Six ingenious things to make from scraps

Breathe new life into old objects and reduce landfill waste by diverting leftover odds and ends that would be relegated to the dumpster into useful items.

Call it repurposing, call it recrafting, call it creative reuse, or call it trash transformed. No matter what you call it, this concept of "cradle to cradle" is one of the tenants of green living. It means that a product's lifecycle doesn't have to end up forever rotting away in a landfill. It can be endlessly reincarnated into useful items.

We EcoNesters talk a lot about purging clutter, living slower, donating and thrifting, and living minimally. So, this post is going to take a different tact. It isn't going to tell you that hording some things isn't such a bad idea. In fact, hold onto those scraps.

But, wait a minute ... scraps are junk, right? Not so fast. Scrap items can be put to use and given a "life after waste." In fact, the end products of materials are often called salvage. That's a great word for things that are "saved from the ruins" and eventually end up in dumpsters.

If you're like me, you've got all sorts of scraps hanging around just ready for a new practical renaissance of sorts. Think of it as part of the transformation of renewal for living a more resourceful life.

Scrap renewal projects using...

1. Yarn
If you read my posts with any regularity, you know that knitting is my number one DIY project of choice. Yarn scraps abound in the needle world, and this pin cushion from Craft Leftovers via the Craftzine blog is perhaps one of the best uses I've seen for small amounts of yarn scraps.

2. Wood
Keep those wood scraps out of the burn pile and make a beautiful and unique scrap wood cutting board from Instructables.

3. Fabric
I love wrapping gifts using fabric. Here is a pattern from Purl Bee to make an easy, little drawstring bag that could become the perfect packaging for gift giving.

4. Paper
While cardboard furniture has been making the DIY design rounds lately, I'm not sure how comfy these things are to sit on. This bowl, by A Little Hut that is created using scraps of magazine cuttings seems more useful.

5. Plastic
Not being much of a plastic user or a soda drinker, I don't have a lot of plastic recycling hanging around, but this is truly one of the post amazing things I've seen using tossed plastic: This plastic kayak shown here at Gizmodo with DIY instructions from Instructables is outrageous!

6. Glass
I've had a case of severe chandelier envy. You can read about it here and here. So, when I found this outdoor glass chandelier over on Casa Sugar crafted from recycled glass jars, it lit my fire.

Ronnie Citron-Fink is a writer and educator. Ronnie regularly writes about sustainable living for online sites and magazines. Along with being the creator of www.econesting.com, Ronnie has contributed to numerous books about green home design, DIY, children, and humor. Ronnie lives the Hudson Valley of New York with her family. 

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1-800-recycling makes recycling a snap

Fresno, California-based Electronic Recyclers International, Inc. (ERI) is the largest recycler in the U.S. of the growing tide of e-waste (electronic waste). Notably, the company does all its processing on American soil, and it works with a wide range of partners to take in material from consumers, businesses, governments and other sources.

Now, ERI is launching 1800recycling.com (and the associated toll-free phone number) as a user-friendly free service to make it easy for people anywhere in the United States to find the nearest drop-off center to recycle virtually any type of material.

URTH Guy recently chatted with John Shegarian, the founder of ERI. Shegarian also hosts a weekly radio show for Clear Channel, Green Is Good, on green business.

Shegarian points out that about 65% of the waste in the U.S. still goes into landfills -- yet 70% of it could have been recycled. "Some cities provide recycling bins nowadays but recycling is still not as widespread and simple as it should be," Shegarian explains. "By calling 1-800-Recycling or visiting 1800recycling.com, people can find their nearest recycling location and get in the habit of visiting it often -- no matter what type of waste they have. Cell phone chargers, old TVs, radios, computers, and phones -- the ones lying around garages or basements -- are not junk. They are actually aggregates of materials that find their way into other, completely different metal and plastic products. These should be given new life instead of to landfills around the globe."

Shegarian points out that the new Best Buy billboard in Times Square was made from ERI recycled products, will the medals from the most recent Olympics were made from e-waste.

URTH Guy: Can you give us an overview of Electronic Recyclers International?

John Shegarian: Sure. There was no e-waste recycling industry six or seven years ago when I got into it, it was all mom-and-pop scrap companies and regular trash companies doing it as a side business. So we got into it and modernized and professionalized it.

E-waste is the fastest growing part of solid waste in the world. I bought my kids and my wife Kindles for Christmas, then five months later we're playing with an iPad in the New York Apple store, and my son, who's going to Fordham, asked if he could have one. I said sure. He said, "I know we're spending money but it's good for your business."

