Live Debris Ekone Ranch

Candle made from waste glycerine from biodiesel production.

Lilly warms a camper's lap while she weaves with bailing twine and fabric ends. The open weaving frame was also constructed from ranch scraps-- mill ends and old metal pipes.

Kids help compact plastic waste for plastic seat construction.

Camp kids help wash bike tubes

Reuse building also puts math skills to practice

Robot made from Random Box O' Junk findings

Plastic bags and bike tube skirt

Kids make and sell reuse crafts to raise money for our scholarship fund. Ekone kids are the greatest!

This farm stand visitor indicates an eco-friendly spot near the plastic container lid earrings

Instruments! Making music together. Kids made instruments... I then surprised them by giving their instrument to another kid to finish. It was a great lesson in trust, letting go, creative collaboration and in thoughful kindness towards others. And all of the instruments were beautifully improved upon.

Making ropes...and jumping ropes.

Plastic container lid earrings. Kids made earrings like these and sold them to benefit the scholarship fund.

In response to Haiti and other place in the world with few resources besides garbage, we designed a gutter system make from 100% plastic bottles and requiring only a knife to assemble. Here we are testing it out. Next step: rain barrels.

Old barbed wire removed from the land preserve is rolled into barbed wire balls...to be sold at this year's Barbed Wire Ball auction gala (Sept 25th, 2010)

The kids made a hammock out of fabris scraps.

100% plastic anemone seat made with help from Ekone kids.

One of our favorite work partiers helps make burnable logs with glycerine waste from biodiesel production.

Making plastic bottle stools with bottles, discarded cling wrap and plastic bags, using a brazilian building technique

Ironing plastic bags to cover the stools

Making a community bulletin board

Peace feathers cut from milk jug, after a lesson in world conflict, discussing ways that individuals can promote peace in ourselves and in the world. The feathers now hang in the lodge windows to deter birds.

Ekone’s mission to teach sustainable living to children of all ages is taking shape artistically through reuse art and ecology programming developed to help people live more peacefully both on the earth and with each other. Thanks in part to a grant from the Puffin Foundation, Ekone is hosting Live Debris, an ongoing experiment in social inclusion and peace making through the artistic and functional reuse of garbage.

Live Debris Ekone teaches kids to transform the ranch’s discards into something useful, while also learning to overcome prejudice, mend bruised friendships, set aside judgments and live more peacefully in the world. The program is so successful in transforming waste into function, that residents have had to bring waste in from the city to meet programming needs. And in just 6 weeks, Ekone camp kids helped transform more than 200lbs of waste into function.

Ekone Ranch is managed by the Sacred Earth Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) non-profit protecting 1,060 acres of preservation land, hosting the country's only wilderness burial ground and teaching sustainable living to children of all ages.

-Taylor Cass Stevenson