March 23, 2009Old tires and other trashy ideas
Ketzel Levine, past Doyenne of Dirt for NPR, now blogging at Ketzel Uprooted is posting about a post that is about a post about car tires re-imagined as planters. Now I’m repurposing Ketzel’s post.
I’m all for reusing the world’s resources, including Ketzel’s, but something about this recycled tire container hints at a racket.
Recycled tires were the rage for nanosecond—that was like in the 80s when people were turning them inside out and painting them pink. Tires are great to use to grow watermelon since watermelon wants its soil really warm. In its simplest incarnation - you plop a tire on top of the soil, fill it with more soil, and plant your watermelon seed or starts in the middle. And used tires are free.
The re-imagined jobs going around the blogosphere will cost you $200 for a set of 4.
Let’s check on the whole “green” claim too: Recycled tire planters need to be processed so they’re water tight. If you buy them from Zicla in Spain they’ll need to be shipped mucho miles, and they’re quite heavy. If you buy them from Design Within Reach, they will still ship from somewhere far away. Not so green when you count the miles to truck them to you.
Compare that to the used tire you take home the next time you get a flat. Flat tire could be the greenest solution. Just don’t go painting it pink. OK so turn it inside out and paint it pink. Here’s a link on how to do it.
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