Hello, I’m a paper crafter and was a Stampin Up demonstrator and use the Stampin Up snail adhesives or the tombow roller adhesives.

Anyhow, to refill these things you have to buy another plastic mechanism that has the tape already in it. With all the paper crafters all over the world I’m sure there are lots in landfills. Wondering how they can be recycled for the plastic.

For non-paper crafters like me, the picture is of a snail adhesive refill – as Carmel says, tape already enclosed in a hard plastic shell.

As for actually recycling it, the lovely people at Stampin Up tell me it’s a whole different set of plastics (details below) so I wouldn’t have thought many people will want to pull them apart to recycle as many bits as possible.

Sometimes I’m a bit worried about always suggesting craft projects as reuse ideas because I know not everyone is the crafty sort, but the people who buy these already are crafty or they wouldn’t be buying them so … any fab craft ideas to re-use or repurpose these babies?

Or any other suggestions?

I’m both a scribbler – both writing & drawings – and a hoarder, which means I have a whole lot of old notebooks, exercise books and jotter containing school/college or work notes, half finished stories and really bad little sketches. I do like flicking through them, remembering different projects & times of my life, but at the same time, I realise that they’re mostly just clutter.

Sometimes I’m good and throw out a bunch of them – removing any clumps of blank pages for use as scrap and, in the case of ones with polypro plastic covers, keep the covers for reuse too (mostly as covers for homemade scrap paper notebooks). Since the ones I’ve had are usually spiral bound or simple stapled notebooks, the used papers can go into recycling, the compost bin or for use as firestarting tinder without any worries about binding glue. But it’s so hard to destroy them. All those hours of work creating the sentences or pictures contained within!

Does anyone have any ideas for reusing or upcycling such notebooks instead of just recycling/burning/composting them? Anyone done anything crafty with kids’ school books to preserve their work?

As I mentioned yesterday when talking about damaged books, it’s easier to revamp or reuse hardback books for practical purposes because they’re that bit tougher. They can be used for everything from statement bed headboards to “floating book” shelves.

On a smaller scale, they can be turned into purses/handbags, clocks, self-supporting photo frames, notebooks, iPhone charging units – and even table legs.

@AlishaAnnn told us about the table below on Twitter yesterday: “Table legs from recycled books with a metal rod through. They are sturdy and spin. Old barn window on top.” Great recycling!

That’s not to say paperback books aren’t without their reuses – their relative flexibility is an asset for things like this card wallet:

Other people prefer to use the pages of old books: either as art in themselves or as canvas for printing/painting, to decorate greeting cards, envelopes, super retro bunting or, on more elaborately, this fantastic paper wreath.

And BellwethersDB on Twitter had a good few ideas for using the pages too: “Tear out the pages and print vintage images on them and frame them! So pretty”, “Tear the pages and mod podge them onto old ornaments, add glitter and a ribbon. Voila! A “new” ornament!” and “Paper beads! Then paint them and string them on ribbon.” @_jennifergrace_ also tweeted us to say she’d used book pages as the background for welcome cards & name badges for a hen weekend, to make her own ideas notebook and as part of a bigger art project.

And speaking of pages, this desk tidy is made with a phone book but any oversized book – old annuals or craft books – would would just as well.

Finally, Alice in Blogland sent us a link to this fab recycling books for booklovers story, such amazingly intricate work!

Have you seen any other great example of reusing, recycling or upcycling of old or damaged books? If so, let us know in the comments!

Thinking about books reminded me about an email I received a while ago (but can’t find at the moment) asking about whether water damaged books can be recycled. Even though they’re nearly entirely paper, the glue used to bind books can sometimes cause problems along the recycling chain so don’t assume they can be added to normal paper recycling bins – check with your local council/the company that collects the bin first. They can be composted though if you have a compost heap at home – tear them up and add alongside plenty of “greens” if you want them to rot down quicker. On a similar destructive vein, my friend Strowger assures me they burn very well, for a long time, in woodburning stoves, although I’m not sure I could bring myself to burn even a damaged book!

