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UPCYCLING

Program 10-11-21-B

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You've heard about recycling - what about upcycling? It's the hottest trend in a world trying hard to go green. Recycling breaks materials down and uses them again -upcycling is using old stuff to build new things, from cigar box guitars to juice pouch messenger bags. In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, we explore the new world of upcycling, from the scavenger life of a do-it-yourselfer to the second life of garbage.

SEGMENT 1:

Annie Leonard is the author of "The Story of Stuff." She tells Steve Paulson what happens to most of the plastic bottles consumers carefully washout and recycle: they end up being shipped to the third world. An extended version of this interview can be heard HERE.

SEGMENT 2:

Tom Szaky is the founder and CEO of a company called TerraCycle. His book is "Revolution in a Bottle: How TerraCycle Is Redefining Green Business." Szaky tells Jim Fleming how his company turns candy wrappers and juice bottles into pencil cases and backpacks sold at Walmart stores. Also, Mark Frauenfelder is co-creator of the weblog BoingBoing dot net and the author of "Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World." He talks with Anne Strainchamps about some of his DIY (do-it-yourself) projects from vegetables to cigar box guitars.

SEGMENT 3:

David Sterritt is chair of the National Society of Film Critics. He tells Steve Paulson about beatnik filmmaker Bruce Conner, the father of the music video and creator of a style of video montage that's still widely influential and prefigures today's upcycling movement.

CD copies are available at 1-800-747-7444. Ask for program number 10-11-21-A.

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Books & CDs:

Mark Frauenfelder, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World (Portfolio)
Annie Leonard, The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change (Free Press)
Tom Szaky, Revolution in a Bottle: How TerraCycle Is Redefining Green Business (Portfolio)

Websites:

• Terracycle home page
  http://www.terracycle.net/
  
• The 2007 video that inspired Annie Leonard’s book can be found at
  http://www.storyofstuff.com/
  
• Made by Hand on Boing Boing
  http://boingboing.net/madebyhand/Made_By_Hand/About_Made_by_Hand.html
  
• Mark Frauenfelder playing his cigar box guitar on the Colbert Report.
  http://www.boingboing.net/2010/06/09/mark-on-the-colbert.html
• Make Magazine
  http://makezine.com/
• David Sterritt:
  http://davidsterritt.com

Music:

• -Big Eater/ The Bad Plus/ Sony
  
• -Practice is Perfect/ Andy McKee/ The Art of Motion/ Candy Cat Records
  
• -Canto Ostinato: 8/ Kees Wieringa and Polo de Haas/ Ten Holt
  
• -Art Gallery/ Soundtrack to (500) Days of Summer/ Michael Danna and Rob Simonsen/Sire

Distribution dates: week of 11/21/2010 - hour 2 click HERE for timings and cues

Listen (RealAudio) OR Download mp3

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Questions and comments can be addressed to: ttbook@wpr.org

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