Ecojoiners & Updates
Dear Trainers,
Earthday is around the corner, so its time for some GEA updates.
First a big thank you to all of you who purchased AES Plastic offset last month. See our open books for the full breakdown. Thanks to over three dozen offsets purchases, ranging from 1 to 800kg of plastic, we were able to pay our database bill, keep gobrik up and keep upgrading our systems. Yeay! 🤩🙏🎉
Speaking of upgrades... thanks again to your support, we've got some massive updates to announce!
Earthen Newsletter platform
First of all, maybe you've already noticed that our newsletter looks wayyyyy better?
We're excited to announce that we've upgraded to a whole new system for sending our emails. We're now using Ghost.org– a fully open source newsletter platform that let's us keep 100% control of the software, user data and system management. Plus, it looks and works wayyyy better than our previous GoBrik Knack based system.
From now on we'll use this platform for this trainer specific newsletter (we'll have Indonesian and English versions). We'll also be using it to upgrade our Earthen newsletter that goes out to all ecobrickers. You're automatically subscribed to both the English Trainer Newsetter and Earthen. You can manage your subscriptions on Earthen.io– soon to be integrated with ecobricks.org.
Ecobricks.org
Our main website is fully upgraded! Custom coded from the ground up, our new site is designed to be both Earth and human friendly. This means the page-loads are light and fast and the interface is easy on the eyes (try the new dark mode!). All our core content is refreshed for 2024. Source code on github. All our core content is now available in English, French, Spanish and Indonesian. And now all our content is now searchable.
Interested, in the tech specs? Check out the 2024 French Ecobricks.org Upgrade report.
We've still got lots of work ahead. Hint: we'll need your help with translations and content revision! We'll keep you posted on this.
Earth Day
The theme of this year's Earth Day is Planet vs Plastic! That means its truly the best moment to make some ecobricks. We're developing a special "twibbon" ecobrick photo frame. We'll share the link to the campaign with you shortly in a following email.
Ecojoiners
As promised, an update on our ecojoiner development!
Our team has been progressing slow and steady, 3D printing prototypes over the last months.
As you can see, ecojoiners are designed to permit a whole new way to connect ecobricks together. We have a set of five different types of joiners that allow different types of connections. The model below is called a boa. It allows ecobricks to be connected in different positions one after another.
With just a little imagination, you can start to see how useful this will be: imagine long bars of ecobricks! We're already using two-ecobrick poles for table legs in our lab and single units for wall shelves. These bars can be as long as you want to make them!
Currently, the prototypes are being made with 3D printed PLA plastic. This is temporary. The final ecojoiners will be made with entirely 'remolded' plastic. Currently our team is developing an Injector machine and the molds to be able to use recovered ocean and river plastic (as well as the PLA from our prototypes!) to make the ecojoiners. Our vision is that ecojoiner projects, by embodying Earthen ethics, can sequester both home plastic (ecobricks) and recovered plastic (ecojoiners).
This spiraling of plastic towards greener and greener uses is an embodiment of the first Earthen ethic of enriching cycles. The spiral towards concentration follows the third Earthen ethic of sequestration.
New Features
So you'll also notice that on our new ecobricks.org site we've got a feed of the latest ecobricks and projects. 🤩 This means, that every newsletter we can now feature a remarkable ecobrick and a remarkable project! It also means you can go to ecobricks.org any time for fresh inspiration. Let's start with that right now!
Featured Ecobrick
Pak Budi in Pekalongan, Indonesian logged this one with a great serial number and equally great technique.👏
Global Ecobrick Alliance
Featured Project
Check out this handy beside table by GEA center circle trainer Fran O'Flanagan. Simple is beautiful! 👌
Global Ecobrick Alliance
On behalf of the GEA Center Circle, thank you again for all your planet passion, patience and support.
Onward to the beautiful green world for all that we all long to live.
Russell, Ani, Lucie, Fran, Aang, Setiaji, Rere, Yuni, and Ashim
