94: Taz Kelleher and Geraldine Carton

Rebel Matters Podcast

The Useless Project was started by Geraldine Carton and Taz Kelleher in November 2018. Powered by energy, enthusiasm and positivity, the pair highlight the positive, accessible and pragmatic side to living a more sustainable lifestyle.

Starting-off largely events-based, The Useless Project has expanded beyond the realms of swap shops and flea markets, merging into education, advocacy and online content generation.

Touching on the “useless” feeling so many people experience in the face of the current climate crisis, Geraldine and Taz show that one surefire way to ensure positive change is to just start small; connect more; and just use less. Through this mantra The Useless Project encourage their huge online community to make whatever incremental positive changes wherever they can, and they cover everything from food waste and biodiversity, to ethical clothing production, greenwashing and human rights activism.

The pair have a brilliant ability to break down big issues like sustainability, consumerism and climate action, and they put a huge amount of work into making these important issues easy to understand. They have a lot of self-awareness about what it is they're doing, and why it matters. In this podcast, I spoke with Taz and Geraldine about their motivations behind the Useless Project. Rather than focusing purely on the outward aspect of the project itself, it's also a chat about the behind the scenes of the project. We have a lot of common ground in terms of production process, online fatigue, and working as a duo.