Guerrilla gardening is a great way to add some green to a blighted space. Whether we're talking seedbombs or late-night plantings, guerilla gardeners everywhere are doing their parts to make the urban landscape a bit greener.

Steve Wheen takes the idea in a whimsical direction with his pothole gardens. Potholes are an eyesore and sometimes a hazard, but with a little bit of greenery, Wheen turns these blemishes into something straight up beautiful. Not only does he plant greenery and flowers, he transforms potholes into miniature environments!

Here's a video of Wheen talking about his pothole gardens:

I love that he calls them "little moments of happiness." Those bursts of color definitely make me smile!

Have you guys seen (or done!) any creative, cool examples guerrilla gardening? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

h/t: CRAFT

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1. 3 Gorgeous Vertical Gardens
2. Spotted: No Park Emergency Gardens
3. Urban Farming: Rice Paddy in a Tokyo Office Building

We love any project that uses reclaimed wood, and I'm totally digging this super sweet reclaimed wood art from Olga Oreshyna. I love the textures and colors of these pieces!

Olga contacted us to tell us a bit about her work:

The source of my inspiration comes from abandoned pieces of wood. In my imagination I give them a second chance of the life [...] Rather than cutting down trees to get the needed material, reusing wood is just as good if not better. This is my way of making a difference, at the same time I’m sharing a positive message on how we can recycle and reuse in creative ways.

My artworks reflect my contribution to make our fragile environment more healthy and beautiful. So much plastic, metal, concrete surround us in our everyday life. Creating these amazing wooden structures I feel huge energy coming over my hands. I wish people could see the beauty of nature, energy and warmth of the sun in every piece of wood I use. As for me, it’s like a hidden treasure witch I discover almost every day.I want to make any space they inhabit warm, comfortable and stylish at the same time.

I tend to gravitate toward bright colors when it comes to art and design, but I think my favorite pieces of hers are like the one above, where she plays off of the wood's natural personality. Just stunning! You can check out more of Olga's art on her website.

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1. Piet Hein Eek: Reclaimed Wood Furniture
2. Reclaimed Wood Vase
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Garbagea is artist Asher Jay's response to the plastic gyres polluting our oceans.

Asher wanted to raise awareness about the trouble with single use plastic and plastic pollution in an engaging way. Garbagea imagines those gyres as living continents and explores our culture of waste. I think this project is fascinating, and Asher was kind enough to answer some questions about the project, what inspired it, and where it's going.

GreenUPGRADER: Tell me a bit about what inspired you to launch Garbagea.

Asher Jay: When I first learned about the plastic gyres, I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of the trash vortexes polluting the oceans. Until then, I had not been aware of the extent to which our current consumption patterns were impacting marine ecosystems and the myriad life forms they supported. It was when I came face to face with the devastating effects of post consumer waste on oceanic flora and fauna that I truly internalized the struggles embraced by wildlife each day to overcome what man has done to their habitats.

What was intended as a vacation quickly altered course and became my first hands-on conservation campaign when a rickety propeller plane deposited me on Agatti, an incredulously small litter infested island off the coast of India. Agatti is a part of the Lakshadweep coral atolls. Praised frequently by tourist brochures for its breath taking reef systems, vast array of marine wildlife, turquoise blue lagoons, incredible dive spots, silvery white sandy beaches, mangroves and lushgreen coconut palms, Agatti is rendered to be a true tropical paradise; however this alluring description failed to translate past the page into reality.

Agatti, Kavaratti, Kadmat and Bangaram, the four most sought after island destinations in Lakshadweep are so debilitated by the ever expanding demand for seafood, and contaminated by apathetic litterbug visitors and neglected by myopic indigenous bureaucrats that contrary to promotional testimonies, this place seems to presage an anthropogenically induced sixth mass extinction. I spent my hours on Agatti, persuading hotel staff to snorkel along the shores armed with the necessary equipment to collect the extensive range of plastic waste lining the seabed. As a firm believer of the credo ‘practice what you preach’, I led each clean-up expedition. The few employees that tagged along did so merely to earn my approval, but they did not understand the brevity of the damage that had been done to this once beautiful scenery which served as a home to all the species the locals had come to depend on for their livelihoods.