Most people I know get clear out their books by giving them to charity shops – but most charity shops, particularly large chain ones, only want them in a very good, sellable condition so they can charge a decent amount for them. People who do carboot sales or run adhoc jumble sales etc are often slightly less discerning (since they generally have less overheads so can sell them cheaper to offset the condition) – I regularly see boxes of books given away on Freecycle/Freegle labelled as “ideal for carbooters” so that might be an option if the books are still readable and you don’t fancy selling them yourself.

Hardback books – particularly ones with interesting, pretty or retro covers – can be recycled into folders for papers or notebooks (I’ll post some links to how-tos in a “upcycling books round-up” tomorrow). Other people scavenge undamaged pages from old books to use for papercrafts or artwork.

Anyone got any particular reuse, recycling or upcycling suggestions for damaged books, or their parts?

• With the major gift giving time of the year looming in the near-distance, I love this idea of reusing colourful children’s pictures to make gift bows instead of using generic plastic ones. Of course the same idea can be applied to any old paper – as the tutorial shows black-on-white newspaper text looks pretty cool too.
   
• I’m always a sucker for stuff made with drinks cans but these flowers are rather cute – I especially like the painted ones.
   
• Tinplategirl emailed recently her new tutorials site about working with tinplate – the smooth heavier-weight metal from various large tins & cans. The site includes a number of free videos introducing the craft – where to find the materials and how to work with them – and how-to PDFs for making all sorts of things (some free, some costing up to $9.95). A great resource for people wanting to move on from working with the more malleable drinks can metal.
   
• And speaking of large tins, this tiered unit made from old biscuit/chocolate tins has been around for a while now but I thought it was worth mentioning because it’s a lot of fun and useful.
   
• Another thing that’s a bit old but feels newly relevant given the sudden switch to autumn this week: how-to recover an umbrella frame. Great for revamping a brolly or fixing it if it gets torn – double up your green points by using old fabric (an old tent? old synthetic clothes?) for the umbrella and reclaiming the best bits of the original fabric for other craft projects (a water resistant swimming bag? or to make foam bath cushion?)
   
• Oh, and if you haven’t seen it, do check out WeUpcycle.com, which started as a 30 day/30 upcycled things project but is now a wider collection of upcycling ideas. No how-tos but lots of inspiring, pretty pictures.
   

Have you seen any fun or interesting reusing or recycling projects recently? Or have you got anything you’d like to show off of your own creation? Do leave a comment below!

I have a bit of a dilemma. I’m from Minnesota USA, and I have a pen pal in California. We love sending “snail mail” to each other in this day of somewhat impersonal emails/Facebook. While it’s very fun, I’ve recently been thinking about the waste. I keep the cards she sends me, but is there a way to purchase/make more eco friendly cards and envelopes? Thanks!

I’ve been thinking about going back to snail mail for keeping in contact with some people recently (to cut down my computer time) so this is a very well timed question!

You certainly can buy cards and envelopes made by upcycling old paper – old packaging, old maps, old books – all sorts of stuff. If you search for “recycled envelopes” on Etsy, you’ll see the range of stuff available (including ones from friend of Recycle This, SwirlyArts.) You could make your own if you’re that way inclined too.

Look around your home/office to see what you can reuse as writing paper – on my desk in front of me right now, I could use the white-side of some pretty-designed security envelopes, a brown paper bag or if I was feeling more delicate than I generally am, an old sewing pattern. I’d probably cut them neatly with a guillotine or straight scissors, but scrapbookers/papercrafters with the tools on hand could jazz them up with wavy scissors or punch designs. One pre-cut idea might be to use old blurry photos – the type that aren’t suitable for the photo album but look pleasantly abstract by themselves.

Another idea might be to use cards that will serve a different purpose once they arrive with your message – the most obvious idea is picking ones that are so pretty that they can be framed as art, either individually or if you fancy something bigger & bolder and a fun ongoing project, you could make your own large scale design (perhaps by decorating/upcycling card/cardboard packaging) and chop it into card size pieces for gradual reassembly at the other end. More practically, you could find/make a design for recipe cards or dividers for a seed box (or anything your penpal might use for a hobby) – print it on one side of your card/paper and write your message on the back.

A finally suggestion/question from me: it is, of course, better to Reduce than reuse or recycle – would it be possible to make a secure reusable envelope/pouch that could be sent back and forth? If it can be made from existing materials all the better – any ideas?

