Junk Moment

Just read about a 17 foot tree sculpture made entirely of junk mail. It was the inspiration of Hector Dio Mendoza. He has used everything from drug ads to credit cards to shredded catalogs to build this thing. Anything that comes in the mail.

The people at Bay Area recycling gave him $2,200 to make this a reality. He asked 5 friends to give him all of their junk mail, and in two weeks he had collected 50 pounds of stuff, enough for his idea with much leftover. The goal of the project is to remind people that Americans get 42 billion pieces of junk mail a year.

The Bay Area Recycling Outreach Coalition, a group of public trach agencies, says more than 100 million trees are cut down in the name of junk mail each year. The irony of this particular project is that all of the material in the project was recyclable , but now that it is art, it is no longer recyclable because in the process of creating the tree, he used much glue and wire and attached it to plastic pipe. It is now on a grand tour of the bay area, visiting trash agencies and city halls. Hope it comes to our area. i would love to see it.

This article from the SF Chronicle also lists an email address from the coalition for techniques for getting off junk mail lists at www.stopjunkmail.org, or by calling (877) 786-9627. I am going to check this out right now.