What to do with tarps remains a subject for going green. We’ve seen people reuse tarps in art and fashion and, now, an interior design competition in the Philippines had a second-place winner incorporating tarps into a green condo. In terms of green technology, tarps fall under the category of reused materials, as most tarps cannot be recycled. As long as the material is moderately intact, it can be turned into something else. As we saw in previous posts, fashion designers made polyethylene tarps into bags and canvas tarps into hats, one of which was worn by Woody Harrelson in the film Zombieland. Many materials fall under this category, as they can’t be recycled and can’t decompose.
As mentioned in the article, tarps were used as bedroom wallpaper and to re-style older furniture in the green condo created by the second-place winner, Pauline Joy Cuevas. Although the type of tarps she used weren’t mentioned, you can bet safely that they were polyethylene tarps. The tarps in the bedroom were printed with a pattern, so that, although reused, they don’t resemble old tarps. The article mentions that the Philippines has a large amount of tarps and, as anyone who has used tarps knows, once the tarp becomes torn or worn, the material is no longer usable.
Instead of sitting in landfills or becoming large pieces of litter, tarps can be used in the same way Cuevas incorporated them into her green condo. As green or sustainable home designing is becoming more popular, tarps, and other materials like laminate, can be reused in these homes, instead of merely sitting around. Tarps, in some cases, can provide moderate insulation for a room but, practical purposes aside, a tarp can still be used in the canvas or wallpaper-like fashion used in the condo Cuevas designed.
