How can I reuse or recycle lots of old twine?
We’ve had an email from Rachel R, saying:
We accumulate quite a lot of twine from hay bales used to feed horses at work. We get both the rough, “hairy” and plastic kinds. The only thing I can think to do is give it away at gardening sales this spring or to teachers for use in craft projects.
Staying on the giving it away route, someone on your local Freecycle group might be able to make use of it too.
Aside from that, crafty/practical suggestions, the rough hair stuff could be wrapped around a piece of scrap wood to make a cat scratching post (it might need glueing on so the cat doesn’t pull it straight off again) or if you fancy macrame, you could follow a plant hanger pattern which could be used for plants – or presuming Rachel works in a stables (I guess should could be talking about that rare breed of office pony…) – for hanging head height buckets of food/water/treats for the horses.
I’m sure there are lots of other possibilities too though – anyone else got any ideas?
(Photo by Nbauer)
Perhaps it could be crocheted or knitted up into little rugs or doormats.
I have a farmer friend and am always scavenging baler twine from her. Very useful in the garden (although a bit of a lurid colour!) and also I use it to make big bundles of twiggy branches to store in the woodshed to dry. (Then I have a supply of dry kindling on wet days.)
It might make good string bags – depends on the texture. The twine I get is the plastic thick stuff which doesn’t have much of a twist in it.
I’d put it into bundles, then make a sign saying “Free Twine” and put it by the curb and see if anyone takes it (I’ll bet they do :)
I have used the plastic twine to crochet “scrubbies” for the kitchen, like those plastic ones you use to scrub dishes.
You could make great shopping bags by crocheting with it!
there is so much home decor to be made with twine. if you’re not much of a crocheter, try to get into hemp jewelry making. its easy, fast ,and you can make tons of stuff like pot holders for plants, necklaces, door mats, and bags
Tie gifts with twine.
Use your low-temp glue gun and wrap a box in it. You can even dye some of it to make a pattern. It makes those cheap cardboard storage boxes look a little better.
The Girl Scouts (at least here in the US) use the twine as clothes lines while camping. You could also make clothes lines out of them or donate them to the scouts.
try making a rope machine and twist that twine into useful rope.
heres a link to one i made for instructables .com.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Reuse-old-printer-ribbons-and-video-tape-to-make-r/