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Due
in part to the irresponsibility of consumers landfills
are now reaching new heights. Families are sending items to the landfills that
could have easily been repurposed or recycled by a simple toss into the little
blue bin. If you would like to differentiate yourself from the mass of
irresponsible consumers, you can. You can do your part in eliminating the
amount of waste produced each year, or even work towards the ultimate goal of
eliminating the need of landfills altogether.
Innovative
Recycling Ideas
Instead
of mindlessly dumping items into the recycling bin, why not make an effort to
reuse some of the things you would be eliminating? Don’t get rid of your
son’s skateboard; make a piece of jewelry out of it instead. Follow in the
steps of this Nova Scotia based couple, who started
selling their recycled skateboard jewelry online and is now making a fulltime
income off of their Etsy shop. Do you have some bottle caps lying around the
house? Make a bottle cap necklace by following this step by step tutorial. If you have a love for sewing, why not
make a patchwork handbag instead of throwing away all of
your unusable clothing. These ideas are just touching the tip of the iceberg
when it comes to innovative recycling ideas, below is a list of tutorials that
will help you reuse a few of your everyday items.
Tutorials
to Reuse Everyday Items
- Glass Jar Picture Frames- Turn your spare
glass jars into modern day picture frames.
- Mini Mosaic Tray- Turn your drab tray into a
funky serving tray.
- Shoe Clips- Make adorable shoe clips out of
the bottom of a Pepsi bottle.
- Pin Cushion- Use an empty can of tuna to
make a cute pincushion.
- Baby Dress- Make a dress for your baby girl
using daddy’s old sweaters.
General
Tips
The
motto for living a greener life is Reduce
Reuse Recycle. If you are making the transition from irresponsible
consumer to living a green lifestyle, live by those words. Making small changes
in your daily life can mean giving the environment a much needed break. A tip
to reduce the amount of waste you produce is to buy higher quality garbage
bags. Yes, you will have to spend a bit more money but purchasing garbage bags
of higher quality means having to use less bags overall. You can fit more
garbage into a high quality garbage bag because of their durability. It may not
seem to be a worthy investment, but it is. Let’s say your usual output of
garbage bags (with a low end brand) is six per week; when you switch to a
higher quality brand, your weekly output reduces to three garbage bags. Over the
course of a year you will have saved 156 bags of garbage.
There
are some things that simply can not be recycled; disposable diapers and
disposable feminine pads fall into this category. If you think that there is no
way out of using the aforementioned products, think again. An eco-friendly (and
wallet friendly) alternative to disposable diapers and feminine pads are cloth
diapers and pads. Cloth diapers and cloth pads
are reusable and will last years before having to be replaced. Would you rather
discard of these items three times per day or once every three years? Both are
fairly inexpensive and can greatly diminish the amount of waste that is sent to
landfills everyday.
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