How can I reuse or recycle … shiny chocolate wrappers?
At this time of year, a lot people end up eating more than their of own body weight in individually wrapped chocolates and as pleasurable as it is to undo all those little tiny chocolately presents, it’s a whole lot of packaging going to waste too.
Around here (and at my mum and dad’s house), said wrappers instantly become cat toys but ones that are only interesting until the point the cat actually catches them (fickle cats that they are).
So what else can we do with them once the cats are bored? I’m thinking particularly those ones that fold out to be squares of transparent plastic or foil because they seem to be the most obviously reusable but any suggestions are welcome, of course.
(Photo by Gastonmag – insert your own “But Ambassador…” joke here)
Crumpled up they make quite good scouring pads.
You can wrap candy in it for a treasure hunt.
Crumpled around a small stick makes them into very basic beads – which 5 year olds would like I’m sure.
If you get enough of them you could smooth them out and use them as reflectors in solar ovens (black box with foil inside).
Use it to wrap special notes to your child and put it in her lunch box – the gold / silver will catch her eye.
If shaped right these could be play coins.
Maybe use them as very cheap gold foil in crafts.
\i \was a WW2 baby so i have memories of mass revycling form that time.
I belonged to a dance tropp and we used the metlliac sweet wrappers on our costumes….the ony faris not oncouons was butter musin so that got dye an buttons were made from cadrboard and the covered ewith the sweet wrappers. Jewellery was made this way too. it looked very effective undr the lishgts on stage.
so I AM SAYING USE FOR DRESSING UP AND FANCY DRESS PROJECTS,
Kids could use them to decorate their thank you letters after christmas
There’s a lovely story by Rumer Godden where two children make an icon for their Russian housekeeper from sweetpapers.
See if your local primary school collects them for art projects.
My sister uses them to make Christmas decorations.
you can use them for card making of scrapbooking.
you can also stich them together and make durable garden decorations.
cutting out shapes and using them as window decs.sun catchers.
making a mobile.
do you think u can somehow set them in some clear resin to make durable beads for jewellery?
yes, you can put almost anything into resin… you’d need to research thoroughly though!
xx
I’ve done this! It works great!
why are ya all jabbering on bwt sum crappy sweet wrappers? lol
get a brain, then come back.
joe if you cant offer an idea for recycling please dont just express you offensive opinions here. They are not welcome.. and do try to stop talking like a txt message.. you dont have to count your letters here.
because wrappers are making our world very polluted and we need to start recycling more
i like to recycle stuff that help the earth and
community.
renee- i wud love to see a picture of how you do this!!
After the 2ww my dad used to make beautiful pictures with these lovely items. We would collect all our easter egg wrappers as well and he would transform them into works of art. I remember my crinoline lady on a bridge. Oh how I wish I could remember how he did it. I do remember a tranfer on glass and something to do with black paint. If anyone knows anything about this I would be thrilled to find out how it was done
Val
I was wondering if it made sense to collect the tin foil and once you have a large enough collection, can’t it be given to a manufacturer to recycle and reuse?
No, you can’t “recycle” them as metal, they have too many other chemicals and binders in them. You wouldn’t want to anyhow as they would probably have to travel outside the country to go to a processing plant (expensive and uses lots of oil.)
I HAVA HOMEWORK TO MAKE A RECYCLABLE CHOCOLATE WRAPPERS ANY IDEAS?
im a fashion student and have found that sewing or weaving sweet wrappers makes an interesting and colourful patern, if you sew sweet wrappers onto a peice of material you can create bags or garments and even sell them as they are becoming more popular now because of the eco friendly way of life becoming more common
I am going to try and use the coloured cellophoane wrappers from Quality Street sweets for making a mosaic/stained glass effect bowl or tealight holder. Some PVA glue and clear varnish should be all I need!? My work colleagues think I’m mad but wait till they see the finished article. :-)
Val – I remember making pic’s with my kids using crumpled up tinfoil (same difference). We took the backing off of a picture frame so we could get at the glass. We drew some basic figures/shapes then painted all around them with a few coats of black paint. After the paint was dry, we taped pieces of tinfoil (in this case, use the foil wrappers) over the unpainted drawings. When you turned the frame over, you saw the “sparkly” figures in a background of black. They loved doing it. Got any old frames? If you’re creative, you can make some pretty amazing pics.
Just realized that Val hasn’t been here since 2008! So…if the rest of you are interested, give it a try!
I have used foil candy wrappers for origami. I flatten the foil with my nail and cut it into a square to be folded. It’s great for modular origami when you have tons of identical wrappers.