The fishermen did not comprehend their interdependent relationship with their environment or the economic ramifications of harvesting without book keeping. Although the math is more common sense than computation, it was hard to convey the financial doom they would elicit from crippling the sole natural resource that kept their island economy afloat. The local government was in no rush to educate the residents as they were financially benefiting from cutting corners, bleeding profits into their avaricious pockets. The expansion of the local airstrip was in fact happening at the cost of the blue enveloping it, for all the waste from the construction of the airstrip was being released into the unsuspecting aquamarine waters. It pained me to see magnificent sea turtles swim up to the shores in search of food, appetites teased by shimmering sheaths of plastic that closely resemble their natural dietary choice, jellyfish. Sea turtles were consuming liberal portions of plastics and effluents each day. We lost two turtles over the ten days that I was there: one drowned from malnourishment and the other on account of severe injuries inflicted by a boat’s rudder. I saw large parrot fish routinely swimming on their side along the piers, staring at the stars with one desperate eye as they struggled to stay buoyant. Instead of figuring out why so many of the reef’s fish were stranding along the piers on account of ‘swim-bladder disease’ the local fisherman just circled around these incapacitated aquatic craniates with nets, in the hopes of adding it to their day’s catch.

As Sylvia Earle often states “You can’t care if you don’t know, you might not care even if you do know, but you can’t care if you don’t know!” I knew then what I had to do; I simply had to find a way to lend these green waters a green voice, and advocate the preservation of the few species that were fighting all the odds stacked in their disfavor to survive in their cerulean swelling expanse.

A few months later I was in Kenya and Tanzania addressing the waste problem there, once again the very threats deteriorating Laksadweep’s seascapes were rearing their ugly heads in the dark continent’s wilderness reserves: lax regulations, arrogant ignorant tourists, inconsistent waste disposal methods, habitat destruction, absence of trash segregation and recycling (all garbage is disposed off in make-shift landfills), the lack of viable solutions, alternatives, government incentives, rigid laws and funds that can execute feasible plan Bs. I couldn’t just sit back and allow things to be the way they were; I wasn’t ready to accept this uninviting reality and so I took it upon myself to address the context that was vexing me. I brought along a giant trash bag with me on every safari trip and I returned to camp each evening with the bag filled to bulging seams.

I used some of the rubbish I had gathered on my trips in my artworks, and I handed many bagfuls to wardens, public officials and hotel managers, but all the while I was acutely aware of the need for a larger more inclusive platform. Garbagea came to me in installments, over a trash-centric year that clocked by in cleanup efforts that I had proposed and volunteered for in various countries. Over time people began paying attention to me and what I was saying, which is when it occurred to me that in order to incite change one has to take responsibility first. Garbagea is my way of taking responsibility for all the waste in this world, rendering refuse a tangible concern. In placing a claim I have made it my problem, and in creatively contributing to or collaborating with Garbagea, yet others make it their problem too. When a problem is owned it can be solved.

gUP: The litter continent is such an interesting take on the plastic gyres - what gave you the idea of building this mythology around them?

AJ: It is obviously very important how we relay information, the manner in which content is presented and communicated is as significant as the content itself. We live in a digital world with rapid data sharing, and in order to effectively disseminate truth one has to direct the flow of knowledge through the popular conduits. The audiences of the 21st century are over stimulated and possess the attention spans of fruit flies; they are constantly seeking out novelty and spectacles to be amused by, and Garbagea exploits all these contemporary patterns of assimilation and expurgation to underscore its main message "Waste not, want less, take stock, then express."

Garbagea furnishes people with a fun and engaging framework from which they can convey their personal standpoint on the ecological realities of our time. Most often people find it difficult to channel their message, or they stop believing that they can make a difference but every single person contours the collective context irrespective of their consciousness of the whole they are a part of. Garbagea is designed to cultivate empathy for the environment incidentally, not intentionally; it allows people to find their own stance on the topics deliberated, instead of spoon-feeding conclusions at a pace out of sync with their interest or learning curve.

gUP: Why was it important to you to launch during the Hudson Terrace's Art Splatters?