We still are an invention society for the world, and we're going to keep inventing. I have a perfectly good TV, a wonderful flatscreen, but I have clients who come in and say, when are you getting a 3D? I'm 47, and my grandparents had furniture their whole lives that they never thought of exchanging, but now we're turning over electronics at the fastest rate in the history of the world.

So now we have an e-waste crisis. Electronics connect us more, make our lives more interesting, and give us more access to information than ever before, but we should not be filling up our landfills with these materials.

1, In our first month of business at ERI we recycled 10,000 pounds of e-waste. Last month we did 18 million pounds. There's no reason why this stuff has to go into a landfill. On end of life basis, we are the number one brand in this business, we are commoditizing your laptop, cell, TV, vacuum cleaner, and so on into plastic, glass and metals. We can keep everything above ground, get all materials to smelters for reuse and repurposing. There is an unquenchable thirst around the world for our commodities, especially in India and China, which are going through industrial and technological revolutions concurrently.

2, There is a massive trend called urban mining; that is, why fill landfills with stuff that we could use? We can also save a tremendous amount of energy. 99% of what we work with at ERI is being repurposed. All metals are called infinite recyclable. When you recycle aluminum you save 95% of energy as opposed to making it out of virgin ore. So this is a simple part of the solution to our energy crisis, and getting off foreign oil. We're saving energy to mine and smelt those resources.

How are you different than other recyclers?

I focus on people, and we professionalized this industry. The woman who wrote our environmental health and safety policies used to manage those areas for 12 states.

We also have the best technology. We developed a proprietary waste shredder, the largest in world, to produce the cleanest commodities. We have one in California and we are building 2.0 in Massachusetts, then next in Indianapolis, with others to follow outside the country.

We also have the best glass technology, imported from Europe, that we have exclusive rights to in the U.S.

Then you have our online technology; I did financialaid.com, which democratized the student lending process. I bought 1800-recycling and 1800-recycling.com, and we are quietly building the biggest recycling network in the world, so every ZIP code is covered for everything: tires, household waste, electronics and everything else, both by phone and Internet.

How does it work?

You type your ZIP code, then get information on a place where you can drop it off or pay to have someone come get it.

How is it different than Earth911.com?

It is similar to Earth911, but people don't know about that. This is an intuitive brand and a service. We're scaling up the site. This is like 1-800-Flowers, which revolutionized that industry. There is great power in such an intuitive brand.

Does the service only use your own network?

No, we want it to include everyone. It's a service for people

Have you seen difficulties with recycling efforts in recent years, given the weak economy? We've seen news articles about towns abandoning recycling or letting the materials stockpile until prices for the stuff bounce back.

Recycling rates are actually going up in America every year. In e-waste, we've had more business then ever, and e-waste is always going to grow. We're sustainable and profitable.

You don't want to get rid of your old cell phone the wrong way. If it gets into the wrong hands your data could be compromised, so there is also a serious security issue.

We've all seen photos of kids in Asia and Africa picking through piles of our circuit boards to "recycle" them, or we worry about lax environmental controls on overseas facilities that break this stuff down. Is that still a concern?

We do all our work in the states, so this isn't a problem for us. I say that 85% of recyclers are just packing and shipping, largely overseas, so they're really sham recyclers. Twenty-five states have landfill bans on e-waste now, so it's going to only grow.

But the clean, high-quality commodities that we produce, such as metals, glass and plastics, are ready to be sent to manufacturers, so there isn't much chance of them getting mishandled.

Have you worked with programs that incentivize people to recycle, like RecycleBank?

RecycleBank is a great program, and we intend to work with them in the coming years. We're also going to create a points system on the site.

But listen, people want to do the right thing once they know. So our stuff won't end up with human rights violations in India, China, or Africa.

How do you actually get the materials?

Big manufacturers are our clients, as are retailers like Best Buy, cities, the federal government, mom-and-pop shops, and individual consumers, who drop off their used items at many different locations, from Best Buy stores to town halls.

Making recycling accessible is the future trend. We think more than half of the stuff we use will be recycled before long.

Consumers, manufacturers, and governments all have to do their part. It shouldn't just be on Walmart and Costo or Samsung and Sony. Everyone has a stake in it: We're all enjoying these products, using them, and they connect us all.

People ask me if manufacturer responsibility laws [which compel producers to provide for recycling their goods] are a good idea, and I say no. It should be up to all of us.

How do we increase recycling rates around the world? For example, I was recently in Costa Rica, which is taking many strides to go green (including going carbon neutral over the next few years), but recycling infrastructure is sparse there.

