Soyeon Lee, award-winning pianist and wife of TerraCycle CEO Tom Szaky, recently released a new album, Re!nvented. Not only does the album draw on reused or revisited classical selections, but the album itself is encased in reused/upcycled potato chip bags!
Lee worked with TerraCycle to produce the world’s most eco-friendly CD packaging- made from chip bags collected by millions of school children in North America. Each case is unique; made by compressing the shredded bags. Typical jewel cases are made out of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), an inexpensive petrochemical-based plastic that is notoriously difficult to recycle and is linked to elevated cancer rates among workers and people who live near manufacturing plants.
This is clearly one small step in the right direction – ideally I think music would be distributed online rather than on physical CDs and our data centers would be powered with renewable energy. But in the meantime, we need to be thinking more and more creatively, searching for ways to use what we already have to suit our needs, as Lee has done with her new album. Not only is the package a unique conversation starter, but the music is exquisite. See more photos here.
October 20, 2009 at 1:36 am
This is really cool. It seems Tom Szaky has found a way to reuse trash in almost every imaginable way. This guy is a genius and is practicing what he preaches.