AJ: I wanted to reach out to a new demographic. Terrace Art Splatters afforded me a truly unique venue to raise awareness at, as it was an art party hosted by a trendy lounge-club; this brought an eclectic mix of people together from various walks of life, from art critics and journalists to tourists and New Yorker socialites. The majority of the gathering did not know anything about the gyres until they chanced upon my original display. Everything I exhibited innovatively incorporated the litter I had been accumulating in my East Village apartment over the past several months. The show also furnished me with the opportunity to hawk some of my litter assets as Garbagean Real Estate. I pre-packaged a significant amount of “found objects” in embellished shoe boxes, so as to make our property investments available by the cubic feet. Everyone was infinitely entertained by Garbagea’s realty. People invest more time to learn about topics that would not customarily rouse their curiosity when said topics are plugged into an unconventional framework. Garbagea is an educational spectacle. Using exaggerated indifference as a vehicle for humor the platform manipulates the default wiring of the jaded and cynical and reveals the hard truths presently confronting our planet to them in an atypical way.

By the end of the day, it is moot to preach to the choir. I need to mobilize people who wouldn’t ordinarily give a moment of their day to conserve anything beside cash, to care about something bigger than their individual microcosms. Garbagea’s mission is to unite people by sensitizing them to environmental issues that orbit waste and pollution, in the hopes that an informed collective will want to institute a new paradigm of sustainable subsistence to pave the way to a holistic future.

gUP: What draws you to found objects as a medium?

AJ: Garbage is a contemporary plague, and it is growing with the same veracity of a highly contagious viral epidemic. Waste needs to be addressed as both a global health hazard and a pandemic threat to food & water security, as it contaminates resources without discrimination. Every commodity we consume to sustain ourselves in the world today is toxic; it is now merely an FDA question of “to what degree.” We give rise to garbage, we empower its choke hold on ecosystems worldwide by continuing our current paradigm of consumption, ergo we are each responsible for all the flotsam on the undulating azure and for all the trash mounds on fallow lands.

Art from any period reflects the cultural, socio-political, ecological and economical realities of that sliver of time, and since consumerism and waste are the most pressing realities of our time, I use found objects as a medium in all my works. Trash helps me channel lessons on social responsibility in an aesthetically pleasing yet perturbing visual dialogue.

gUP: It sounds like reducing plastic waste is an important issue to you! Tell me a little bit about how you reduce the single use plastic in your life.

AJ: I plan my shopping sprees; when you plan ahead, it dramatically reduces the quantity of plastic bags you acquire daily. When I do obtain a plastic bag I repurpose/reuse it and then recycle it. I make it a point to choose cloth over paper and paper over plastic. I invariably carry one of those printed MoMA totes, which fold up into a small pouch, with me in the off chance that an impulse craving leads to an impulse purchase. I don’t buy tampons with plastic applicators, or panty-liners that are individually wrapped. Seventh Generation comes out with organic pads and tampons, so I opt for those over companies like Tampax or Kotex. I don’t buy disposables i.e. single use floss sticks, cups, spoons, plates etc... I usually carry my handy Brita bottle with me wherever I go, and when I forget that at home I always opt for tap or glass bottle brands like Saratoga, Voss or Aqua Panna. It is more expensive, and heavier to shoulder, which burns the following lesson into my brain: Always, always carry your handy filter water bottle with you!

On a side note: It is important to recycle but people often forget to wash out the entire organic residue from the container before tossing it in the recycle bin, which makes it harder to recycle them. Always clean out the food containers before placing them in the recycling bin.

Also Terracycle has a mail in program, and runs collections, hand in your plastic waste to them or organize a collection run in your neighborhood. You are making a difference today, it is just a matter of how; subtract from the problem and add to the solution!

All photos via Garbagea, used with permission

Related posts:

1. Rubbish Rainbows: Making Art from Plastic Pollution
2. The Scourge of Single Use Plastic and What You Can Do
3. The Floating Plastic Monster

What began as an experiment in window farming became a crowd-sourced answer to our industrialized food system.

When Britta Riley wanted to grow her own food, she didn't let her tiny New York apartment stop her. Rather than grow her herbs and veggies in messy dirt, she decided to create a hydroponics system for growing food indoors made out of reclaimed plastic bottles.

She also decided not to create a product but crowdsource with co-developers. The garden started out growing a salad a week in her New York apartment window. Now, there are window farms all over the world building and testing - basically doing Research  and Development (R&D), just like a corporation. The difference is that the window farms testers are doing this as a passion project. She calls the process R&DIY - Research and Develop it Yourself.

