MyWaste at Dublin Comic Con
MyWaste are really excited to be back in action with Dublin Comic Con this August 9th and 10th! We can’t wait to engage with this electric community and bring sustainability to life through cosplay and in-person chats!
This will be our third time there and we’re building on what we’ve done before with more to do and special guests!
What’s the link?
What brought us to be involved with this vibrant event was all of the links that it, and cosplay in particular, has with #CircularLiving. You might not immediately think that a site for advice on waste management and sustainability would have much in common with a pop-culture event like this – but take a look.
Circular principles are all about: making things last longer through repair and maintenance; avoiding buying new things by thrifting, borrowing and sharing; finding new uses for things once they’ve outlived their original design by upcycling and repurposing!
Compare that to cosplay and they match up across the board! Cosplayers repair their costumes and props time and again, they take care of their things for further use, they borrow from each other, share and swap pieces, they creatively reconstruct everyday items and materials into brilliant accessories and outfits, they buy second hand! See ring pulls and bandages from our previous visits!
That’s our jam! We want to support and encourage these things wherever we can. We also want to help people see that all of these actions can be brought into parts of normal day-to-day living without extra effort. Let’s start thinking a little differently, let’s #TakeAMinute and #LetsGetCircular!
If something breaks it can often be repaired or repurposed into something else useful instead of going in the bin. Search for upcycling inspo on the likes of Pinterest and embrace the rabbit hole!
If you do need to get something, check out your local charity shops to see if they have it or look up ‘freecycle’ and ‘zero waste’ pages to see if there is somebody offering it for free in your area (please, always exercise caution when dealing with strangers of course and follow online safety advice). Likewise, if you have something you no longer need try to donate it or offer it up to family and friends.
Maybe you need something but will only use it once or twice, like a ladder or some tools, see if they can be borrowed from someone close by before committing to a purchase.
These are all perfect ways that we and our community can move towards circularity and live a bit more sustainably.
What MyWaste Bring
To hopefully add to your experience, this August we’re bringing back some old as well as new features! MyWaste will be running the Repair Station again for anyone in need of seam stitching or gun barrel glue but we’ll help out with anything we can – we held a mirror and cheered somebody on who was trying to get a contact lens in for a solid twenty minutes last time! And they did it 🙂
We will also be bringing back the Sustainability category to the Cosplay Masquerade and have a special guest judge lined up, so keep your eyes on both @DublinComicCon and @MyWasteIreland socials for more on that!
To enter the Sustainable Cosplay Category, use our contact form here and please include the following: your name, age, name of entry and as many details about what makes your cosplay sustainably made as you can think of!
***Please note that this does not gain you entry to the main masquerade competition, which can be found on Dublin Comic Con site***
Of course we will be available all weekend in the Cosplay Village at the repair tables to answer questions you have or to talk through anything around sustainability. A lot of people are concerned about the topic but don’t feel there’s enough opportunity to talk about it but here is the perfect opportunity!
This time we are also asking attendees to bring their fabric scraps and contribute to the Dublin Comic Con x MyWaste quilt! Gather up those bits you don’t want to waste and sew them together into 6×6 inch squares, then bring them along to the Con and stitch them together to make a big quilt! Make your squares in whatever family friendly way you like and by the end of the weekend we’ll have a big blanket of zero waste, community made goodness! Feel free to sign or @ your squares and we’ll tag you the posts showing it off when it’s done!
Did you know that MyWaste also have a game about waste segregation? Well now you do and it will be available to play up in the Cosplay Village with us! Think you know what to do with milk cartons and washing up bottles – come and we’ll score your efforts!
We hope to see you there but don’t feel like you’ve to wait, you can get in touch with us any time through our socials or our contact page . Give us a follow, share what you like and get involved with circularity!