Any other suggestions for Mary?

A deceased good friend’s photo albums need to be disposed of. Mainly of family, friends and her cats, loathed to just chuck them in a bin, other than that, what do I do? Help…..

I’m sorry to hear about your friend, Joan.

The Photos

I’m presuming no one wants to keep them as they are – but if you have access to a scanner and a spare couple of hours, I’d recommend scanning them into a computer before you do anything with them. People may be more interested in having a copy of/access to the digital ones – you could store them online with something like Dropbox (which gives you 2GB of online storage space for free), and you might feel more free to doing something with them if you know there is a copy available if you ever want to see them again. Friends and family may want to keep a few hardcopies of special pictures too.

Because of how the paper is treated to be photographic paper, it can’t usually be recycled – the chemicals (including polythene) clog up paper recycling facilities. However, old (black and white/painted or very dated vintage colour) pictures are desirable for art/craft reuses – if you’re not the arty/crafty sort yourself, you could try giving them away via Freecycle/Freegle. We’ve addressed the question of snapshot photos before so some of those suggestions may inspire some ideas.

The Photo Albums

Because of the mix of paper/card with plastic, they’re not easily recyclable – but if the photos have been removed for scanning, the photo albums could be reclaimed and reused. Re-cover it with pretty paper or thin fabric, if you want to give it a new look.

If you don’t have a large album-worthy collection of photos yourself, you can use them for other things – flip-style albums are great for recipes or clippings. I know some frugal people in the US use them for keeping their coupons in order and I teach a couple of drama classes and use flip albums to store my exercises/lesson plan ideas — lots of possible organisational uses.

If they’re still in good condition and you don’t want to use them, then charity shops will take them – or you could sell them on eBay.

Any other ideas for either the photos or the albums?

We just got married (yay!) and while we tried to keep the waste to a minimum, we have ended up with about 100 personalised wedding cake boxes leftover. Not sure how that happened! They’re just card but I’d like to reuse them anyway but didn’t know what to do since they’ve got our names and wedding date on them. Any ideas?

Are they pretty card (unlike the boring white ones in the picture)? If so, the non-customised bits could be reused for any general craft purposes. Although like with wedding dress we discussed a few years ago, it would be nice to use it for keepsakes rather than just … I don’t know, very fancy shopping lists ;)

Could they be turned into postcards for wedding present thank you notes – or used to make a “thank you kit” (a couple of small photos and a note)? A friend of mine sent out cheap USB storage keys with lots of photos from the day on them – candid snaps from friends as well as official ones – and a cake/favour box would be the perfect size for that.

Or to be super cute, how about splitting them between the two of you and writing each other messages for your future anniversaries – predictions of what will be or “IOU” promises for the long distant future?

Any other suggestions?

First off, I absolutely love your website and all the nifty and creative ideas your community finds.

Now for a confession: I am a bookworm. I typically go through 100+ novels a year without breaking a sweat. In an effort to try and green up my hobbies I’ve stopped going to the used bookstore as often, as it is a twenty mile drive, and when I do go I always buy in bulk. I’ve also switched from Amazon to thriftbooks.com. They’re consistently cheaper, and they reward you for buying used books out of the same location.

My problem? Amazon always uses boxes, even if it was three or four of them per order. My new website sends my books in one large plastic bag (picture enclosed) that is numberless as far as recycling is concerned. The bags in question (I’ve amassed six so far) are 12×16 inches and have some minor holes from the shipping process. The texture of the bag isn’t conducive to making it into plarn, as it stretches out very easily. Any other ideas?

Hi fellow bookworm :)

The first thing you should do is email thriftbooks and explain your problem – they might not take action and change to cardboard (or similar) straightaway but the more people who complain about it, the more likely they are to change at some point — so join that chorus.

If they’re in good condition, and have been opened neatly with scissors, they can be reused for their original purpose – as a slightly smaller mailing sack next time you need to send something out. Unless you send a lot of things though, they may quickly mount up.

When we get those type of bags (and actually there is one on my desk right now that needs reusing!), we tend to use them as bin liners – obviously holey ones aren’t going to be good for small/wet rubbish but they’re fine in most circumstances.