The community holds a patent on the project. That means they're beating companies like Monsanto to the punch, keeping this food technology out of their hands and in the hands of the people.

Want to get in on some R&DIY action? You can check out Riley's website for deets on what they're up to and how to get involved!

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2. Vertical Farms: "Growing Up Sustainably"
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We talked last week about some of the benefits of a single car family, and Jade shared her experiences as part of a one car household. She touched on some really great tips and benefits of sharing a car, and it got me thinking about my own car-sharing experience.

My husband and I have been a single car family since 2006. When we bought our house, we sold my car and used half of the money from the sale to buy a scooter and the other half to pay off credit card debt. Honestly, just paying off that debt made selling my car worth it to me! Not only do Dave and I share a car, but we have quite a few friends who do the same, so I thought I'd share some tips we've learned over the years.

Coordination is Key

Jade talked about this, and it sounds like she and her husband work a lot like Dave and I do, but another couple I know has a much more hectic schedule. For them, just communicating about the car won't cut it. Between his job and band practice and her job and side businesses, they are constantly on the go.

So, how does a super-busy family coordinate? This couple keeps a shared Google calendar, where they enter all of their appointments and whether they need the car. Since they can access the shared calendar from anywhere (including their smart phones), it's much easier to figure out when the car is free.

Alternative Transportation

Most of the folks I know who share a vehicle also own or rent homes that are near a bus stop or train station, and they prioritized that on purpose when they were house- and apartment-hunting. It's much easier to be mobile if you're just a short walk or bike ride from public transit.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my husband and I also have a scooter. This is great for in town car-free trips where we can't walk or ride our bikes. We share a 50cc Honda Metropolitan. What's great about a 50cc scooter is that you don't need a motorcycle license to drive it, and you're not even required to get insurance (though sometimes I get a little nervous about not being insured).

Once you've paid for the machine, all you have to do is put gas in the thing once in a while and deal with occasional maintenance. To get an idea of how those little scoots do on gas, check out my pal Jo's piece about his Honda Metropolitan's stellar gas mileage. His experience is pretty typical - mine gets 90mpg, and 80-90mpg is what the folks I know who own 50cc scooters seem to report, too. Your mileage will depend on how well you maintain your scooter, how much you weigh, and how much heavy stuff you tote when you scoot around.

Sharing a car isn't without its frustrations and inconveniences, but honestly I love it. Even if you have to go as far as sharing a calendar to coordinate, you save so much money, and you're reducing your emissions to boot. It also really gets you thinking about whether you need the car for a particular errand, you know what I mean?

Car owners looking to insure your family car might check out car insurance quotes online.

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1. 3 Keys to Sharing a Car
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We knew when we bought this house back in 2006 that we'd eventually have to replace the roof. To be honest, we probably should have done it already, but it's getting to be pretty bad now. I'd really like to look at more eco-friendly options than asphalt roofing tiles, because asphalt is a petroleum product.

Since I've been digging up info about eco-friendly roof options, I thought I'd share what I found with you guys!

1. Green Roof

Unfortunately, I think a green roof is a little bit out of our price range. At $8-$25 per square foot, I don't think we can swing it. They're certainly lovely, though! Green roofs help combat the urban heat island effect and even help insulate your house, so you'll see lower energy bills. If I had the money, there's no question that I'd go this route!

2. Metal Roof

This one's definitely in the running! Metal roofs are very durable, which means less money on upkeep. Metal roofs can be pricier than asphalt tiles, around $3.50-$11 per square foot. The thing with metal roofs is that, like I said, they're durable.

My husband's main concern with a metal roof is noise when it rains. That's totally legit, so I did some research, and it sounds like newer metal roofs don't have this problem. Here's a homeowner talking about her metal roof on a forum:

I live in the rain capitol of the U.S....Seattle. I have cathedral ceilings, and a metal roof. It's a newer home and has cellulose roll insulation in the ceilings. I've noticed no difference in noise between this and the cedar shakes at my previous house. Maybe if you were living out in the boonies with a tin roof and no insulation you'd have more noise, but I think it's a non-issue in today's houses. And, from a maintenance standpoint, I'll never go back to a conventional roof.

