Summer has always been a time for a focus on fashion on Lopez Island. Many Lopezians fondly remember SWAP’s sold out Trashion Fashion Shows and many will remember last year’s Sustainable Fashion week last July. As part of LSWDD’s “Year of Reuse” this year’s Sustainable Fashion Week is July 20-27, 2019. The kick off event began at Vitas on Saturday, July 20th from 5:30-8 pm. Outdoor Fashion design expert, Tracy Cottingham gave a short update on the cutting edge of sustainable fashion trends from an industry insider perspective. On the local front, LSWDD’s Nikyta Palmisani delivered an entertaining update on LSWDD textile reuse and recycling. A curated fashion show featured stylist created couture from local spaces that offer fashion forward clothing reuse and consignment: DeJaVu Consignment, the Lopez Thrift Store, the Take It or Leave It, and Pachamama Apothecary. Fabulous models showed off haute fashion combinations, while MC’s representing each business educated and elucidated the audience on the value of vintage, consignment, second hand and reused fashion. The evening ended with a Shirt to Skirt parade hosted by SWAP. Here are some great photos from the event:

Where: LSWDD When: June 22nd, 2019; 11am-2pm More info below and at https://www.sanjuanco.com/351/Hazardous-Waste, or by calling San Juan County Public Works office at 360-370-0534. What is Household Hazardous Waste Household hazardous wastes (HHW) can come in the form of liquids, solids, or contained gases. They are often ordinary commercial products, like cleaning fluids or pesticides. They should not be thrown in the trash or poured down the drain or on the ground. Island drinking water is particularly susceptible to contamination by discarded waste. San Juan County and the Washington Department of Ecology conduct annual Hazardous Waste Round-Ups to remove these toxic materials from our islands and maintain a healthy environment. The roundup events, individual households and businesses deliver their collected hazardous materials, where they are received and securely packaged by trained professionals, then barged to the mainland and taken to specialized disposal facilities. Collections of hazardous materials are prohibited on Washington State ferries and at terminals. Accepted Items Oil-based paints/stains/wood preservativesGasoline, kerosene, diesel, alcoholsAuto/boat repair productsChemical cleaning supplies/solvents/thinnersAerosols/adhesivesUsed motor oil and antifreezePesticides/herbicidesLead batteries Households There is no charge for households participating with up to 25 gallons (or the equivalent) of household hazardous waste. Businesses Local businesses that generate only small quantities of hazardous waste (SQG's) participate in the round-up events at a a much lower cost than if they were to individually manage their own hazardous or moderate risk wastes. SQG businesses before the round-up event. A form is placed in the What's New box at the top of this page. Call the County Public Works office at 360-370-0534 if you have any questions.

Summer hours begin next Friday, May 31: 11-4 pm Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Mondays trash & recycling only: 11-4 pm

Year of Reuse Programs This month's Year of Reuse program at the Lopez Library will be a hands-on afternoon of up-cycling. Be inspired to transform familiar items that would otherwise end up in the landfill or recycling bin into beautiful and fun containers for plants and gardens. The program will also include a demonstration of how to transform wine bottles into succulent containers and/or drinking tumblers with one special cut. A few free demonstration glasses will be available to program participants. If you have great garden container up-cycle materials, ideas, or examples, bring your photos or containers to share with the group. The Library will provide some potting soil, and a few succulent plants for taking home. Please bring any plants to use in your own creation, or to share with others. This event is free and open to all ages, and will leave many free items for participants to take home with them.

We're hiring a new District Manager and an Assistant Facility Manager. Join our amazing team and organization. Competitive pay and benefits, friendly work environment, and mission-driven work are part of the package. See more information here...