That’s not terrible creative though – any other ideas?

I usually make scrap paper notebooks with any waste paper I get my hands on – the back of drafts, printing mistakes, junk mail, envelopes etc – but since these have been printed on both sides (a photocopying mistake by someone at work), they can’t go into my usual notebook/reuse pile.

They’re just regularly black and white copies so I don’t think they’ll be quite pretty enough for turning into beads or photo frames, and we don’t have a shredder so I can’t shred them for use as packaging/animal bedding either.

Anyone got any ideas or should I just send them for normal paper recycling?

Basically, I want to make some small envelopes/pouches for sharing spare seeds at a seed swap.

I imagine I’ll make them using scrap paper (old envelopes seem a logical place to start but I’m open to other suggestions) but I don’t know how will be best to go about making them.

I usually just use a complete old envelope (one of the bigger-than-A5 ones that the banks use, since that’ll all I really get through the post these days) – but the seeds only take up a tiny amount of space so that’s convenient but excessively bulky. And since I’m giving them away, I’d like them to be a bit neater/fit for purpose if possible.

They need to be reasonably tightly made (since some of the seeds are very small and will fall out of holes) and, if possible, resealable in some way (even if it’s just having enough space at one end to be folded over firmly a few times). Ideally they’ll be water resistant too.

The wonderful Mary Horesh suggested a great how-to for making super cute envelopes out of a square of paper – so that’s one idea. Any other how-to suggestions?

And any ideas/advice about what paper to go for or avoid? I’m imagining anything pulpy like newspaper or cheap book paper will be a no-no because they’ll absorb water rather than resisting it.

Any non-paper options?

Can I recycle whiteboard marker pens? What plastic are they?

I don’t know what plastic they are. I’ve spent about an hour this morning reading the “about our products” page of all the marker pen manufacturers I can think of but no one mentions that – and no one mentions that. (They do though tell you how many solar panels are on their factory, or how they print the name of the markers onto the marker barrel. You know, useful stuff like that). ANYWAY. I’ll shoot emails off to all those companies to see if anyone of them can help us out with some info.

Even if the barrel is a recyclable plastic, it probably won’t be a case of just throwing in them in a green bin – you’ll probably have to remove the writing core (the ink “tampon” – see the things I learn reading these pen websites!) as that’ll be different from the hard plastic of the barrel. You can apparently get refillable whiteboard markers – you either resoak the “tampon” inside with more ink or replace the whole ink bit with a new pre-soaked one. Needless to say, the time/mess/expense of doing that means that only the dedicated will do it – for the rest, it’s easier & cheaper to replace & throw away disposable ones, sigh.

Does anyone know any more about recycling them? Or has any “reducing” ideas – how to make them last longer, which brands to get/avoid, alternatives in the first place? And can they be reused for anything?

There are lots of ways to make them reusing waste paper, scrap fabric, or random other things from around the home and garden – and they’re certainly not all just for kids.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Want to have a starry, starry night? Use twigs from the garden to make window or tree decorations. (Or if your garden is as cold & icy as ours, any other sticks will suffice – perhaps the project to use up your hoarded collection of “disposable” chopstics or lolly pop sticks?)
• If you fancy something a little shinier, make stars from old foil cake or pie tins instead.
• Or if you prefer your stars in a classy matte, how about making these Christmas fairy light shades from old brown/manila envelopes?
• Brown paper shopping bags – particularly ones with a Christmas themed print on them – can be made into decorative Christmas stockings.
• Or if you’d prefer to have fabric stockings to stuff full of treats, how about recycling a pair of old jeans for a modern look?
• Smaller scraps of old clothes or fabric can be upcycled into scrap fabric wreaths – these ones made from scraps of old felted wool clothes are just lovely.
• If you’re more of a paper person, this origami Christmas wreath could be made with coloured waste paper – envelopes from Christmas cards for example.

