Last month, 22 benches were packed in a 40 foot ocean-going freight container at the artist’s studio in Rotterdam. After an Atlantic ocean crossing, U.S. customs clearance, and a few truck trips, the container arrived at the park.

IMA staff assembled on the morning of arrival ready to unload and unpack. We opened the container to find each bench thoughtfully packed and placed within the container. As is typical with artwork in transit, extra materials were used to pad and protect each piece. However, given the size of the work, these “extra materials” amounted to a huge pile of Styrofoam.

Feeling a little guilty about leaving the Styrofoam in a dumpster for trash pickup, I began to ask coworkers if they knew of any places in Indy where we could take the foam to be recycled. Sure enough, just up the road from the IMA, we found exactly what we were looking for. We threw the first of two loads into an IMA Horticulture dump truck and headed to our destination.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by Mark Vandersall and the friendly staff at the Createc Corporation. After unloading the dump truck, Mark was kind enough to walk us through the process of recycling EPS (Expanded Polystyrene) Styrofoam.

Clean, white EPS Styrofoam is fed into the granulator (much like a wood chipper) where it is chopped up into small pieces. These pieces then accumulate in a large dustless bag. From there, they move down to the “densifier” which uses an auger and pressure to eliminate the air in the foam granules. The final product is a highly condensed “log.” These recycled “logs” can then be molded to make new products such as building insulation and product packaging.

Granulator Dustless bag Extrusion

To give you an idea of just how dense the materials become; our dump truck full of material was condensed into this:

One cubic foot of recycled Styrofoam. (iPhone added for scale)

This blog entry has a dual purpose:

I want to thank the IMA staff who helped in the process of getting the materials recycled. Thanks to Chad Franer, Laurie Gilbert, TJ Lemanski, and Scott Shoultz (who is now, if he wasn’t already, an expert dump truck driver). I’m glad to know that at the IMA, we are always striving for ways to be green.

I also want to spread the word that there is a great place in Indy that is more than happy to take unwanted EPS Styrofoam off your hands. Createc accepts clean, white, molded EPS (#6) Styrofoam Monday through Friday from 9-4.

Happy recycling!

Never underestimate the potential of a bruised banana. Around the office at the IMA, my desk is known as repository for fruit that’s past its prime. Colleagues know—as an obsessive recycler—that I will repurpose their bananas by taking them home, tossing them in the freezer and using them in a smoothie.

The re-use ethic is the foundation of freeganism, the practice of strategic food salvaging. Freegans use their wits to rescue perfectly good food out of the back doors of grocery stores and other venues. Freegans and freecyclers can imagine other uses for other people’s garbage. [If you are an Indy-based freegan, please respond to this post!]

I love freeganism because it raises questions about transgression and imagination—topics with which an art museum concerns itself. What risks are necessary to alter current systems and make the planet greener? Can artists and scientists re-engineer our technologies, and our worldviews—in time to save our skins from climate change? Designer Bruce Mau, whose name gets mentioned a lot around the IMA, put out a book and exhibition called Massive Change. His agenda is to show how the world can be re-designed (think Google Earth, water purification machines, biotechnologies, etc.) to save itself. Creativity is required to re-think bad systems, such as the coal-fired power plants that make Indiana the second most polluted state in the nation.

The IMA is doing its part to reduce our footprint. Our director of facilities has figured out to reduce our average monthly electricity and natural gas usage by over 21 percent since the beginning of 2006. That said, we are still struggling to institute recycling in public places at the museum. We can’t find a local recycling vendor that will accept plastics 1 – 7 and actually recycle them as advertised. The good news is that our frustration caused us to move from plastic plates to china plates in the IMA Cafe.

If you’re looking to green your outlook, check out some amazing events coming up: artist Fritz Haeg, who lived in a geodesic dome, created the Edible Estates garden project, and recently built a beaver dam on top of the Whitney Museum, is speaking at Herron School of Art today, (Earth Day, Tuesday, April 22).

Architect Maya Lin is speaking at the IMA next Tuesday, April 29, about the Indiana geologic inspiration for her installation Above and Below on the balcony of the galleries of Asian art. And as soon as the Tobias Theater opens, watch for Garbage Warrior, a documentary about New Mexico-based architect Michael Reynolds who builds buildings from trash.

In the film, Reynolds refers to himself as “the turd in the punch bowl” of the architecture world. That’s one way to put it. I’ll say: Thumbs up for creative (and green) transgressions.