Twice a year there is an islands wide Great Islands Clean Up. Lopez has participated for the last five years, and this year we added a bit more fun to it! We invited all the other islands to try out an art challenge: to build a sustainable sculpture from the litter collected during this Spring's Great Islands Clean Up. Lopez and San Juan Islands had art teams. Lopez designed a mermaid, and gathered all the materials from litter collected from the 61 miles of beaches and roadsides cleaned this spring! Our team: Ron Norman and Nick Teague on structural design and fabrication, Nikyta Palmisani, Kate Scott, Vern Norberg, Jonathan Dahl, Luna Doherty, her friend May, and Colin Doherty on design fabrications and decor. Other folks kept dropping by and lending hands-- Thanks to Kerry and Sydney Ratza, Jack Pedigo, Page Read, and a host of others who jumped in! Our build team had the goal of a 36 hour build from start to finish, and we completed it! To see the art completed by Lopez and San Juan, come to the Talking Trash Workshop on San Juan Island, Thursday, April 25th from 5-7 pm. After that, Rik Rak will be on display at the Lopez Dump.

Take the survey to give your input for the Lopez Island Tool Lending Library (LITLL) here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DWCPDHG

THANK YOU so much for 2018's incredible Year to Zero Waste! Your zero waste challenges resulted in articulate and engaging blog posts (https://www.lopezsolidwaste.org/news-info/categories/zero-waste-challenge). In these posts we learned how to compost with Liz, Teri and Ashi. We learned that old recyclers *can* be taught new tricks from Scott and Ande. Liz and Kim gave us a peek into their incredible repurposed household and Jessica and Joel taught us about the value of repair, just to name a few examples. Y2Z got folks both excited and mobilized to make change and because of your participation, so many community based waste reducing innovations have become part of Lopez Island life. So to share these awesome waste reducing new happenings on our island and to celebrate *you* we are having a Y2Z Closing Party on Thursday, Feb 28th from 5-6:30 in the Lopez Library Conference Room (where it all began). There will be tea and treats and SO MANY great innovations to share, as well as information about what we learned was a great step to reduce waste: Reuse! So we have declared 2019: The Year of Reuse! Come learn about what we have in store for 2019 including more Repair/Fix it Cafes, a new Tool Lending Library, Lopez Trashion Fashion costumes going on the road to other local Trashion Fashion shows, and much much more!  Hope to see you there and thank you again for a fabulous Year to Zero Waste!

Hello makers! Are you curious about 3D printing, have prints you want to make, or just see it all happen in person? Well then come on down and join our 3D printing community. The first meeting will be an overview about free softwares we are using and a few demo prints. For designing we recommend Tinkercad: www.tinkercad.com. For software that takes designs and slices them into files for 3D printing we recommend Cura: https://ultimaker.com/en/products/ultimaker-cura-software. Please bring your own laptop preferably with these software programs already loaded on it. (Fusion 360 is also a great design program, but costs in some cases). www.Thingiverse.com is another great resource to see 3D designs ready to print and free. This group is free and open to all. Kids under 12 need to be accompanied by an adult. Please contact nikytap@lopezsolidwaste.org to reserve a space.

Documentary film maker Carl Davis volunteered his time to make this beautiful mini documentary about a Plastic Free Salish Sea. It features many LSWDD community projects inclduing our Year to Zero Waste Campaign, TIOLI and our object diversion into community reuse streams. Lopezian Mark Herrenkohl, San Juan County's Solid Waste Manager is included, and Pete Moe of the ORS Exchange along with partners from other islands. Well worth the 20 minute watch! Enjoy!

Come out on Thursday, December 13 from 6-8 pm to Grace Hall for our annual LSWDD Volunteer Appreciation party! It's a sweet or savory finger food potluck, with libations provided by SWAP. And if you have a great thing to included in the White Elephant Gift Exchange, bring it wrapped in a recyclable/reusable package! Looking forward to another wonderful night with the people who make us what we are. We could not do it without our volunteers!

LSWDD had the privledelge to give a site tour to students and teachers from Shaw Island. Here is the fantastic video thank you card of what they learned! Enjoy-- we loved it!