• Or if buttons are more your thing (mmm, buttons), you could make this fab wreath instead – if you loosely sewed the buttons onto the card, you could snip them off to reuse as buttons as you needed them for actual buttoning purposes!
• If all these are a bit too grown up for you – or you’d like a project to keep the kids busy while you’re assisting Santa, how about using wine corks to make reindeer tree decorations?
• Or if you’ve still got last year’s Christmas cards, they could use them to make a cute bunting banner.
• Finally, a couple of our favourite ideas for revamping existing decorations that are getting old or tired: I love the look of these fabric wrapped Christmas items (I’ve done a similar thing before with a single colour frogged yarn – very pleasant).
• Or, turn plain baubles into fun (angry!) characters with a little paint.

There are lots of suggestions out there for making biscuits, cakes or jams, or knitting or crocheting something pretty — but if you’re after a truly frugal Christmas, all those ingredients & yarns add up: what about things which you can make by reusing/recycling/upcycling things from around the home?

Here are my favourite ideas for simple & frugal upcycled Christmas presents:

1. Hankies

Handkerchiefs are easy to make from any soft old cotton fabric – bedding or clothing for example. They’re simple but always useful – and help the recipient cut down on their disposable tissue usage too.

Don’t feel they have to be boring white – I made the ones in the picture out of an old pink gingham shirt – and consider monogramming/embroidering them to make them extra special.

(Use 100% cotton fabric where possible and 100% cotton yarn too so that they can handle being washed at a hot temperature if needs be.)

2. Reusable shopping bags

Similarly practical, there are one metric bajillion tutorials out there for making fun shopping bags from pillowcases, t-shirts, scraps of yarn, old plastic carrier bags… You name it, you can make a shopping bag out of it!

Pick your poison depending on your skill set and again, customise/personalise it to suit the recipient.

If you’re giving them other presents at the same time, use the bag instead of wrapping paper to save even more waste.

3. Jewellery

We regularly feature ace examples of upcycled jewellery on here – people taking food packaging and other waste materials, and transforming them into wonderful bracelets, necklaces, earrings and other accessories.

If inspiration isn’t enough, there are plenty of tutorials out there too – for example, turn a drinks can into a flower brooch, or plastic bottle earrings, or a bottle cap charm bracelet.

4. Wooden garden planters

If woodworking is more your thing than sewing or jewellery making, turn old pallets or other scrap wood into wooden garden planters. They’re easy to work with and widely available – keep an eye out when passing skips or in industrial areas.

5. Raid your seed stash – make envelopes & plant labels from scrap

And what about something to go in those new planters? If you grow your own flowers or veg, you probably have a stash of surplus seeds – share your favourites!

Make small seed envelopes out of scrap paper – the insides of security envelopes or brown paper look fab – and write the sowing details on the outside – and how about including an upcycled plant label too? You can make those from lolly sticks or metal strips cut from drinks cans.

6. Personalised notebooks

Or how about making a notebook/journal from an old hardback book? Personalise it by finding something by your gift-ee’s favourite author – or a favourite book from childhood.

What are you making people for Christmas? What are your favourite upcycled handmade items? What would you like to receive from other people!?

I was wondering Have you ever featured Till receipts on your website, I work in a supermarket and at least once a day i ‘run out’ of till receipt paper and have to replace it, But i’m sure there is at least 10% of the paper still on the roll, and if you add this up to all the tills in a store that’s a lot of wastage.

I like to keep mine to one side until a parent with small child come along and donate it as some colouring in paper, or use it to write class notes but i was wondering if you know of any recycling schemes for en mass collection or even if the paper is recyclable full stop (it has a glossy finish)?

There is also a sturdy plastic tube as well that you can glue together to make a pen holder, but there are only so many pens in the world.

When I used to work at supermarkets, back in the day, we used to keep the end of the rolls for notes – break times if nothing else – but the plastic rolls were just slung in the bin.

Receipt rolls used to all be thermal paper – like the old fax paper – and that can’t be recycled – but I wonder if that’s changing now (most of the supermarkets I’ve been in recently have new printers, to either do double-sided receipts or to print it all at the end) – anyone know? If they still are thermal paper, we’re be looking for reuses rather than recycling suggestions.

As for the sturdy plastic rolls, I don’t know of any recycling schemes off hand but I’ll contact some of the big chains to see if they do anything. Aside from the logistics of returning them, it doesn’t feel like there is anything in the way of stopping them being reused for the same purpose, since they don’t exactly change or get damaged during their roll. Anyone know of any schemes to reuse them? Or have any suggestions to reuse them elsewhere?

