items | How can I recycle this?

How can I reuse or recycle man-made fabric clothes?

Lynette left a comment on another post asking:

Does anyone know how I can recycle man-made fabrics that are beyond wearing, not appropriate for ‘rag’ etc. People have suggested charity shops, but they wouldn’t want such items. Council 3rd world bins ask for only wearable clothes, so this is becoming a problem. I buy all second hand clothes but have to avoid wool as I am married to a staunch vegan.

As I replied to the comment, I think it depends on the item of clothing/type of fabric – a man-made fleece jacket is going to have different reuses to a viscose camisole or nylon tights. From Lynette’s mention of wool, I’m guessing she’s thinking about fake woollies – polyester or acrylic jumpers/cardigans and coats etc.

If the fabric is a reasonably heavy weight, a lot of the insulating ideas for fleeces would apply. If you’re handy with a needle & thread then you might be able to upcycle the decent parts of the garment into something else – a smaller version of the clothes for a child or a dog.

I also wouldn’t be too sure about charity shops not wanting them – talk to the staff (the stock sorting staff, not necessarily the counter staff) at your local shop and see if they collect items for a “rag man” — textile reclamation companies often have deals with charity shops to take their scraps, and pay the charity shop some money based on weight. Clothes and items not fit for reuse in their current state can be shredded to use as filling, or depending on the fabric, the fibres reclaimed and respun.

Any other suggestions?

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Categories: clothes and fabric, items
Posted by louisa on 19 February 2010

How can I reduce the amount of packaging I receive in the post?

The other day, Mrs Green of My Zero Waste mentioned how happy she was to receive something in the post wrapped in newspaper rather than a bubblewrap lined envelope or plastic bag.

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

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Categories: items, office, packaging, paper & stationery, reduce this
Posted by louisa on 18 February 2010

How can I reuse or recycle baby bottle teats/nipples?

We’ve had an email from Rebecca:

Love the website, have found it really useful but I want to know if I can recycle rubber teats? I am going to sell the bottles on e-bay for re-use but I know Mums won’t want used teats and we have about 25 of varying sizes and I cannot bear to just chuck them.

Would our local recycling centre take them, is there even a facility for recycling rubber bottle teats?

Would love any suggestions.

Apparently the clear teats are more likely to be silicone than rubber – silicone can be recycled but isn’t done so widely. If they are rubber, there may be a collection bin at your local household waste recycling centre but most recycling of rubber seems to be on a bigger scale – car tyres for example.

So what about reuses? It might be worth calling a local animal shelter to see if they could use them for bottle feeding small creatures – they might need the attached bottles too though.

Any other suggestions?

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Categories: baby, household, items
Posted by louisa on 17 February 2010

How can I reuse or recycle cat biscuits?

Well, less of a “reuse/recycle”, more of a “what else can eat them?” question…

Our cats are becoming increasingly fussy eaters in their old age. They’ve always been pretty fussy but now they’re teenagers, it’s getting worse – and we end up with a lot of mostly full boxes and bags that they are just not interested in eating.

We’ve swapped cat food with friends and neighbours in the past but all our felines have reached that certain age now and either had their teeth removed or as fussy as ours, so there is less swap potential. The supermarkets around here collect food for local animal shelters but I suspect they’ll only want sealed boxes/bags to be sure nothing has been tampered with.

I’d rather not compost them as I suspect the smell will attract undesirables to the heap but I also don’t want to just bin them. So any ideas?

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Categories: household, items, kitchen
Posted by louisa on 15 February 2010

Valentine’s Day Recycling Round-Up

Ahead of Valentine’s Day on Sunday, I thought it might be worth linked to some of our old posts relevant to this time of year – making homemade recycled gifts & stuff, and recycling/reusing packaging and whatnot from love-tokens you might receive from others.