Top 8 finalists in the Deutche Bank Urban Age Award!

Posted on May 16, 2012 by trashbacksa

The TrashBack project has progressed steadily in the last 7 months, and has been given some great coverage on various media platforms. Some of the best coverage and one of the latest and greatest achievements to date, however, has been in relation to the Deutsche Bank Urban Age award 2012. This prestigious award saw some 254 socially minded organisations enter to compete for the grand $100 000 prize. The idea behind the competition is to celebrate and support “creative solutions to the problems and opportunities facing urban dwellers”. TrashBack entered in collaboration with Thrive (a Hout Bay based non-profit incubator) and HBR (Hout Bay Recycling Co-op), and for our combined recycling efforts and future plans were selected as one of the 8 finalists!

Here’s the Hout Bay team at the award ceremony; From left to right - Andrew Mcnaught – TrashBack co-founder, Bronwen Lankers-Byrne – Thrive co-founder, Iming Lin – Thrive co-founder, Antoney Roberts – Hout Bay Recycling Centre Site foreman, Dora Sprayari – TrashBack participant and top collector, Nokwanda Sontyantya – Hout Bay Recycling Centre Manager.

Unfortunately we were not selected as the over-all winners, but we still think we did amazingly well to make it into the top 8, especially for such a young collaborative. So a big well done to the TrashBack team, the guys n gals at Thrive, HBR and everyone else who helped. Also, a huge CONGRATULATIONS to Mothers Unite, who are doing great work in their field and walked away on top of the game, well done everyone.

A final Binge and New Binginnings

Posted on April 18, 2012 by trashbacksa

The TrashBack UrBin Design Competition has sadly come to a colourful and creative end, but what an adventure has Bin! The build off finale held on Saturday April 14th saw our top-dog designers (in a very particular, winning kind of order) Nadia Smith, Courtney September and Etienne Britz, battle it off for the three rather grand prizes. A huge CONGRATULATIONS to all three of these passionate peeps, we know you all put in a lot of effort and we really appreciate the fact that your hard work manifested into three fantastic finished pieces, so well done! Here’s a look at the the finished products.

Nadia's clothing basket

Courtney's cupboard love

: Etienne’s re-shape

And to all our sponsors, you guys really helped to make this what it was, so a huge thanks to all the great guys and gals at Aquila, Daddy’s World, Sampleboard, Ramfest, Flamjangled, Butlers. You guys rock our recycling world! Then, thanks to our wonderful judges Marc (thingking), Danielle (liv), Jaco and Iming (Thrive), who helped us immensely to make a very difficult, multifaceted call on which bin was the bestest. And lastly but certainly not leastly, a shout out to two of our very talented mates, Kimon and Josh, who helped set and capture the mood. Finally a thanks to the creatives who helped spread the love: Margaret and Sean at CPUT Charles at AAA and Ilze at Inscape. Thanks guys!

But just because the comp is over, doesn’t mean it’s the end. These lovely clothing bins are going to be moving around our city: starting with Nadia’s clothing basket which will be at the Clothes Swap event at UCT as part of Green Week 2012. This will give you a chance to refresh your wardrobe – simply take your old clothes to earn buttons and spend the buttons on other clothes! It’s going down this Friday so check the event here and don’t miss out!

You can track all our bin locations at any time on our UrBin map:

View Larger Map

To give you some idea of what we have planned for the next little while, TrashBack will be

Launching a new, updated rewards system in Imizamo Yethu in the next few weeks,
Continuing to expand our bicycle recycling collections in Hout Bay,
And will be working on consolidating our core ideas to take over the world!

SO WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

UrBin Design Comp Top 3

Posted on April 9, 2012 by trashbacksa

After much debate and scrutiny of the awesome designs that were submitted for our UrBin design comp, the TrashBack team along with judges: Lyall and Marc (thingking), Danielle (liv), Jaco and Iming (Thrive) have decided the top 3 (in no specific order). Please vote on your favourite design (at the bottom of this post) so that we get a feel for your preference:

Courtney September: Cupboard Love

My idea for this Project was to design a bin, as the brief said that would clearly indicate that it’s a bin that would hold “clothes only”. What many of us are familiar with is our cupboard that holds our clothes for us. I therefore took the standard bin size and shaped, and then Designed it to look like it was made out of real knotty pine wood, but it would just be neatly wrapped in wooden textured vinyl similar to a cupboard or a chest of drawers. This would give the bin a wooden texture making it look like it’s made of wood. The front view of the bin then has 2 artificial doors stuck to it making it look like a real 3 dimensional cupboard. The right side of the bin then has 4 artificial drawers giving you the illusion that it is a chest of drawers on the side.

