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His wife and children love animals so the family got a couple of horses , then took in rescues off the racetracks , plus a few donkeys and pigs . They began inviting the Maher Center — an organization that serves adults with disabilities — to visit as part of a horse therapy program .
“ It ’ s not like we ’ re a nonprofit ; we ’ re just doing it because we like to do it . It makes us feel good ,” he says . “ It ’ s a busy life , it ’ s a full life . It ’ s nice .”
Deininger returned to art when a piece he created for the Artists for the Bay fundraiser — an event he helped establish for Save The Bay — was posted to Instagram and was received with great fanfare . He ’ d always felt compelled to make art but was uncomfortable marketing himself to potential buyers and gallerists . But , on social media , the people would come to him . Today , he has 98,000 followers , and the engagement energizes him .
“ Hopefully it brings them a nice experience . A delight . They can look at it and appreciate the transformation of things that are lined up to make an illusion ,” he says . “ Maybe they don ’ t recognize some object and they wonder what it belongs to . Maybe they have an intimate relationship with an object and it triggers a blip in their mind . Maybe they think about a perspective that the whole world is an illusion — kind of a gut thing of the thinness of how we see ; how sure of ourselves we can be . Doubt is a beautiful thing .”
Instagram has also earned Deininger a steady trickle of sales , and he seems to relish the paradox of selling garbage that washed up on the beach — artfully arranged , but still — to high-dollar buyers .
“ There ’ s nothing better than to have somebody wealthy put this back on their wall as decoration ,” he says . “ It ’ s Rumpelstiltskin . There is this punk-ass bit to it where people are like , ‘ Oh , that ’ s junk ’ and , well , I can figure out a way for you to keep all this stuff . It ’ s taking the junk and selling it back to them for them to consider .”
Despite his feats in the digital realm , Deininger ’ s eye is still trained on the natural world .
“ I ’ ve been kiteboarding a lot — like , obsessively — and I ’ ve been watching birds fly ,” he says . “ I ’ ve always loved birds but now I ’ m looking at them . Every single bird is a potential subject matter .”
After staring at the birds long enough , he ’ s able to manifest the exact scalloping of a cardinal ’ s feathers or the exact variation of the blue jay ’ s blue , and all in unrecyclable plastic . His approach — using manufactured materials that ’ ll linger longer than his subjects — is a “ half-baked artist ’ s solution ” to the blight of consumer waste , he says . But , like the art itself , there ’ s a duality at play .
“ I see my collection of little action figures and dolls and toys , and for every toy there ’ s a conception to it . There ’ s art in every part of the process , down to the chemicals that make it and the molds to make it ,” he says . “ Everything we make is just this incredible feat of ingenuity that makes our lives more interesting . It ’ s inherently not horrible stuff ; it ’ s born out of our creative spirit . But now we have to live with it .”
He continues , “ Maybe it ’ s an excuse for me to look at the world and not be so angry . It ’ s a celebration and a condemnation of all the material things we live with .” tom deiningerart . com – C . N .
Talking Trash : Reduce Redux
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an additional $ 250 handling fee .) With the globe ’ s biggest market for plastic and paper recyclables shuttered , the value of scrap commodities dropped . Prices have since rebounded , but the MRF operates at a loss , and has not been able to profit-share with the cities and towns since 2015 .
Three years ago , the RIRRC succeeded in raising the per-ton municipal tipping fee from $ 32 , where it had been stuck for a quarter century , to $ 47 a ton by the 2018 – 2019 fiscal year . The RIRRC was poised to raise them again , but the municipalities pleaded COVID-related poverty and won a year ’ s reprieve .
The agency gained some ground by bringing the commercial per-ton rates in line with market rates . But those higher fees prompted commercial users to seek other disposal outlets and , combined with a drop in commercial waste caused by the pandemic , volume fell by 25 percent and the corporation lost $ 16 million .
In short , the RIRRC must manage an essential paradox : reducing waste adds years to the landfill ’ s life , and simultaneously reduces the funds to pay for expansions , capital improvements and meeting environmental regulations .
In July of 2018 , the corporation released its study of disposal alternatives when the
Central Landfill finally reaches its current capacity . They range from a Phase VII expansion to siting a new landfill elsewhere in Rhode Island to long-hauling our garbage out of state to burning it to diverting organic waste via an anaerobic digestion facility and expanded composting — or a combination of these options . Some will take a decade or more to plan and execute , so the RIRRC will have to make a choice in the next five years .
In the meantime , the best way to kick the can down the road is to recycle it .
Talking Trash : Got Worms
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worms and raising them was much harder than we thought . People who used to be my customers would sell me their worms wholesale , but that wasn ’ t enough .”
She often sourced from the West Coast — where , unlike Rhode Island , the climate encourages year-round mating — but shipment issues resulted in boxes full of dead worms . ( Such imagery puts our own postal complaints into perspective .) Recently , though , she connected with a South County horse farm with a plentiful supply of worms . It ’ s a promising partnership that could help the business grow more than ever before .
Warner mentions the show “ Blue Collar Millionaire ” — how one of the millionaires is a vermiculturist like herself . But she doesn ’ t think she ’ ll get rich raising worms . Maybe someone else will : folks she inspired through her children ’ s book , What is a Red Wiggler ?, or the budding worm farmers she ’ s training in her new incubator program . There ’ s never been more interest in the work , she says , both for individuals and on the state level .
“ The state decided that big operations — over 100 tons of food waste — couldn ’ t take it to the dump so many people started compost businesses ,” she says . “ So that put a whole new emphasis on worms .”
At eighty years old , the work is a lot for her , even with a few part-time helpers . But Warner sees the operation as more than just a business .
“ It ’ s a mission project because you see what people are doing to the soil and you know this works ,” she says . “ It ’ s a win-win situation : You ’ re taking your garbage and making this wonderful soil enhancer . I ’ m sold on the product , for sure .”
Buy worms , compost tea , fresh castings , home worm bins , reading materials , red wiggler earrings — seriously ! — and more at worm ladies . com . – C . N . �
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