WEBVTT

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Happy Earth Day, everyone.

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Today we are going to talk about ways
that we can help sustain the environment.

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[hopeful music]

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All right, so one of the ways
we can help sustain the environment

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is by reusing and maximizing
the usage of materials,

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which is another way we can say
helping by recycling.

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Recycling is the action or process
of converting waste into reusable material

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so we can decompose waste materials
and make them into new products.

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All right. If we dig a little deeper

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we can start comparing between
Upcycling and Downcycling.

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Upcycling is the process where we transform
and reuse products, or unwanted useless products,

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and make them into greater value than their original,

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so these are like craft or artistic projects

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--turning carton boxes into a mini bookshelf--

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while downcycling is turning something
into a product of lesser value.

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Most of the time when we recycle,

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we take, like, papers from books
and turn them into toilet paper.

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Most of the time it involves
reprocessing that material

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and then turning it into something else.

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OK, well, let's get creative
and do some upcycling.

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Today I'm going to show you
how to make old

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--you know, not wearing any more--

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t-shirts into fabric reusable grocery bags.

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So what you're going to need is old t-shirts,
fabric scissors, a ruler, and a sharpie

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and we can go ahead and get started.

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[energetic music]

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OK, so first we're going to get
an old t-shirt like this

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and start cutting along the sleeve line
to cut out the sleeves,

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[industrious folk music]

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and then using a sharpie, you can draw
half of a circle around your neckline

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and start cutting out that neckline.

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Now your shirt should look like this,
with the sleeves and the neckline cut out.

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Now, taking the sharpie and the ruler,

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you're gonna mark about a
one inch difference of tick marks

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on the bottom line of your shirt.

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[industrious folk music]

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From the tick marks, you can mark up
about one and a half inches upward

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--and this is going to be your cut line--

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go ahead and get the scissors and cut
along that line through all of your tick marks.

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[industrious folk music]

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So now that you've finished cutting
it should look like this

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and you can start tying
the top and the bottom knots together,

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making sure that you
double-knot it as you go.

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This will seal the opening of your t-shirt
to make it into the bag.

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[folk string music]

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Alrighty, well, there's your first bag.

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You can use the opening of your sleeves

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--those are going to be your shoulder handles.

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If you don't like the fringe,
you can actually switch the shirt inside-out,

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but if you do switch the shirt inside-out,

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make sure that when you are cutting
in the beginning

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you turn your shirt out first,

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so then when you do flip your shirt out,

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it should not show the inside-out fabric line.

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So here's another way to make a bag:

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Here I already have a shirt,

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I already cut out the sleeves and the neckline
and I already turned it inside-out.

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[folk string music]

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Next, I'm going to go to the bottom of the shirt

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and cut out a slit across like this.

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All right, I'm going to repeat that step
and cut out another slit.

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[folk string music]

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Now what I'm doing, I'm basically
tying the end of the shirt together

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using one of the slits that I cut out.

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So I'm just going to tie them together

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and make it a very tight knot
to secure the end.

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[industrious folk music]

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OK, I'm going to turn
the shirt out and reverse it,

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then the knot will go inside.

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You can cut the knot off if you want,

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but basically your bag is almost finished.

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So using the remaining slit
that I cut earlier,

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I'm just going to tie the two handles together.

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[industrious folk music]

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--and that's basically your finished products:
two grocery bags.

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Happy Shopping!