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Highlands Today

Trash Becomes Haute Couture

Gary Pinnell/Highlands Today

Winner of the Recycled Trash Fashion Contest's Adult Category Gloria Rybinski shows off her dress made from magazines.

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By GARY PINNELL

Highlands Today

Published: September 22, 2008

Updated:

SEBRING - If you like women a little on the trashy side, the Agri-Civic Center was the place to be Saturday afternoon.

It was the Recycled Trash Fashion Contest, and the models wore, yes, dresses cut, sewn, bent and twisted from recycled bottles, juice and milk cartons, tissue paper, coffee cans, grocery bags, a lampshade hat and worn-out blue jeans.

Recycling is fashionable right now, but it's also practical. Like the Tanglewood community group called Denim 'n More, which makes hospice gowns from worn-out men's shirts, baby clothing from recycled blouses, and diapers cut from squares of soft T-shirts.

"We've made 3,000 diapers and sent them to Guyana," said Joyan Rehberger, one of 18 entrants in the fashion show. She was wearing the center section of a white bed ruffle, decorated by silk red flowers and green leaves. "We cut the sleeves off and make washrags from them."

Her friend, Luz Fernandez, showed off a silver bow in her hair, made from a paper sack of coffee.

"It was going in the trash," Fernandez said. "I said, 'Give that to me.'"

Rehberger and Fernandez were two of five in a Tanglewood wedding party.

Zelda Kimm was the bride, draped in a discarded ivory Priscilla curtain, which included a bustle and train.

"Just like Scarlett O'Hara," said June George, who was herself attired in an organdy bed cover and jewelry made from a child's nightgown. The groom, Jerry Kimm, wore a denim caftan fashioned from a discarded sofa slipcover.

The bride's jewelry was something old - cafe curtain rings - and something new, a table-cloth veil hand-dyed from tea bags matching the dress.

"I hope we can raise $1,000," said Sherri Cooper, who runs Keep Highlands County Beautiful. The money would help programs like Adopt-A-Spot, Adopt-A-Road and other beautification projects.

And the winners were:

• Lacey Clark, who won the children's contest wearing a Burger King crown atop a chrome veggie steamer, a shower curtain cape, a duct tape purse and bottle cap earrings.

Jesalyn Carnley, in a dress of juice and milk cartons, inspired by the Flintstones, held together with recycled tape.

Gloria Rybinski, in a costume of used magazines and shoes with faces glued on. "I got Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, and some people I don't even know," Rybinski said.

Here's What You've Done

In the first 11 months of this fiscal year, Highlands County citizens have recycled 3,004 tons which would have gone into the landfill, and collected $347,258 in revenue from:

•20 tons of steel cans

33 tons of phone books

102 tons of plastic bottles

34 tons of aluminum cans

751 tons of cardboard

1,905 tons of office paper, newspaper, magazines and junk mail

159 tons of scrap metal and old appliances

Source: Highlands County Recycling Program

Gary Pinnell can be reached at gpinnell@highlandstoday.com or 863 386-5828

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