I'm definitely going to try to get a metal roofing company to give us a quote!

3. Solar Shingles

This is another one that's out of our price range, but holy moly, would I love solar shingles! Unlike solar panels, these things blend right in with the rest of your roof. Green power AND avoiding those asphalt tiles?? Someday...

I couldn't find a square foot price, but it looks like Dow is selling special homes with solar shingles that start in the high $400s. A little inaccessible! But hopefully these will come down in price as they catch on.

4. Recycled Shingles

This is another one that's definitely on my list of possibilities. Recycled shingles cost around the same as a metal roof, and they come with a crazy 50 year warranty! Durability is definitely at the top of my wish list for a new roof. I can't really afford to do this again any time soon, and I think that the greenest thing that you can do is get something that's going to last rather than a product that's going to head to the landfill in just 5 or 10 years.

5. Slate Roof Tiles

Slate has a pretty low environmental impact and is incredibly durable. It looks like a slate roof costs between $8 and $11 per square foot (I used this handy online calculator to figure that out!). My big concern with slate is the weight. I don't want to have to redo our home's foundation because of heavy roofing tiles! I'm not sure that's even something we'd have to consider with a slate roof, but definitely worth asking a contractor.

Have any of you guys had an eco-friendly roof installed? I'd love to hear your experiences!

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by David Paul Ohmer

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1. A White Roof Is a Cool Roof: How to Reduce Home Energy Use by 20%
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Would you move to a smaller house in the name of greener living? How about a 130 square foot house?

Ever since the New Yorker ran a spread on Jay Shafer's Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, a mainstream audience has had a sneak peak at what some critics might call a not-so-mainstream place to live – the tiny house.

Shafer's houses, which get as small as 99 square feet, are, as their creator proudly proclaims, "smaller than some people's closets."

Yet he's selling them – lots of them. And people are really living in them. There are some you can order for $54,000 or less, pre-assembled.

Since seeing that New Yorker article, I've been obsessing over tiny houses! Although I've neither lived in a tiny house nor even visited one, I can immediately identify several ways in which these unconventional homes are an environmentalist's dream come true. Here are three of them:

1. Less space means less stuff.

We've all heard of "reduce-reuse-recycle," but tiny houses take "reduce" to a whole new level.

In most of Shafer's houses, there's very little room for furniture. Interior photos of his 130 square foot model, the Fencl, show two small chairs, a simple love seat, and nothing more, except some space in the upstairs loft for a bed. Or maybe a just a mattress.

But do you really need more than two chairs and a love seat in your living room? Most people don't. And tiny houses are all about minimalism.

When you have less space to put things, you tend to purchase fewer of them. Living in a tiny house will almost certainly help you reduce your consumption of tangible goods.

2. Less space means less energy.

Shafer says he spends less than $170 per year heating his tiny house in Iowa. A tiny house-dweller in Olympia, Washington reportedly spends $5 heating hers.

Even if these figures are optimistic, it's easy to see how a tiny house could drastically decrease your energy consumption. And if you stick a small solar panel on the roof, you'll never worry about electricity again.

3. Composting toilets, window unit air conditioners...

The list goes on. Ok, actually it doesn't because there just aren't a lot of things you can add to a tiny house and have it still be "tiny."

But the appliances you can squeeze inside consume very few resources and are extremely inexpensive to operate. With the Fencl, you also get a mini-fridge, a two-burner stove, and a tiny water heater that lives below the kitchen sink.

And since the tiny house itself doesn't take up much space, its impact on any surrounding land is almost nonexistent.

Even if you never live in one of Shafer's tiny houses, their very existence offers an important lesson. Living in comfort doesn't always mean having lots of space – or even lots of stuff. Sticking with the essentials and questioning whether much else is really necessary not only makes life simpler. It's a whole lot easier on the planet, too.

Adam Green might not live in a tiny house (yet), but he's definitely a fan of thrift and simplicity. He contributed this post on behalf of Full Circle, an organic fruit and vegetable delivery service in Washington State.

Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by nicolas.boullosa

Related posts:

1. Tiny House Living Gets Mainstream Exposure [Video]
2. An Energy Efficient Tiny House That Sets Up in Hours
3. White House to LEED by Sustainable Example