Category Archives: recycling

Bottle Cap Artist

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RichmondBizSense recently profiled Oregon Hill resident Josh Stolberg’s business (click here for article).

A VCU graduate launched his startup armed only with a pair of pliers and 10,000 discarded bottle caps.

Josh Stolberg started RVA CapWorks in February. He uses tin snips and a metal press to sculpt beer and soda caps into flowers, stars, birds, signs and anything else his clients can think of.

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Stolberg, who works full-time for power company Alstom, said he spends about 30 hours on the weekends flattening and assembling the pieces.

Stolberg started developing the idea for the company about two years ago. He constructed a Halloween gladiator costume using 3,200 caps. The 17-pound costume took 250 hours to make.

For now, Stolberg works out of his Oregon Hill home. He said that if demand picks up he would look for a separate work area and a place to sell the sculptures.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, congratulations to the students of George Mason Elementary School and the RVA Green Team for winning the Recycling Breakthrough Contest organized by the Sierra Club, Falls of the James Group. The $1,000 cash prize will help with future initiatives at the school that can then be taught to others in the Richmond Public School system.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

In recycling news, financial incentives have been proposed to encourage oyster recycling. From Chesapeake Bay Foundation:

To encourage more businesses and people to recycle oyster shells, Maryland Delegate Stephen Lafferty of Baltimore County and colleagues recently proposed legislation that would give income tax credits worth a dollar per bushel for contributing old shells to oyster restoration projects.

“We have been seeing over past decades a real loss in the amount of shell that is available for oyster restoration projects,” said Lafferty (below). “And oyster shell really is the best surface upon which new oysters can grow in the Bay.”

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation and other partners in a coalition called the Oyster Recovery Partnership for the last four years have been encouraging recycling through the “S.O.S.” or “Save Oyster Shell” campaign.
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The following restaurants in Virginia partner with CBF in oyster shell recycling:

Berrets, Williamsburg
Harpoon Larry’s Oyster Bar, Hampton
Le Yaca, Williamsburg
O’Sullivan’s, Norfolk
Red Lobster, Newport News
River’s Inn, Gloucester Point
Riverwalk, Yorktown
Rosemary & Wine, Gloucester
Tanner’s Creek Restaurant, Norfolk
Yorktown Pub, Yorktown.

And the Devil’s Backbone Brewing Company.

Really Really Free Market/Spaghetti Dinner with Bread and Circus Saturday

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This Saturday from noon to 3 pm in Monroe Park is the Really Really Free Market.

The RVA Really Really Free Markets provide people with a chance to share the excess that they possess, to prevent the landfills from filling with stuff that will never decompose and is nowhere near the end of its usefulness, and to offer the community a chance to come together for a day of free fun in the sun!

There are a wide variety of things that can be shared. There have been workshops led by community members and musical performances. Community members have brought games to play with each other at the market. Vegan cookies have also been known to make an appearance.

So the last Saturday of every month, dig through your closets, take the extra from your work, ask your parents and friends and neighbors to come to bring stuff and come to get stuff. Bring clothes, furniture, food, tapes, cds, office supplies, kitchen stuff, knick knacks & paddy whacks! Bring your music, your skills, your stuff, your food, and your friends and family, and help us prove that there is enough stuff in the world for everybody!

***PLEASE bring any and all warm weather clothing that you’re not using this year! We especially have a need for X-Large and up sizes!!***

And, Saturday evening…

All the Saints Theater Company, the folks who organize Oregon Hill’s Halloween Parade, are holding a spaghetti dinner at a Westover Hills church. Special guests are the famous Bread and Puppet Theater from Vermont, on tour to celebrate their 50th anniversary. They will be performing the Circus of the Possiblitarians:

The Circus of the Possibilitarians is a satirical horse and butterfly circus, addressing pertinent national and international issues in a clownish fashion, including rotten ideas, a wild dancing horse and some mellow lions, a solemn salute to the world’s casualties and much more! The Dire Circumstance Jubilation Ensemble provides a little bit of brass and a lot of noise. Please take note that if some of the circus acts are politically puzzling to adults, accompanying children can usually explain them.

Dinner starts at 7, show at 8. More details on the FaceBook event page.

Also, don’t forget the Main Street Library’s Knitting Sale Extravaganza on Saturday.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Waste & Recycling News reports that scientists are urging the classifying of plastic as hazardous waste as a way to keep plastics from ending up in oceans or being littered across the countryside.

“We believe that if countries classified the most harmful plastics as hazardous, their environmental agencies would have the power to restore affected habitats and prevent more dangerous debris from accumulating,” a group of 10 scientists wrote in an article posted Feb. 13 on the journal Nature’s website.

As a template, the scientists are using the 1989 Montreal Protocol, which classified chlorofluorocarbons as hazardous and which has proven to be one of the most successful environmental initiatives in history.

One of the researchers, Chelsea Marina Rochman, told the Los Angeles Times that similar accomplishments can be achieved if four difficult-to-recycle plastics — polyvinylchloride (PVC), polystyrene, polyurethane and polycarbonate – are targeted.

According to the Nature article, less than half of the 280 million tons of plastic produced globally in 2012 ended up recycled or in a landfill. The scientists suggest that a substantial amount of the remaining 150 million tons of plastic ended up as litter. Without action, the global environment will have to deal with 33 billion tons of plastic by 2050.

Trash/Recycling Pickup Tomorrow

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This Wednesday is a red Wednesday, which means trash and recycling pickup. Please make sure you pick up containers after pickup tomorrow night. They do not belong on the sidewalk after tomorrow night.

Also, look for winners of the Sierra Club Falls of the James group’s 2012 Recycling Breakthrough contest to appear at the RVA Environmental Film Festival this weekend (it’s free to attend!).

In other local recycling news, VCU continues has begun to compete in RecycleMania. From Commonwealth Times article:

Competing to collect the most trash isn’t your typical varsity sport, but VCU has entered a nationwide competition to compare collected recyclables to the national average during the RecycleMania challenge this Spring.

In a 10-week competition, VCU and an estimated 630 schools will be racing to collect the largest amount of recyclables, least amount of trash and highest recycling per capita. The competition is set up similar to basketball brackets and continues weekly elimination rounds until one school is left. This is the second year of the RecycleMania competition. Winners of the competition ultimately receive bragging rights among university rivals, but can also win a recyclable trophy: a bowling pin made to appear like a tin man for the Waste Minimization Trophy.

Stephen Heinitz, the recycling and reuse coordinator for the Department of Environmental Conservation at VCU, said RecycleMania is “a way to educate the students, faculty and staff about recycling.”

Heinitz said he is committed to educating and empowering people about their contribution to recycling. He wants to give every person at VCU the opportunity to recycle along with educating them on why it is important.

“We are an education institution and we want to give everyone the opportunity to develop good recycling habits. If you want change, then make change,” he said.

That change is already taking place. According to the VCU Department of Environmental Conservation, the university community recycled 507 tons of paper, 266 tons of cardboard, 132 tons of scrap metal, 37 tons of computers and electronics in 2009 alone.

Junior English major Angelica Kennedy thinks the programs will motivate VCU to recycle even more. “I think (RecycleMania is) a fabulous thing because hopefully it will inspire people to not only recycle when they’re out and about, but also when they’re at home.”

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