I know it is a commercial, but I thought it was an interesting watch.
Archive for the ‘Week 16 Creative Recycling’ category
Upcycling and Terracycle
February 14th, 2010Recycling egg cartons
February 13th, 2010We use too many egg cartons and we cannot recycle them in the traditional method. This week, I am going to change our behavior in regards to egg cartons. My challenge for the week is to find a product we do not currently recycle and find a way to recycle it. Egg cartons meet the description. I can think of a few things I can do with our egg cartons. They are as follows:
- Seedlings for the garden. One of our readers mentioned this and it sparked the thought that gardening season is coming. Some plants, particularly tomatoes, can be started early and an empty egg carton is a great place to start.
- Donate them to a local food group – I just recently joined a food group in the Fargo area where some chatter takes place on Facebook (Ancient Roots). They indicated that they can always use egg cartons, so I will save them for now on. As a side note, tonight we are eating the Amish chicken I bought from them not so long ago. YUMMY.
- Stop Using Them! – No, we are not going to stop using eggs, but I wonder if I just can get eggs from a farmer and use our own carton. I asked my group if they provide eggs and am waiting for an answer. Also, I think that our local health food story, Tochi, might sell farm fresh eggs. I will check it out. The best kind of recycling stops consumption!
If you have any other practical uses for the egg cartons, please let me know in the comment area below.
Upcycling and fire breathing snowmen
February 11th, 2010My eco friend over at www.ecogeeco.com contacted me yesterday to educate me on the task I am trying to complete this week. For those just joining me, I am assigned a weekly green challenge and it is my job to learn about, and act on, that task. This week, I am supposed to find a new item to recycle or a way to creatively recycle. Ecogeeco made my job this week a little easier.
Ecogeeco indicated to me that my task was describing upcycling. To upcycle is basically creative recycling. In my green journey, I have seen this word, but did not look very far into it and was not 100One of the items I previously mentioned that I could recycle is egg cartons. A helpful commenter gave me numerous tips… one of which I may use. Raising Seedlings in egg cartons is a great idea. Gardening season is approaching (well, a few months away) and I suppose tomatoes can be planted fairly soon.
Also, he sent me a few links that will help me find the kind of information I am looking for. First, Terracycle is a company that you can send garbage to and they make new items from the garbage. They even pay you! Crazy, I know. Then, he mentioned www.instructables.com and www.makezine.com. Both of these sites show different and fun ways for us to reuse items and various Do It Yourself projects. Makezine surely caught my attention with the fire breathing snowman.
Thanks Ecogeeco for providing this information and the various links. These are some very cool sites (like yours is) and I am getting some ideas on how to recycle in a more creative manner.