I often see huge bins of clothes patterns at thrift stores. Most helplessly outdated or missing instructions. I have used them in the past as packing material but was wondering if there was any other uses. Seems like there has to be some use for the tissue type paper.

I’ve only just started making stuff from patterns but I’ve already built up a little stack of dressmakers’ tracing paper squares from the excess bits of paper from around the edges of the pattern. If I was more artistic/less clumsy, I’d imagine that I could make an interesting (low-power) lampshade by layering them around a frame or even a privacy shade panel for a window – but since I’m not, I’ll keep them in an envelope pocket in my sketch book for when I need to trace.

Lots of people seem to use them for decorative decoupage projects – for example, decorating little boxes, gift tags or furniture (I can’t find the pictures now but I’m sure I’ve seen a sewing table covered in an old pattern). Just remember to use some sort of sealer so they don’t get wet and/or tear.

They also be used for just about any tissue paper craft – the only “problem” being the somewhat muted colour compared to most bright tissue paper. That doesn’t mean they can’t look great though – pale flowers can still look fantastic whether as a bouquet or as mini fairy lightshades.

More practically, I do like Carol’s idea of using them as a packing material and they could also be used as delicate gift wrapping paper for handmade projects.

Any other suggestions?

Different places have different policies on whether or not they can be including in general paper recycling bins – some complain about the window, others about the window & glue. The only snail mail I send is either parcels or things that arrived with a pre-addressed/pre-paid envelope so I can’t really reuse them as envelopes. Instead, the blank parts from the backs of envelopes goes into my desk scrap paper pad. If it’s been printed on, it goes into the kindling pile for our stove – but either way, the window comes out.

So any reusing/recycling ideas for intact window envelopes, that take advantage of the window? Or any suggestions for reusing the window by itself?

(Btw, I’ve noticed that some window envelopes are now made from glassine – a largely transparent type of paper. Glassine is not accepted in all paper recycling collection bin and it takes its sweet sweet time to compost because it is water-resistant – best to leave it out of your bin if you want a quick turnover.)

What can I do with old pencil stubs, the used ones that are too small to write with any more?

Stubs of old crayons are super easy to reuse – just melt a load down into a new, easy-to-hold shape and off you go – but I suspect pencils will be harder.

I vaguely remember being a kid and taping two together, end to end, to make a slightly longer, double-ended pencil – and it seems you can buy gizmos to help you do that now (although I’m pretty sure I just used tape).

I also know that Jane Eldershaw of JunkJewelry uses the ends of pencils in her work.

Any other reusing or recycling ideas?

I have a growing collection of wine bags – mostly paper – that are too nice to toss.

How can I recycle them – get them to people who might reuse them?

Most people I know reuse wine bags (and all gift bags) as many times as they can while they’re still in good enough condition to pass on. There is a bit of a tradition in my family to leave gift tags bare or written using a soft pencil to facilitate multiple uses.

If you’d rather not re-uses them yourself and have a number to give away, offer them on your local Freecycle/Freegle list. Scrap stores would probably welcome them with open arms too, as would organisers of local charity events like tombola or raffles, to make the prizes fancier/more mysterious.

Any other suggestions on where to pass them on? And what about reuses for the tall thin gift bags like these?

The discovery happened because a friend of ours has 300+ old New Scientist magazines that he no longer wants and would like a green option for disposing of them.

A few years ago, many paper recycling bins couldn’t accept glossy paper – they were either office paper or newspaper only – but that’s changed now and magazines can be recycled in most paper bins so as a minimum, our friend could do that. He could also try giving them away on his local Freecycle/Freegle group – the magazines will be out of date from a news point of view but someone still might want to read the not so time critical articles.

For smaller quantities of magazines, there are a lot of examples of people re-using magazines for crafts – often using rolled up pages to make photo frames or ornamental bowls.

Any other suggestions?

How can rubber stamps be recycled? I found a box full in the stationery cupboard from two department name changes ago!