I added in a hanger, which hangs over one of the door knobs. On the hanger hangs a white cloth that says “Clothes Only”, to add more char- acter to the bin.

My choice of placement of the logos was similar to where we normally put stickers on our cupboard. It is easy to see because of the bright colours of the logos and the transparent background which makes the logos pop out even better.

Etienne Britz: Re-Shape

Like the image of a dress or a shirt, the wheelie bin is an instant recognizable shape. No matter the colour, location or scale, perceptually its shape is directly linked to its function: waste disposal. The ambitious task of changing this perception should not be attempted without proper socio-economical and ﬁnancial support. As time and budget is of great concern, let’s not change perceptions, let’s rather change the shape!

The new shape reﬂects aspect of the intended use of the new bin. Using basic, highly recognizable imagery alters the perception of the wheelie bins usage from a trash disposal vessel to a clothing storage trunk. While the T-shirt shape offers a recognizable image, it also creates opportunity of branding directly incorporated into the design. Constructed using standard plywood panels, the ﬁnal design resemble the interior of a wardrobe with different bright shirts hanging in a row. The colours provide an interesting three-dimensional quality, a playful effect on the eye as one walk or drive past the re-shaped bin.

Nadia Smith: Clothing Basket

The design I have chosen to do is to make the bin look like a laundry basket. This will clearly communicate that the bin is for clothes only, because people don’t put rubbish in their laundry baskets. The idea of showing folded clothes through the holes in the bin will indicate that the clothes are clean and that people must put clean clothes in the bin. I have decided to use colourful materials that have many patterns on them to show the fun and colourful side of clothes donation.

The way that the bin will be made is by cutting out the wholes in the bin and then rolling material into rolls and layering them on the inside. There will also be an inside liner so that the clothes don’t mix with the materials.

TrashBack Urbin Design Competition half way mark!

Posted on March 8, 2012 by trashbacksa

Less than a month remains for those creative folk among us to show off their bin fancyfication skills. If you didn’t already know, TrashBack is running a two stage ‘design and build’ competition to make our second hand clothing collection bins absolutely fool and rubbish proof! Stage 1, designers have to come up with a funky, eye catching and memorable design for a 240 litre orange wheelie bin. Stage 2, the top three designs will be entered into a build-off BINanza to compete for three grand prizes.

But that’s not all (said in the coarse, conditioned voice of an over-enthusiast infomercial presenter, who one day dreams of becoming a belly dancer… um), because there are three spot prizes along the way! But even spot prizes, like tickets to Ramfest and The Flamjangled Tea Party, cower in comparison to what’s on offer for the ‘Design and Build’ competition winners!

Three incredible Grand prizes for the build winners include:

Aquila game reserve overnight safari.
A night away for two adults in a 4-star luxury chalet, welcome drinks, 3 meals and
2 game drives… yes please!
Old Mac Daddy retreat.
A night away for two at this luxury trailer park in Elgin, surrounded by orchards, vineyards, frog-song ponds and dusty mountain-bike roads.
Sampleboard subscription.
1 year’s PRO subscription to an amazing online digital mood-board editor,
valued at over R2000!

Check out how to enter here. Competition closes Friday 30 March, build day will happen on Saturday 7 April. Now get out there, get inspired, get involved and get creative!

It takes two to Tango, but anyone can recycle!

Posted on February 10, 2012 by trashbacksa

Whatever your beliefs may be, the end of the Gregorian calender year is generally a pretty exciting time. Many businesses take a little holiday, plenty of things are on sale and there is usually some family or friendly festivities thrown in the mix. However, during these few weeks of fun, a large quantity of “waste” is often produced from our various antics and activities. Now of course we at TrashBack don’t like to see this as waste, but rather as opportunity, so we had an end of year idea to offer some extra-incredible incentives to collect some of these recyclable materials.

Through two generous donations, we managed to obtain a full colour TV and a flashy new DVD player, which we then offered as rewards to the weekly top collectors of our uphinda-phindo! recycling project, on the 24 December and 7th January. With prizes like these, it is no wonder why we had such a phenomenal response! What we didn’t expect, however, was that the same super-charged person would win twice!

With the help of her grandmother, Busisiwe Spayari snatched both prizes over the three week period. The grandmother and granddaughter team brought in a total of 238 kg’s of recyclables (about 26 black bags) to win the TV prize, and a whopping 370 kg’s (roughly 65 black bags) to make sure they won the DVD player as well! That’s well over half a tonne of waste diverted from landfill, with a combined volume of over 6 cubic metres of recyclable material! Well done to the two of them, truly inspiring! We hope to offer many more of these kinds of rewards in the near future, and aim to see an even greater response with as much waste recycled as possible.

