Recycling, as a Drummer
I am a musician, primarily a drummer, living on the far north coast of New South Wales, Australia. I moved here from Sydney (Australia) with my partner and child about two years ago. Having moved away from the network of musicians I’d been playing with, and wanting to pursue a career in music, I had to get creative.
I have always been passionate about recycling and the environment, so I decided to start a small business called EcoBeats. I spent a few months going around to local cafes, fish-and-chips shops, and other eateries asking if they had any fifteen- to twenty-kilogram plastic buckets in their kitchens. (These buckets often hold mayonnaise and other bulk food items.) I also contacted some labourers and got a lot of buckets from a plasterer. Then I contacted some drummers in Sydney and collected over a hundred unused drumsticks. With that, my collection was complete, and I have been using it at the drumming workshops I’ve been leading at festivals. I am also working on running the workshops in schools.
At the time I moved, I was a new mum surrounded by other parents and bubs [babies]. That led me to start a sub-sect, EcoBabyBeats. I began to make drums and other percussion instruments out of infant-formula tins, old vitamin bottles, toilet rolls, and other items and started running baby and toddler music classes.
I am passionate about the unbelievable number of plastic items, especially toys, that are purchased for children and about using the EcoBabyBeats platform to encourage more parents to recycle them.
I need to discharge so I can talk more about the environment and recycling as part of my workshops, and not be afraid that it’s not the right platform or that people are there solely to learn to drum.
Tweed Heads West, New
South Wales, Australia
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