Given the department name comment, I imagine these are custom ones, not generic “approved” or date stamps – I’d put the latter on eBay or Freecycle/Freegle because they’re still very useful in their own right. The former ones will be less reusable but I’d have loved to play with them when I was a kid (my childhood roleplaying was surprisingly bureaucratic; when I used to play ‘school’, I spent the whole time working out class lists & timetables for said classes) (really).

Depending on the construction of the stamps, you (or someone else) might be able to take them apart and reuse them to make new stamps – replacing the stamp itself but reusing the handles or the mechanism if it’s a self-inking one. Again, eBay/Freecycle/Freegle if you don’t want to give it a go yourself. If they’re very nice old ones, a local stampmaker also might want them to reuse as antique stamps.

If you actually wanted to recycle them, you’d have to break them up into their component parts too – all the ones I’ve seen have been mixed materials so they’d have to be split apart and recycled individually.

Any other suggestions?

Can big paper wall planners be recycled? We’ve got at least a dozen at my school to get rid of now but I didn’t know about recycling them in the paper bins because they’re laminated.

No, it’s very unlikely that they’ll be accepted for paper recycling. Most wipe-clean plastic-coated paper – whether it’s actually laminated or just a thin coating on one side – is also more hassle than its worth when it comes to recycling.

There might be ways to reuse them though – we covered reuses for laminated posters last year and there is probably a big overlap for reuses (especially as a lot of those ideas are school-friendly).

It’s probably also worth investigating if you can get reusable wall planners for the future – dry erase ones without a specific year on them so you won’t have to throw them out each summer.

Any other ideas/suggestions?

However, they’re still useful in some situations – for example, extraordinarily big outdoor parties, especially for clumsy kids or festivals etc – so it’s probably worth thinking about ways to reuse or recycle them for those times when they’re almost unavoidable.

Between food waste and the often synthetic wax/plastic coating used to make them moisture resistant, you don’t really want them near your compost heap. You can get paper plates designed to be composted afterwards though – some made from thick paper, some from palm fronds, others from a light bamboo – just scrape off any large amount of food waste that might cause a problem for your heap. On our post about waxed cups, someone said you can recycle them at tetrapak recycling facilities – I would if this is true of waxed paper plates too…

Any other suggestions/advice? Or ideas for alternatives?

I bought a big bag of rubbers at the start of school but they were hard and rubbish so I turned them into stamps instead! I drew a design on them then cut it out with an art knife and they work great.

I remember doing something similar with them when I was at school – although it was less artistic/planned and more just me being bored with an compass in French. Another at-school reuse was, of course, flinging them across the classroom and watching them bounce off the walls/desks. I, of course, never did that, ahem.

If you buy a pack of mixed ones, there always seems to be a couple of really hard ones that don’t work very well in there. Aside from the stamps and airbourne weaponry, are there any other reuses for erasers that won’t erase?

We were packing away the papers afterwards and John commented on how much paper was going to waste – it was quite a lot, with spots of grease soaked through to the out-most layer.

Our friend George thinks it’s wonderful for lighting fires/stoves but given it’s almost midsummer, it’s not exactly stove lighting weather.

It would compost – I’m always wary about adding anything fishy/meaty to our compost bin though in case it attracts vermin. (The oil used at our local fish’n'chip place is vegetable oil but it must smell of a bit of fish because the cats love the papers, even when the food has gone.)

Any other reuses?

From a reduce point of view, I could take along a reusable container and ask them to use that instead – the people at our local place are great, so I’m sure they would do it. Any advice on what type of container to use? A completely sealed one might make everything a bit sweaty on the way home. A reusable box with a towel/cloth on top?

(In case this is very much a UK-centric question, I’ll explain a bit: when we get our stereotypical fish ‘n’ chips, they usually come wrapped in paper. It’s typically a “greaseproof” sheet or pocket underneath the food, then all wrapped in a few big sheets of cheap paper. This used to be newspaper but now it tends to be purpose-bought white paper (often blank newsprint). Some places use expanded foam clam shells or waxed cardboard boxes but the majority of dedicated fish’n'chip places, in the north at least, still use paper.)