On a final note, we will be adding a number of different pages to our website and kicking things up a gear in the next few months with a number of interesting projects, so watch this space!

Hotbox Workshop with the Earthchild project

Posted on February 8, 2012 by trashbacksa

Three of the TrashBack – Rewards for Rubbish team members recently attended an Earthchild Project workshop on how to make and use a “Hot Box” or “Wonder bag”. These clever cooking contraptions are made from compartmentalised cloth sewn in the shape of a large hollowed-out pumpkin, which is then filled with recycled polystyrene balls. Now you might be thinking that polystyrene is terrible stuff, and it is, but there are alternatives. The hot box can also be stuffed with many more desirable materials, including old shredded recycled plastic, fabric, down feathers, straw, newspaper or even barley (although the latter may be rather heavy so will likely need to be mixed with straw, for example).

The idea of the Hot Box is to significantly reduce the energy needed for cooking, by using the power of insulation to retain the initial heat necessary to bring the food to the boil. Once the heat source has been turned off, this initial heat is contained in the Hot Box, cooking the food slowly over a longer period of time. Slow food is definitely the way forward, in fact, everyone should be using these!

To cook with the wonder bag takes a little planning ahead, but can actually save time, energy and reduce the need to watch a hot stove. Furthermore, almost anything can be cooked in this way. To give you an example, brown rice cooked in a Hot Box is super simple. The correct ratio of rice and water is brought to the boil (for about 5 minutes, until the lid is piping hot) and then the stove can be turned off. The hot pot is then placed straight into the awaiting Hot Box, and about 2 hours later the rice is perfect and ready to eat! You may think this is a long time to wait, but let me just remind you that you can stuff and sew a new Hot Box in this time, and you don’t have to worry about anything burning. Some bigger meals and stews may take a few more minutes of stove time, but not much, meaning that every meal cooked in this way is an energy saving win!

Reaching out to kids with Cheetah Outreach

Posted on November 7, 2011 by trashbacksa

For two months now TrashBack has been a-runnin’ and a-learnin’. Part of this a-learnin’ process has a lot to do with expanding the vision and scope of our project. This means looking at new ideas, and approaching things in new ways, starting with our rewards system.

The first new reward we have added is a trip to the Cheetah Outreach, an initiative run through the Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch. Cheetah Outreach promotes “the survival of the free ranging, South African cheetah through environmental education and delivering conservation initiatives”. A really great initiative, and we are proud to be a part of it. This new reward was implemented recently and will now be offered to the TrashBack top collector each week, where the winner will get a chance to take two friends to meet a cheetah!

The promo trip to the Cheetah Outreach was organised for Saturday, October 30th 2011. Jonathan, Andrew and Nicholas from the Trashback team took three groups of three frenzied friends, one parent, as well as Nokwando (our resident Hout Bay recycling centre manager) and her son, to learn more about these majestic animals.

Here is a brief synopsis of the afternoon’s adventure:
With a smooth wrap-up of the usual Saturday rewards day, it was time for the first exciting excursion with our little recycling heroes. They had all proved their material worth and it was time for a reward they will not soon forget. Arriving at the Spier Wine Estate, we were all wearing our high spirits on the sleeves of our TrashBack T-shirts. Jonathan casually ushered us into the outreach centre and proceeded to give us the full guided tour of the Cheetah Outreach facilities, and its furry fauna.
From, black-back jackal siblings, meerkats mates and bat-eared foxes who only eat insects, to cheetah look-a-likes (Servals), patient pacing caracals and an Anatolian Sheppard dog pup breeding programme, this was the place to be! And the kids certainly got the whole story, leaving all the dull moments in the ditch. When the time came to meet the cheetahs, a few nerves had to be conquered first, but our brave little troopers all got a chance to stroke the silky back of the biggest cat they would likely ever see up close.

Then it was time for lunch and play on the grass, the best end to any day. Sandwiches designed by our “out-of-house” graphic designer were enjoyed by all, and the kids still had energy to beat us in a few running races. Happy bellies, happy souls and a lot learnt across the board, but still the most incredible part of it all was seeing their little personalities blossom when presented with the opportunity to express themselves.

