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ThePark Forest Library is home to the "Where is Away?" display encouraging people to "rethink where to throw away your waste and where is away." The new display came to the library earlier this month and will remain until the end of June.

"This display helps residents know how to recycle properly common household items," Malfeo said. "You can flip up the various 8x10 cards, and underneath, there's a description explaining how to recycle that item."

The "Where is Away?" display stands over 6 feet tall with over two dozen cards with pictures showing plastic, holiday lights, and light bulbs - explaining where each item will end up. Malfeo said the goal is to make people think about the things around their houses and how to recycle them or replace them this reusable items.

This is Park Forest Library first-time hosting the display, which hails from west suburban Addison, Illinois, a Village an hour away in DuPage County. Malfeo said having the "Where is Away?" display at the library was essential.

"Libraries are usually the central hub of communities," Malfeo said. "Also, by having the display here, it will reach all age brackets, and that's why the company that created this display, Scarce, believes libraries are the best place to host it."

MANOUSH ZOMORODI, HOST: So to end our show today, we're heading to Oslo, Norway.KATIE PATERSON: You take the metro in Oslo to one of the last stops.(SOUNDBITE OF TRAIN RUNNING)PATERSON: And then you walk around 30 minutes or so into the woods, and you can sit among the trees.ZOMORODI: This is artist Katie Paterson.PATERSON: We've had a lot of people kind of take pilgrimages to sit amongst these little trees that actually aren't so little anymore. They're a couple of feet now.ZOMORODI: These trees are part of Katie's ongoing project called the Future Library.PATERSON: So basically, I'm growing a forest, which, in a hundred years, the trees are going to be cut down and pulped and made into paper. And a book is going to be made from this forest that nobody can read until the century has passed - until the trees are fully grown.ZOMORODI: Basically, the idea is that, every year for 100 years, an author is invited to write something for the library.PATERSON: They can write anything they want, as many words as they like. So it's, you know, a real surprise to us as well when they arrive with their manuscript.ZOMORODI: Katie launched the Future Library in 2014, and the authors that have been selected so far are pretty impressive.PATERSON: Our first author was Margaret Atwood. We've had David Mitchell and Sjon and Elif Shafak and Han Kang and Karl Ove Knausgard and Tsitsi Dangarembga.ZOMORODI: After a special handover ceremony in the forest, the manuscript is sent back to Oslo, where it's sealed in a special room at the public library and where it remains.PATERSON: Nobody will read the words until the forest has grown.ZOMORODI: That's when the trees will be harvested and used to print all the manuscripts as an anthology in 2114.PATERSON: It's a project that goes beyond my life - that goes beyond the lives of many of us alive right now.ZOMORODI: It sounds completely bananas. Can we just say it out loud straight away?PATERSON: (Laughter) Well, it is bananas. So, yeah.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: So let's go back to the genesis of the idea for the Future Library, Katie. How on earth did you come up with it, and why did you want to preserve words - literature?PATERSON: Right. I think from the first moment of sort of visualizing this project, it was the materiality of trees.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PATERSON: I mean, it's such a simple connection to make, but - that books are trees and forests are libraries in a way. You know, they're just kind of waiting to be transformed into one another. It was by looking and drawing tree rings and those kind of growth rings that mark out time - that I saw chapters. And then words, you know, are just so timeless. And I think there's a restriction in a way that it is only words. But then again, it's so open as to what you can do with those words and what kind of languages people will be reading, and - you know, will that have changed? Will there be different symbols? So I think the idea of preserving language is important in the artwork, but also this idea that books are trees.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: Can we talk about the authors? Why do you think they accept your invitation? They're not going to get paid for it, and, I mean, as you get closer to the completion of the project, those authors will be around to get feedback.PATERSON: Right.ZOMORODI: But right now, why do you think they want to do it? Is it about sending a message to future generations?PATERSON: Well, it's so interesting. They've all responded really quite differently. So Margaret Atwood said yes really quickly. She just, like, got it and went, yes, I'm going to do this. In fact, she compared it to being asked to donate a kidney.ZOMORODI: Oh.PATERSON: You either say yes or you say no really fast.ZOMORODI: (Laughter) OK.PATERSON: It's like, I'm so happy you said yes. And for other authors - you know, David Mitchell's really spoken about - it took him months to decide, but he said that he preferred the person that said yes than the person that said no.(LAUGHTER)PATERSON: And so I think it's kind of a legacy idea, but also it's kind of saying yes to something that's hopeful, that's full of trust and that's, you know, going beyond our own lives.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: This annual handover ceremony - I'm picturing, like, people playing lute and skipping through the forest, but...PATERSON: It actually is a bit like that.ZOMORODI: Oh, is it? OK.