116 replies to this topic

[artistry]

Most of the things that I reuse, are medium and small sized plastic bags and plastic containers. Most other things get tossed.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

artistry, on 19 June 2012 - 09:07 AM, said:

Most other things get tossed.

My heart is breaking..............

[rheamarie_cg]

I used to work in a 5 star hotel and resort which put a conscious effort to preserve the environment. It is beautifully operating in a small island with a very cooperative community. We are strong supporters of a green environment and get displeased with pollution of any kind. Employees store papers and recycle them as guests' thank you notes with the "green" touch. In the back office, people try to minimize unnecessary consumption. In fact, we use both sides of the paper when printing. Waste food products from the F&B department were recycled as fertilizers and pesticides. In the hotel's flower and vegetable garden,  commercial products were never used. Decorations in the reception and employees' quarters were made of recycled cds, clips, shells, bottles and even twigs. They were creatively turned into lovely art pieces. For the hotel, every bit of recycling makes a big difference.

[Green Thumb]

I have an aunt who’s a dressmaker. The little fragments of excess material from the clothes that she stich up are made to rags and sold in the market and public utility vehicles.

[ACSAPA]

When my daughter opens presents on special occasions, instead of throwing out the gift wrap, I run it through a paper shredder so I can use it as packing material for shipping packages, instead of packing peanuts.

[ashmonn]

My family takes some of our 'junk' that is not biodegradable and we donate it to the local art college. There are lots of students at this local college (CCS) that would love to have these materials to use for their various project. So check wit your local art college, and you will be surprised to know what they can actually make use of.

[Magic Pixel]

I am a bit of an artist so recycling old bottles is a lot of fun. We have guys who need the money come and collect our bottles and cans - but you can also use your imagination and do things like build gorgeous architectural walls in your garden where you need to wall something up. They are solid and won't come down with the help of a little concrete.

[ACSAPA]

I was reading a Danny Seo book called Simply Green Giving and he suggests that if you have old VHS tapes that you don't want anymore, you can open the VHS tape and use the tape as gift wrapping ribbon. It curls like curling ribbon.

Here's an article with VHS tape craft ideas that shows a VHS ribbon gift package among other crafts.

http://www.craftstyl...hs-tapes/page/4

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Magic Pixel, on 29 July 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

I am a bit of an artist so recycling old bottles is a lot of fun. We have guys who need the money come and collect our bottles and cans - but you can also use your imagination and do things like build gorgeous architectural walls in your garden where you need to wall something up. They are solid and won't come down with the help of a little concrete.

Earthships are famous for using bottles as part of their structure; tires too.

[johnygreen]

We purchased a LG double door refrigerator 12 years back and we have got it repaired two times and it is still working. We have been reusing it again and again without purchasing new one. We should try to reuse all electrical electronic appliances as longer as possible.

[aphil]

I use used jars for healthier storage. I use plastic bags for craft ideas. I use old clothes for cleaning rags. I reuse the buttons and zippers from old clothes too. I put the plastic bottles in the recycle bin.
There is one item I need creative ideas for, which is old glass bottles that had cooking oil in them.

[lizzie29]

I love recycling and reusing. I used to donate a lot of old clothes and old electronics before. What I usually do is reuse a lot of old bottles, papers, cans, boxes, etc. to create a lot of artistic crafts and decoration for my room or school projects. There are really a lot of ways to recycle, reuse, and reduce. Even the smallest help can be part of a big solution to our environment.

[E3 wise]

We recycle all of our green waste and  organic material into compost to use in our garden and yard we make brown gold natures natural way of producing fertilizer, not only does it keep chemicals out of our food and water table but it's good for the environment because it keeps material out of land fills.

[Shortpoet-GTD]

Hmmmm-
reduce the gop to a handful of folks
and
take all that hot air (reuse) they keep bellowing out, and power 348.654,204,168,345,000 homes.

[greenmama]

I reuse plastic bowls and glass bottles the same as the rest of you. But I also reuse glass bottles to create new garden areas, with the glass bottle being the border. I've also done this with a set of dishes found on the roadside for trash.

To reuse potato chip bags - take two simple shapes, 2 squares or 2 triangles, sew them together right sides facing and leave a small opening. Then turn it right side out (now all your sewing seams are on the inside) stuff this mini pillow with crinkly chip bags and sew your opening shut. My cats, dogs, and baby nephew all love these. For the cats I add in a little catnip too.

If you are interested in learning to turn your old clothes into 'new' clothes there are a lot of websites and several books that make is super easy. But I also like the idea of using them as stuffing for pillows or dog beds, especially if it is clothing that is too worn out to donate.

[fancyfingers]

We use peanut butter jars to store  Legos by colors and shapes. (Yes, we have a whole bunch of Legos with 3 kids.) When my kids out grew their Mega Blocks, I turned around and gave those to my nephew. When my kids outgrow their Legos, I will have them to create pictures/portraits with them! Sort of like Andy Warhol style. Think Campbell Soup painting he did.

I guess what people need to do, is to start thinking like kids again and use their imagination! Keep a pad of paper and a pencil with you at all time. Write down any ideas that come to your head. Expand on the ideas. You will probably toss out 99% of the ideas, but 1% of them will be acted upon and you will be happier in life too.

[Pat]

Old sweaters can be made into a blanket, a hat or mittens.  Instead of bagging  leafs from the trees use it feed your lawn or garden for the next spring.

[adam_a]

We've been focusing more recently on the reduce side of things. We make our own bread and yogurt which cuts out all the packaging that comes with them. We go to farmer's markets bringing our own bags to avoid any packaging there. We also go to stores that allow us to bring our own containers to refill things like olive oil, soap, peanut butter, and grains.

[max222]

I'm just now removing a huge busted picture window from a downstairs den and replacing it with pop cans. I have seen it used before and know people who have tried it, and it's supposed to be great for lowering heating costs. I'm making mine removable so that in the summer I can just pop in a portable window. In the winter it's supposed to get hot from the sun. I face south so this should work. It's kind of a lot of work, but I'll let you know whether it lowers my heating costs or not. I'm not sure it saved me money, yet. So far I find that I'm buying pop in order to get enough cans together to fill that window!!

[StevesWeb]

DH and I are both extreme geeks, between the two of us we must own at least a dozen computers for both professional and personal uses.  When we replace a computer with a newer one we generally demote the old computer to a less intensive tasks such as a router, a web cam host, or a storage/media server.

I also have two web servers in different US cities, last year I upgraded both of these to energy efficient Intel i-series CPUs.  I configured a custom webserver with a fast e3 CPU and four hard drives but it only draws 440 ma @ 120VAC which is extremely low power consumption for a server.  For my backup server I chose a refurbished desktop PC (thus reusing) with an i5 series CPU, also very energy efficient.  The best part is formatting thee Windows installation and replacing it with a secure operating system.  

I told you I'm a geek.

We also put our raw kitchen scraps and tons of coffee grounds (coffee is required to write code) in a compost bin, thus reusing what would otherwise be wasted.  Then we grow container tomatoes and such with our compost - or that is the plan - the compost is new.