I get inquiries every day from all around the world. We're going to take this global. We are in talks in China, India, South Korea, Latin America, Europe, and elsewhere.

We're still in the top of the second inning when it comes to recycling. The green revolution has taken hold, and is only going to continue to grow. Our motto: Everyone is part of the solution, whether we are talking about energy, water, or recycling.

 

More from The Daily Green

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• 12 Ways You Never Knew You Could Use Oatmeal
• You Can Use Ketchup for That?! Hair Care to Copper Polishing
• Don't Throw Out That Aluminum Foil! 12 Ways to Reuse
• 11 Creative Ways to Recycle Packing Peanuts

Reprinted with permission of Hearst Communications, Inc

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Stop throwing money away

There's no question that disposable items can be incredibly convenient sometimes. But if you stop and think about it, they're not all they're cracked up to be.

While it might be quicker to throw something in the trash when you're done using it than washing it and putting it away, you do have to have to spend time going to the store and buying the same products all over again. The costs for buying products again and again can really add up.

Plus you're not only throwing away your hard earned money. You're also disposing of the resources used to make the throwaway products and unnecessarily sending things to the landfill.

No one is suggesting that you stop using disposables altogether, just that you give it a little more thought. Some disposables are hard to live without (such as diapers), but the items on the list below will be barely noticeable once you change a few habits. You'll need to spend a little money up front to save down the line.

A family of four can save $3,164 a year by cutting back or eliminating the items listed below. Of course, the final savings ultimately depends on what you use now, how much you cut back, and local prices. No matter the exact total, wouldn't you rather spend money on a family vacation instead of disposable junk?

 

Paper napkins

Use cloth napkins instead. Worried about the laundry piling up? Assign a different color napkin to each family member (or try this fun DIY napkin project). The idea is that if the same person uses the same napkin at every meal, you can wash napkins less often.

Potential savings: Count on saving around $57 a year if everyone in your family uses one napkin at every meal. You'll also save 4,368 paper napkins from being tossed in the landfill each year.

 

Paper towels

Wipe up spills with cloth towels. Use rags for cleaning. You can make your own by cutting up old sheets, T-shirts, towels, etc., or buy microfiber towels. For windows try crumpling up old newspapers.

Potential savings: If your household uses one roll of paper towels each week, you can save around $83 a year.

 

Resealable, plastic storage bags

Reuse them by washing them out and letting air dry. (It's not a good idea to reuse bags that were used to store raw meat.) There are now several kinds of reusable sandwich and snack bags that are widely available. Store leftovers in plastic or glass reusable containers.

Potential savings: You'll save around $78 a year if you stop using throwaway plastic bags for weekday lunches and storing leftovers.

 

Paper coffee filters

Try a reusable coffee filter or make coffee in a French press, which doesn't require a filter. 

Potential savings: About $15 a year if you make one pot of coffee every day.

 

Single-serve bottled drinks

Carry a reusable stainless-steel bottle to transport water and other drinks when you're on the go.

Potential savings: About $2,187 if each member of your family consumers one bottled beverage a day. 

 

Aluminum foil

Save leftovers in reusable plastic or glass containers. Avoid using foil to line baking sheets.

Potential savings: Around $64 a year if you use six rolls of foil (200 square feet each).

 

Single-use batteries

It's much easier to use rechargeable batteries than you think. Rechargeable AA batteries and chargers, ubiquitous for TV and gaming remotes and kids' toys, are widely available. An added bonus: You don't have to run to the store when your remote runs out of juice. Just recharge the batteries and you're good to go.

Potential savings: If you use around 25 AA batteries a year, you'll save around $28 a year. You can also feel good about not unnecessarily sending batteries to the landfill.

 

Disposable razors blades

Use an electric razor instead. 

Potential savings: About $122 a year if your household uses 54 razor blades a year.

 

Paper publications

Read your favorite newspapers and magazines online instead of letting the paper pile up at home. You'll find a lot of interesting content for free online, but even if you have to pay to read articles you'll still come out ahead.

For example, subscribing to the electronic edition of the New York Times costs $29.95 a month. Compare that to the $769.60 price tag for seven-day home delivery (It's $608.40 if you live in the Tri-State area.)

Potential savings: Depending on where you live, you'll either save $530 or $369 a year.

 

Environmental journalist Lori Bongiorno shares green-living tips and product reviews with Yahoo! Green's users. Send Lori a question or suggestion for potential use in a future column. Her book, Green Greener Greenest: A Practical Guide to Making Eco-smart Choices a Part of Your Life is available on Yahoo! Shopping and Amazon.com.

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