However, this doesn’t mean that you have to give up surfing altogether, thanks to Tony Smith. The founder of Jarvis Boards, a company that makes wooden paddleboards and surfboards out of recycled material, Smith handcrafts each board in the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, while making sure they use a minimum amount of plastic.

According to the company’s website, the material used for boards is “recycled foam core, eco-friendly lightweight wood, and resins made from recycled bio-waste.”

While Smith’s boards can cost up to $4,500, they are well worth it. Not only they look amazing, but they also last three times longer than conventional boards. 

Check them out below.

The post Man Crafts Awesome Boards Using Recycled Material appeared first on PlayJunkie.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is just that. Founded in 1977 by Daphne Sheldrick, in memory of her husband, conservationist David Sheldrick, the Trust has been fighting poaching and rescuing elephants for over 40 years. They have helped pass anti-poaching laws, rehabilitated hurt and orphaned elephants, and created a safe habitat for wild animals in Africa.

Their most well-known project, though, is their elephant orphanage. The Sheldricks had been caring for orphaned elephants decades before the Trust was even founded, helping to raise baby elephants who lost their mothers to poaching or that were abandoned. These baby elephants, who would have died out there in the wild, were given a second chance in life thanks to the Sheldrick family’s devotion.

Today, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust still runs an elephant orphanage and it even allows people from all over the world to “adopt” a baby elephant and help care for them! These sweet creatures get to grow and live a full, happy elephant life, surrounded by their found pack and nurtured by a few kind-hearted folks.

The post This Elephant Orphanage Will Warm Your Heart appeared first on PlayJunkie.

The tiny house movement has been trending in the past couple of years. Tiny house owners live in houses of about 300 square feet, that they either build themselves or commission from professional tiny house construction companies. Tiny houses can be immobile, or they can have wheels; They can be made with traditional materials such as wood or bricks, or they can be made from recycled materials such as old shipping containers, boats, and cars. Basically, if it has four walls and a roof- it can be a tiny house.

Tiny house owners live their lives free. They don’t have a mortgage to pay, they can travel the country if their house is on wheels, and they can sometimes even generate their own electricity with solar panels and gather rainwaters in a tank, thus avoiding bills – and unnecessary emissions.

Tiny houses may not be for everyone, but they sure are an interesting answer to our world’s problems. And who knows, maybe in the future we’ll all downsize to small, mobile, self-sufficient spaces.

The post These People Ditched Mortgages For Tiny Houses appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Or, at least, just how destructive all of that junk can be to turtles. You see, unlike other animals, turtles are quite unique in that their mouths are specifically built to keep things in but not out. This means they struggle when things like plastic get sucked in.

The photos by Kairo, an artist, as well as a biologist, explain in detail what happens when sea turtles and plastic meet. It’s a pretty harrowing series of photos that will have you seriously thinking about what you can do to help out the environment, even if it’s something as simple as learning how to segregate your trash and not throwing your plastic everywhere.

Take a look:

The post Artist Shows Just How Destructive Plastic Is For Turtles appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Artivist Benjamin Von Wong had the same mentality, “what do small decisions matter?” and one day he found himself surrounded by mountains of trash with no end, piles of people’s small decisions.

Since then, he has gathered activists in the forms of artists, NGOs, volunteers, and companies to create art installations that bring the devastating magnitude and impact of our trash in front of our eyes.

His installations feature staggering numbers of waste: 168,000 straws, which took six months to collect from the streets of Vietnam; 10, 000 plastic bottles, the number of bottles an average American will use in their lifetime. The installations show the death of nature in the midst of our consumerist attitude, with the hope of raising awareness in audiences that are faced with the dark reality.

Scroll down to check out Wong’s work:

The post This Artivist Raises Environmental Awareness by Turning Trash into Art appeared first on PlayJunkie.

However, this doesn’t mean that you have to give up surfing altogether, thanks to Tony Smith. The founder of Jarvis Boards, a company that makes wooden paddleboards and surfboards out of recycled material, Smith handcrafts each board in the company’s headquarters in Austin, Texas, while making sure they use a minimum amount of plastic.

According to the company’s website, the material used for boards is “recycled foam core, eco-friendly lightweight wood, and resins made from recycled bio-waste.”

While Smith’s boards can cost up to $4,500, they are well worth it. Not only they look amazing, but they also last three times longer than conventional boards. 

Check them out below.

The post Man Crafts Awesome Boards Using Recycled Material appeared first on PlayJunkie.

The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust is just that. Founded in 1977 by Daphne Sheldrick, in memory of her husband, conservationist David Sheldrick, the Trust has been fighting poaching and rescuing elephants for over 40 years. They have helped pass anti-poaching laws, rehabilitated hurt and orphaned elephants, and created a safe habitat for wild animals in Africa.

Their most well-known project, though, is their elephant orphanage. The Sheldricks had been caring for orphaned elephants decades before the Trust was even founded, helping to raise baby elephants who lost their mothers to poaching or that were abandoned. These baby elephants, who would have died out there in the wild, were given a second chance in life thanks to the Sheldrick family’s devotion.

Today, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust still runs an elephant orphanage and it even allows people from all over the world to “adopt” a baby elephant and help care for them! These sweet creatures get to grow and live a full, happy elephant life, surrounded by their found pack and nurtured by a few kind-hearted folks.

The post This Elephant Orphanage Will Warm Your Heart appeared first on PlayJunkie.

The tiny house movement has been trending in the past couple of years. Tiny house owners live in houses of about 300 square feet, that they either build themselves or commission from professional tiny house construction companies. Tiny houses can be immobile, or they can have wheels; They can be made with traditional materials such as wood or bricks, or they can be made from recycled materials such as old shipping containers, boats, and cars. Basically, if it has four walls and a roof- it can be a tiny house.

Tiny house owners live their lives free. They don’t have a mortgage to pay, they can travel the country if their house is on wheels, and they can sometimes even generate their own electricity with solar panels and gather rainwaters in a tank, thus avoiding bills – and unnecessary emissions.

Tiny houses may not be for everyone, but they sure are an interesting answer to our world’s problems. And who knows, maybe in the future we’ll all downsize to small, mobile, self-sufficient spaces.

The post These People Ditched Mortgages For Tiny Houses appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Or, at least, just how destructive all of that junk can be to turtles. You see, unlike other animals, turtles are quite unique in that their mouths are specifically built to keep things in but not out. This means they struggle when things like plastic get sucked in.

The photos by Kairo, an artist, as well as a biologist, explain in detail what happens when sea turtles and plastic meet. It’s a pretty harrowing series of photos that will have you seriously thinking about what you can do to help out the environment, even if it’s something as simple as learning how to segregate your trash and not throwing your plastic everywhere.

Take a look:

The post Artist Shows Just How Destructive Plastic Is For Turtles appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Artivist Benjamin Von Wong had the same mentality, “what do small decisions matter?” and one day he found himself surrounded by mountains of trash with no end, piles of people’s small decisions.

Since then, he has gathered activists in the forms of artists, NGOs, volunteers, and companies to create art installations that bring the devastating magnitude and impact of our trash in front of our eyes.

His installations feature staggering numbers of waste: 168,000 straws, which took six months to collect from the streets of Vietnam; 10, 000 plastic bottles, the number of bottles an average American will use in their lifetime. The installations show the death of nature in the midst of our consumerist attitude, with the hope of raising awareness in audiences that are faced with the dark reality.

Scroll down to check out Wong’s work:

The post This Artivist Raises Environmental Awareness by Turning Trash into Art appeared first on PlayJunkie.