(CCA photo by jem)

• We get a lot of tutorials on making random old textiles into bags or aprons – but this is the other way around: use a cute old apron as an instant cafe-style kitchen curtain. I also love Ki’s use of an old paint roller as a kitchen roll holder.
• Courtney of the Greenists linked to this TED Talk by Treehugger’s Graham Hill about becoming a weekday vegetarian.
• Crafting a Green World on how to upcycle plain tiles into pretty coasters.
• I’m a sucker for not throwing away those last couple of yards of yarn at the end of a ball/project – and here is a very mini project to use them up.
• Speaking of using up scraps, Sandra of sawdustandpaperscraps make a very nice pinstripe picture frame using scraps of wood.
• And finally use an old hardback book and a dull pad of paper to make a more hardwearing and fun notepad.

• These leather scrap mushrooms are a great idea for using up scraps & leftover material from bigger leathercraft projects – or recycling bits of leather from old clothes/accessories.
• Kris of Resweater pointed out a very easy tip to extend the life of children’s plastic summer toys & games – tidy them away to reduce the plastic’s sun exposure.
• Friend of Recycle This Alison Bailey Smith emailed to tell us about an art show starting today in Birkenhead on the Wirral (in the north west of England). On display is art made by the local community and professional artists (like Alison) from recycled materials.
• Abbie posted on Simple Green Frugal about how difficult it is to find non-plastic sippy cups — and how an old glass jar can be transformed into a plastic-free(ish) alternative.
• Mrs Green of My Zero Waste is urging us all to take action and improve tetra-pak recycling in our local areas.
• Craftzine linked to this great tutorial for a paper ball garland – a party decorating alternative to the now ubiquitous bunting. Ok, this isn’t a reuse as it is but the scrap paper could easily be used instead of specially bought craft paper – security envelopes would be low-key fun or colourful catalogues/magazines for something brighter.
• Mademoiselle Chaos showed us how she turned an old blown-out umbrella into chunky yarn.

I think though, aside from a few things for successive planting or winter crops, I’ve planted just about everything I want to try this year – a new garden so lots of experimenting — and lots of empty seed packets in my seed box.

Obviously they’re just paper so could go in our recycling bin but I thought it might be interesting to hear if anyone uses them for anything creative – or to help garden organisation/labelling.

Any suggestions?

(CCA photo by LollyKnit)

As with the cats, I’m trying to keep the waste produced by her food packaging to a minimum – and also, like with the cats’, it can mostly be recycled – cans, cardboard boxes and the giant paper sacks which are the focus of this post.

I bulk-bought the 15kg bags to save money and reduce packaging – but thought that, like with smaller bags of the same brand, the big bags would be plastic so could be reused as rubble sacks or similar in the garden. They turned out to be paper which is better in some ways – much easier to recycle – but less reusable. Or are they?

They’re a double layer arrangement – brown paper on the inside, shiny printed paper on the outside. The brown paper layer smells somewhat of dry dog food so can’t be reused for things I’d ordinarily reuse brown paper for (packaging items to post etc).

So any ideas?

We buy a lot of stuff online – secondhand stuff from eBay, homemade things from Etsy/Folksy, computer bits, craft supplies, clothes for us and the bajillion small people exploding from the loins of our friends etc etc – and as a result, always have a large amount of packaging lying around our office. A lot of online shops have made improvements over the last few years – crinkled brown paper or air bags instead of polystyrene packaging nuggets, and I’ve received stuff from eBay in all sorts of reused cardboard boxes – but the pile still grows. I reuse it where I can (see below for related reuses) but I’d rather reduce the amount of stuff I receive in the first place if possible.

The most obvious answer to the question is “stop ordering so much stuff online and support your local shops instead”, which is fair enough for some things but other things are harder to come by in real life.

Has anyone ever asked an online shop to reduce the amount of packaging they use? Has anyone sent it back for them to deal with? I’d love to hear your experiences.

If you sell stuff online, what do you do to keep packaging minimum? Got any suggestions for others in the same position?

Post packaging reuses

• How can I reuse or recycle envelopes?
• How can I reuse or recycle padded envelopes?
• How can I reuse or recycle plastic post bags?
• How can I reuse or recycle bubble wrap?
• How can I reuse or recycle packaging cushions?
• How can I reuse or recycle brown paper