself zooming off at the go signal in your Ferrari, leaving a chugging 1967 VW Beetle behind in a cloud of clean emissions.

Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 12 31 at 06:31 AM • permalink

a recycled root? – no thanks

Posted by eeniemeenie on 2006 12 31 at 08:17 AM • permalink

Jessica Root needs to do something to lower her carbon dioxide emissions. I’d recommend shutting her mouth.

Posted by Jim Treacher on 2006 12 31 at 08:35 AM • permalink

If indeed a logical next step from An Inconvenient Truth is possible, I doubt it’s a composting contest. The whole thing sounds rooted. Hence the aptness of the name?

Posted by anthony_r on 2006 12 31 at 08:41 AM • permalink

All these smug little recyclers are nothing but junior versions of Marquand’s Aunt. Pointing out that they are akin to a starched New England spinster more than anything might take some of the allure out of carbon-footprinting for some of these hippy chicks and dicks. Or the fact that my grandmother (who was raised on a farm in Vermont) used to practice the following with regularity: use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without!

Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 12 31 at 08:44 AM • permalink

OT PS: if you actually read the whole article I linked to, which was written in 1999, you’ll come to an interesting little paragraph on boxcutters. It made a little chill run up my spine when I read it for the first time (in the Florence King compilation I bought) last year or so.

Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2006 12 31 at 08:50 AM • permalink

I wonder what the carbon foot print of her video equipment is? Last I heard petroleum features prominently in the
manufacturing and transport of just about everything on
earth.

BTW, did anyone read the recent article about how
the film industry is the second biggest polluter in California?

Posted by AnnNY on 2006 12 31 at 09:11 AM • permalink

To reduce my carbon footprint I drive a used Ford Explorer, which is made from standard metals and so is easy to recycle when it finishes its long life cycle. From cradle to grave, my SUV will use far less energy and be far easier to dispose of than those Gaia-destroying hybrids!

Posted by JSchuler on 2006 12 31 at 10:33 AM • permalink

Wow. Videos about composting. That’s gonna be some blockbuster entertainment right there.

Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 12 31 at 12:05 PM • permalink

Good God, a whole video site full of moralists preening.

What would they say about a bunch of religious types who created a YouTube panoply of themselves, praying?

This whole thing is ripe for satire.

Posted by Rittenhouse on 2006 12 31 at 12:05 PM • permalink

We have to recycle here. But, we also have a swap room where we put stuff we don’t want. That’s how I got the painting of the Indian woman I now have in my bedroom.

As far as the other stuff, since our complex is rife with people who don’t have English as even their third language, the town’s given up on that whole “cardboard” and “separation” thing. Everyone’s jsut glad if no abosolute slop is thrown anywhere…

Posted by ushie on 2006 12 31 at 01:24 PM • permalink

wow, this sounds interesting.

I wonder what I could do to reduce my carbon footprint?

Maybe I could… no, that’d be silly.

Umm, how about… no, that makes no sense at all.

I could… well… no I cant.

I got it! I’m gonna go and cut down some trees and start some fires. Then, later I’ll stop doing that and Bingo! Less of that carbon stuff from then on!

Posted by Grimmy on 2006 12 31 at 02:09 PM • permalink

Actually, Grimmy, you’ve got a winner right there! And you don’t even have to burn anything. The way I figure it, every day I don’t chop and burn all the trees on my property is another day of reduced carbon footprint. I gotta get a video cam and set it up to record me not burning trees. How do I collect on the carbon credits – post office box, or do I need to provide a bank account number?

If I live long enough, I could save the whole planet singlehandedly!

Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2006 12 31 at 03:08 PM • permalink

I gotta get a video cam and set it up to record me not burning trees.
An entire video of trees growing would be about the average Greenie’s pace.

How do I collect on the carbon credits – post office box, or do I need to provide a bank account number?
I hear there’s a widow of a Nigerian politician who’s willing to send a whole bunch of carbon credits your way, if you give her your bank details and $50000 to “cover expenses”.

Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 12 31 at 03:29 PM • permalink

“They could be about changing the filters in your air-conditioner.”

What? They approve air conditioners? Then I’m happy to report that, as of now, I have joined them and I’m never, ever going to turn off my air conditioner.

Posted by ElectronPower on 2006 12 31 at 04:30 PM • permalink

I thought “carbon footprints” were created by walking around after administering third degree burns to the soles of your feet.

Posted by Dorian on 2006 12 31 at 05:16 PM • permalink

#15 Rebecca: I think the whole idea of this scheme is to make everbody fall asleep from sheer boredom, and while we’re dozing, the environauts will steal the keys to our SUV’s, brick up our fireplaces and smash the engines on our lawnmowers.

Posted by paco on 2006 12 31 at 06:52 PM • permalink

#23, paco:

Dont laugh, There’s already been heavy pressure to make fireplaces in homes illegal in new construction and make it illegal to have a bbq grill burning without a permit over here on the left coast.

Posted by Grimmy on 2006 12 31 at 07:03 PM • permalink

#24: Tyranny!

Posted by paco on 2006 12 31 at 07:14 PM • permalink

#23 & 24: Let them try and brick up my fireplace from my toasty-warm buttocks! There will be a hue and a cry, and some really angry log-throwing, before it’s all over!

Posted by RebeccaH on 2006 12 31 at 08:57 PM • permalink

The very least I can do is to run the fan-forced combustion stove and the aircon at the same time in the same room. Both them on their highest settings. I wonder if it will cancel each other out?

Posted by CB on 2006 12 31 at 09:21 PM • permalink

RebeccaH:

my toasty-warm buttocks
Mmmmmmmmmm

Posted by AlburyShifton on 2006 12 31 at 10:20 PM • permalink

What TreeHugger wants people to do is submit a one-minute to two-minute video showing how they’re reducing their own carbon footprint

Suicide snuff movies?

Posted by PW on 2006 12 31 at 11:29 PM • permalink

#3! Oh that’s rather old stuff, though I appreciated the video. Flaming intestinal methane (mostly) was all the rage in the USA, circa 1950+ miltary cutups. (though I can Only speak for the military muffins here).
Now, if we could only invent an automatic livestock fart igniter that worked well! Well, Gerbil Worming^TM^, would then be an ancient idiot hoax, wouldn’t it???

Posted by Gerry on 2007 01 01 at 03:56 AM • permalink

Anyone tasteless enough to send them Saddams modest 3 minute tape of his reducing carbon impact??
How much longer before some enterprising serial killer claims hes entitled to a stack of carbon money for his efforts?

Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 01 01 at 08:56 AM • permalink