(LAUGHTER)PATERSON: Yeah. No, it feels really special 'cause we're taking this journey together, and it's a group of people. Anybody can come. It's free. It's open to everybody. We just walk together through the forest. It's just an ordinary forest, you know? We arrive in the clearing. We're surrounded by these little trees. Of course, they're changing rapidly year on year. And then the author is able to come up with what they want to happen in the forest.(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).PATERSON: We've had a golden harp in the forest, so that was a bit of a challenge.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PATERSON: And then Vietnamese monks...(SOUNDBITE OF MONKS CHANTING)PATERSON: ...To do a sound performance and to do a chant in the forest.(SOUNDBITE OF MONKS CHANTING)PATERSON: Have a minute's silence, as well, where we can just listen to the sound of the trees.(SOUNDBITE OF WIND AND BIRDS SINGING)ZOMORODI: I just want to clarify, you have no idea what's in the manuscripts that you receive, right?PATERSON: Absolutely no idea (laughter). No, absolutely no idea at all. And I'm so careful about that. In fact, I, like, really don't want to look at that. I feel like if I try to take a look, it kind of breaks the whole spell and (laughter) breaks everything that I've been trying to do.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: Katie, not to be morbid, but you will never get to read them (laughter). You are not going to be alive, and neither will I, when this project is complete.PATERSON: Oh, I'm definitely not going to be alive (laughter). So yeah, it's a project that's like - I suppose like planting seeds. You know, when you plant trees, you're aware that it's something that's going to outlive you. And the whole project really is about this unborn generation and trying to kind of make a place for them. I think most of us know somebody and care about somebody in our lives that's going to be alive then. You know, my little young son - he's 5 now. But, you know, I was pregnant in the forest, and then he's been there every year. And I feel like the kids, you know, especially the really - the newborns of now, that they're going to be part of this, I hope. That's way more important than me, you know, being around to see it through.ZOMORODI: So in a way, this project is really rooted in optimism and hope.PATERSON: Yes, it really is. I mean, it's got hope at its core that, you know, we have to trust, well, practical things, that people in the future will cut down these trees, they'll pulp them, they'll make them into books. And we're also really conscious that so many of the changes to come are so unpredictable. You know, we've just been through - and are still going through, of course - the corona pandemic. For the project, that was, like, one of the first big global challenges that we faced. And we don't know what's still to come. You know, we're not just leaving behind a kind of devastation and drought and all of these things, but we're leaving something hopeful.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: I want to ask you about the significance of doing this project for a hundred years. I think most of us hope we'll leave some legacy for future generations. And a century sounds so long and grand, like such a significant amount of time. But on the other hand, we hear every day that our planet is changing so exponentially fast. And a hundred years, in some ways, feels like nothing, like not enough time.PATERSON: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's bridging this gap between us and, you know, a time just beyond human life and thinking about our human life in relation to cosmic time. And like you say, it's - you know, the changes that we've undergone and just, even the last 10 years, are, you know, phenomenal. And in that time, you know, humans, we've become a geological force. We've changed the entire planet. And so I think that's why it's - a hundred years is quite striking. It's close. It's far. But yet, if we don't make the enormous changes that need to be done in this time, we're going to be facing a very, very different future. But I think that is where our metaphors can help or at least help bring us into a space where we can think about time in a way that's intuitive, that's emotional even. And I think that it's confronting, and it's difficult, but it's really necessary to think beyond just our life.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)PATERSON: Every year that the project builds, it becomes more and more important to try to create projects that do kind of reach out and go beyond the human timespan. And so it's a lot about preservation of words and of language and kind of talking to these future generations through the trees and leaving something, you know, saying that we see you. I feel like if I were to open a book that had a hundred kind of secret pieces of writing in it that had been written and left to me, I think I would be quite happy and grateful for that.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)ZOMORODI: That's artist Katie Paterson. You can see her talk at ted.com. And check out the project at futurelibrary.no to see photos and videos of that forest of growing trees.Thank you so much for listening to our show this week on Leaving a Mark. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner, Katie Monteleone and Andrea Gutierrez, with field production by Fiona Geiran. It was edited by Sanaz Meshkinpour and me. Our production staff at NPR also includes James Delahoussaye, Matthew Cloutier and Katherine Sypher. Our theme music was written by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Ted Mebane. Our partners at TED are Chris Anderson, Colin Helms, Anna Phelan, Michelle Quint, Jimmy Gutierrez and Daniella Balarezo. I'm Manoush Zomorodi, and you have been listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

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