Plastic Project 4 of 5: Oh, Brothers...

This is Elijah's 4th entry. The first is here, the second here, and the third here.

Scrapyard Adventure’s (Brother’s recycling)

Saturday morning, I woke up and got ready to spend time with my mentor, Mr. Cliff. Little did I know he and I were going to the scrapyard, in search of a new motor with a gearbox already attached.
When Mr. Cliff told me to look for a motor with a shaft that was ⅞ inch diameter, I thought... I was just overwhelmed.  

But at the same time I was happy just to experience something like this. After we found the right motor we walked back into the front office to ask David (the eldest brother) how much we owed him. That's when he said, “Take it”. I said, “Thanks” and shook his hand.

David let us drive into the scrapyard. We passed heaps of everything, car parts, trashed appliances, a lot of S.U.P. and a scrapyard dog.   

Above: Large pile of Single Use Plastics (S.U.P.)

After visiting this scrap yard, I was overwhelmed by the heaps of waste. I’m more open minded when it come to the way we consume single use plastics.

(From iMollie: This is 4 of 5 entries)

Plastic Project 3 of 5: S.U.P.?

This is Elijah's third installment for his English project. You can read the first one here and the second one here.

Meeting Mollie: What S.U.P?

When I met Mrs. Mollie the first thing she did was gave me a hug & A cup of hot chocolate in a styrofoam cup.

She showed me her binder full of ideas & images of a

larger scale model of what she wanted to accomplish.

(Image is Mrs. Mollie’s Drawing her concept)

What is S.U.P?

Mollie explained that S.U.P stands for Single Use Plastic. Single-use plastics, or disposable plastics, are used only once before they are thrown away or recycled. Examples include things such as milk cartons, water bottles, spoons, straws, egg cartons, this is just a short list but the list goes on.

               

When Mollie asked me what i was going to do with the styrofoam cup that held the hot chocolate & I said i was going to throw it away. Then she told me that styrofoam was usually a type 6 plastic.  

What I learned from Mollie is that i don’t normally think about this type of thing and i made a connection  with the breakfast bowls in the lunchroom. And how we just throw them away.

Why do we just throw them away ?

How does that make you feel ?

(From iMollie: This is 3 of 5...)

Plastic Project 2 of 5: Involving Reconciler

Here is the second essay Elijah wrote about us working together to get plastic off the street and turn it into something usable!

Consideration of Reconciliation (Week 2)

Greetings readers! I’m Elijah and for my English class this year, I’m creating an 20% project based on an idea from Google Corporation's practice of offering their employees 20% of their work time to work on a project which started in 2012. Every Friday, I get to work on a project of my choice.

“There is no such thing as 'away'. When we throw anything away it must go somewhere.” - Annie Leonard

For my project this semester, my mentor and I will be helping a pastor's wife (Mrs. Mollie) at Church of Reconciler in downtown Birmingham. Mrs. Mollie started a homemade recycle system that shreds and melts plastic, so we will be able to mold and shape different thing to sell or give. A lot of homeless women mostly live by the church. And the reason behind this project is to better this community, and to give those homeless women another chance by giving them a job.

In the picture in the last blog post I was cutting a pipe with a hand grinder to attach it to the motor

to be able to run the shredder shown here..

(From iMollie: This is 2 of 5 installments...)

Plastic Project 1 of 5: Elijah's Four Hour Vegan Week

I can't get over how much I love to recycle.

I can't even have a conversation with someone without referencing it.

As busy as I make myself recycling things, I haven't known how to tell the story or teach others what I'm doing. I was blocked.

Then I met Elijah! Elijah is a 15yo high school student procrastinator, and friend of Cliff, who is a scattered brilliant engineer with a lot of fancy tools and knowledge of dangerous things. Cliff is still 15yo on the inside, though his body hovers in the 30yo decade.

With Elijah and Cliff's help, we have successfully powered up the Shredder and Compressor using Precious Plastics designs and ideas (hooray for community-based business models!!)

Elijah wrote this for his first assignment:

The Four-Hour Vegan (Week 1), by Elijah

I had good intentions. I tried. It all started when I was told I would have 15 weeks to work on any project of my choice. My friend wanted me to become a vegan with her. I never wanted to do it. I realized that I’m a young man, I need meat!

veg·an

/ˈvēɡən/

noun

1. a person who does not eat or use animal products.

Shortly after deciding not to go vegan, my mentor (Mr. Cliff) said he needed help designing and making machines for a homemade recycling system.

I decided that this was the project I wanted to work on. I didn’t quite understand the concept of this project, but

jumped right into it literally, with a saw.

                    

(This is a picture of me cutting a piece of pipe to attach to the machine)

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often”

• Winston Churchill

From iMollie:

(This is post 1 of 5)...