To say the least, this pilot trip was an astronomical success! What made it even more so, was the fact that three bright and shiny London-style cabs took us to the venue and back in style, courtesy of Rikkis Taxis. Thanks Rikkis, you guys rock while rolling! Let’s hope we can make the ride a regular deal. Overall, a fantastic experience, and something worth repeating until the Cheetahs get bored of being stroked. Thanks Cheetah Outreach for making this all possible. 1…2…3… TrashBack!

Rewards day number 1… So far so good!

Posted on September 19, 2011 by trashbacksa

After a spectacular launch event on the 3^rd of September, the Trashback uphinda-phindo project was all systems go, and going is exactly what it has been doing. Since the 3^rd, the Hout Bay recycling centre has been seeing a steady flow of Trashback uphinda-phindo participants from the Imizamo Yethu community. As of Friday the 16^th September we had recorded the details of over 240 pro-active peeps bringing in recyclables, and wait for it…. we have collected an astounding 1.7 tonnes of mixed recyclables since the launch two weeks ago!

Saturday 17^th September 2011, was reward day number 1 and we had goodies to reward 50 Top collectors for their amazing efforts over the last two weeks. These committed collectors were notified via sms and most of them came in to collect their rewards, leaving with smiles from ear to ear. The top collectors who didn’t manage to come in on the reward day have been reminded that they can come in next week to get grab their well earned rewards.

We have also decided to run the reward days every Saturday to ensure momentum, so the next rewards day will be on the 24^th of September 2011. Keep following our progress and please help us spread the word by liking or facebook page. Also, any suggestions, contacts or ideas are always welcome.

There is much work left to do and a few kinks to be ironed out, but so far so good. Stay awesome Cape Town, regards the Trashback team.

Trashback uphinda-phindo! has launched

Posted on September 8, 2011 by trashbacksa

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With some early Spring rains the day before, our timing was perfect and we were happy to see that the sun was shining brightly on Saturday the 3^rd of September 2011. All our ducks were in a row and the big day had finally come; today was the launch of the Trashback uphinda-phindo pilot project!

The Trashback team met at the Hout Bay recycling centre (HBRC) at 9 am, along with several volunteers from UCT’s Green Campus Initiative, and we began the preparation for the day’s events. Holes were drilled and our signage and banners attached, wood was stacked and the braai’s began to burn, the HBRC staff were briefed and all was on track for our 1pm launch. But as we were putting on the final touches, and to our utter amazement, people from the Imizamo Yethu community began to filter in to drop off their recyclables way before the scheduled time, and by 1pm we already had a queue developing in the collection area.

From 1pm onwards it was all systems go, and the response was incredible! We saw over 90 participants in total bringing in their recyclables, which is extraordinary seeing as we had only informed 30 kids from the Hout Bay High School about the launch two weeks ago. We ended up presenting 22 top collectors with rewards, including clothes from the Clothing Bank, R25 Spar shopping vouchers, R26 fish and chips vouchers from Fish on the Rocks and Grade 10 Physical Science textbooks from Siyavula. The most outstanding statistic of the day, however, was surely the fact that we collected 394kg’s of recyclables from these community members in 2.5 hours, some 394kg’s of reusable materials that would no longer go to landfill due to one day of running Trashback.

Overall, it was a great day, with lots of positive spirit and happy, smiling faces. A huge thank you to all of our partners and sponsors, Nokwanda and her Hout Bay recycling team, Leonie from Ecobuzz and all our enthusiastic GCI volunteers for making the day a smashing success. Well done everyone! We believe it is the start of something great, so watch this space!

Enviro-club visit

Posted on August 28, 2011 by trashbacksa

On Thursday the 18^th of August the Trashback team visited the kids from the Enviro-club at the Hout Bay High School in the Hangklip community. Isabella and Nqobizitha, two volunteers from UCT’s Green Campus Initiative, were there to lend a hand, taking photos and notes while Nicholas and Andrew gave the kids the low down about the launch day and beyond. These 30 school goers (grades 10-12) will be the “seeders” for the launch of the Trashback uphinda-phindo! project, and are the initial link to the community, spreading the word about converting rubbish into rewards.

We asked the Enviro-troopers to bring along one friend or family member to the launch event on the 3rd of September. To make sure everybody gets involved in the festivities, we are offering some awesome promotional goodies to all the kids (and their plus ones) who bring in a minimum of 1 full black bag worth of sorted recycling on the day.

As an example of how the project will run after the launch, we will also be giving out rewards to Top collectors at the launch event. Rubbish bags have been left at the school and the kids will have until the day of the launch event to collect as many recyclables as possible for a chance to win these Top collector rewards. The 20 attendees that have collected the most recyclables will be rewarded on the launch day.