How can I reuse or recycle old photos?
We’ve had an email from Sue Taylor:
We’ve just moved to a much smaller retirement flat and we have hundreds of old holiday snaps and photos that none of the family want… You know the sort of thing, me in the pool, him in the pool, me on beach, him on beach etc etc yawn yawn…
Can they be recycled and if so who do I send them to?
We’ve got similar piles of photos – I’m quite the snapper, but not a very good one, and so have heaps and heaps of utterly blurred shots of cats quickly moving out of shot or ones of a sheep/band on a mountain/stage about two nautical miles away from me from the days before we went digital.
So any suggestions? I realise there are loads of potential craft projects for favourite photos but what about those ones that aren’t particularly favourites?
(Photo of photos by twasa)
The craft project that uses them is décolage. It’s lots of fun, and you can make your own paper maché objects to apply the décolage to.
A school might like them for art projects, though there might well be legal considerations re identification to think aboit.
I think you can recycle them. Contact a photography studio, they’ll know.
You might ebay them. I did a project with black and whites, half of the people in them I don’t know who they are, but I liked the oldness of them.
I like the decolage idea, you could also buy a glass top for your coffee table and arrange them beneath it. you can change the look whenever the mood strikes you.
make an album for the younger kids in your family, grandkids love the idea of having their own album with grandma and grandpa, but seldom get to because the adults don’t what the pics ruined.
u r right
ANy old black and white/sepia ones ill take for my college project that im doing on creatively recycling
heres my email, drop me a line and ill send you my address
lesley258@hotmail.com
ill try my best to post/ send photos of what i did with them
i recently recovered an old discarded lampshade i found at a carboot and covered it in pages from a 1960 french phrase book i found at the same car boot just left in the field :)
If you have a local craft store that holds scrap-booking classes – I bet they’ll take them.
I use ‘bad’ photos as notelets, as the most awful are almost abstract :)
I would be interested in the recyclability of photo paper though, as I have a lot of prints to sort through in the near future. I’m pretty sure they won’t go in the paper recycling – anyone know whether they will go in a council green bin for composting?
Hello Sue
Whatever you do don’t dispose of them all. Your grandchildren and their children one day will want to know about you and your parents and grandparents. Make an album and tell your story in captions and notes telling about who the subjects are in each photo.
Maybe none of your family are that bothered right now but in time to come they will want to know the history of their families. Don’t let your history get away from them.
Hello Sue
Please don’t dispose of all of your old photos. Make an album of your best and your oldest photos with narrative and notes and dates.
Your grandchildren and their children one day will want to know about you, your parents and your grandparents. It’s their history. Maybe they don’t want to know about them right now but they will and you are the only one who can tell them.
Don’t let your history get away from them.
One photographer I knew used his rejects as postcards– using a permanant marker to write on them– & appropriate postage— they arrived just fine.
Also, what about giving them to elementary school teachers to use for collage projects?
P.S. Don’t forget your local Historical Society for old photos relevant to more than just your family!
I made a special album of our wedding with all the duff shots. e.g. Picture of us smiling with my mum in the background looking glum: Caption said “Poor man, he just doesn’t know what he’s letting himself in for!” I had a lot of fun doing this and we like it more than our official one.
get a recycleing bin here so i can have it for my damn since fair
cassie wrote:
You can sell them for few dollars to an antique shop.
Many of this blurry photographs can be fixed in Photoshop to be sharp, have proper contrast and color, or in other programs.
They can be then reprinted. They also can be saved on a computer, even as is. They can be used for web sites, designing of the cards, collages, pictures on fabric. The list is endless.
If some pictures are completely odd, like total smudges, give them to children to draw on, or glue a printed copy of a good picture on top, leaving wide border as it ts, and you’ll have a great card or a picture to exhibit on a table.
I’ve tried a few forums like this, but no one seems to know: can I just put them in the recycling bin or not? I don’t want to keep them and don’t want to make an art project. I want them to go away! :) (I’m moving soon, so I’ve emptied out my old photo boxes and scanned them to cut down on clutter. Now my 27 years of photos all fit on a jump drive, and I much prefer it!)
This is from the Kodak website:-
Waste photographic paper is not generally recoverable. Most papers are coated with a very thin layer of polythene to control water absorption and speed drying, and should not therefore be mixed with other waste paper destined for conventional paper recovery.
Waste photographic paper should be disposed of by incineration with energy recovery. If suitable incineration facilities are unavailable; the waste may be disposed of to landfill without risk of adverse environmental effects.
Some years back I remember that the places that took film to be developed were taking back all those old photos esp thos bad shots. If I remember correctly there was supposedly trace amounts of silver used in the processing of the paper and they were recovering the silver
Thanks to Penny for your post. I found it most helpful.