What do you recycle?

[maggie144]

i store and recycle all newspapers and cardboard for bedding for my numerous animals, and to fuel my coal fire in the winter months.

We also recycle all food waste to the chooks/ducks.
and all peelings (except potato tops, and rhubarb) to out 6 hungry goats

All glass jars and bottles and stored for making jam, chutneys, and sauces

all tin cans are used on string threaded and used as bird scarers.

all plastic drinks bottles are used to grow veggies in

all outgrown clothes in good condition get passed on the the local air ambulance for them to sell on

all clothes not in good condition gets recycled into cleaning cloths

all furniture/electrical good not needed are recycled through local freecycle

all egg shells/teabags. on to compost heap or eggshells can also be crumbled up and used around your favourite or delicate seedlings as a slug deterant, as slugs cannot crawl over rough or unnatural surfaces

hope this helps maggie

[Ranter]

Wow Maggie,
Do you have any waste for the binman at all?

You're doing a fabulous job.

[yugogypsy]

Um-nearly everything. We put our plastics,cans and cardboard out for curbside collection, use yogurt containers etc for freezing leftovers, use tires to grow potatoes in,use pallets for building, use tin sheeting off campers for shed roofing, glass jars for jams, jellies and refrigerator pickles, spice jars for herbs, paper bags for holding home saved seed, plastic bags to the food bank, Old windows into cold frames, plastic jars for saving seed-

I could go on for a page, but I won't, and of course we compost and save all the ashes from our woodburner for the garden.

You could even say my car is recycled-it has more used parts on it than new ones

Lois

[Millymollymandy]

I do pretty much the same as you, but I'm glad I have a big house and lots of space for storing! My cupboard where I keep all those jam jars and plastic pots for the freezer is overflowing right now, and to think last September I was running out of both!

[Milims]

In our house its more of a case of what don't you recycle!! lol!! I had to laugh this morning when the tea that was left in the pot after breakfast was pored over the plants and the tea bags composted!!!
We've also discovered that fruit juice cartons - large and small - make excellent plant pots - just cut them in half and hey presto you have two plant pots and one even has aready made drain hole!!

I work on a building site and its a great place for recylcing!! So far this week I've acquired wood off cuts for burning and making insect houses, blue water pipe for making small poly tunnels to go over deep beds, numerous buckets, plant pots, hessian to cover plants in the event of frosts and enough carpet off cuts to re-carpet my hall, stairs, landing, bathroom and even a piece large enough for my daughters bedroom!!! I'm even toying with the idea of sweet talking the tilers to parting with their left over bits of tile so that I can create a mosaic in my bathroom!! What a pity we sparkies only have left over bit of copper wire....... - oh hang on a minute - I could always collect them up and use them to tie up plants!! Woo hoo - the site skip is going to be almost empty if I get my way!! lol

[maggie144]

hi there i recycle anything i can heres a list

all plastic, aluminium tins and cans to the recycle centre
all paper/cardboard recycled as bedding for my rabbits
all egg shells, teabags, and soap nuts on to compost
all batteries to local recycle centre
all tetra paks washed, squashed and sent freepost back to tetrapak.co.uk
all ink cartridges sent freepost to nch along with old mobile phones
all good clothes outgrown by children are sent to north air ambulance
all peelings to my goats/rabbits
all left over food ,stale bread, cake crumbs to my chooks and ducks
all washing up water(grey water) stored for watering veggie patch
i have cancelled both telephone directories. yellow pages in favour of internet.
all margarine tubs, yogurt pots for seedlings/storage
i can't think of anything else at the moment, but will put on another post if i think of anything else

maggie

ps don't have a dishwasher/ or tumble dryer wash up by hand, washing oges on the line,

[maggie144]

hi there me again

i also use Freecycle for all furniture/ electrical appliances etc
and read it swap it for all read books.


maggie

[maggie144]

sorry me again,

just remembered all my jars are washed and saved for my jams and chutneys

all my bottles are saved for homemade ketchup, dressings, wines, and cordials

maggie

[Ranter]

My windowsills are a good example of my recycling, well re-use anyway.

I've got seed module trays cut up to fit inside a variety of plastic trays that had meat or supermarket bought veg in (most of these are from my bf, I don't usually buy like this); a plastic fruit punnet with lid has an egg box base in it - lid has ventilation too; another tray has loo rolls in it. All these have seeds in them. As covers for the trays I've used clear plastic bags, clear plastic lid from box containg pastries & trays that used to contain Co-op Choc profiterroles. Well, everyone has a weakness. The loo rolls are covered with a cloche that was originally a deep fruit punnet (without a lid). Today I've scavenged from work a clear plastic page that was at the front of a report that was being discarded. It'll be used on the next tray of seedlings, which will be an ice-cream tub...

[Thomzo]

A lot of junk mail and masses of used stationery-type items from the office get recycled into greetings cards which I then sell at work for charity. Windows from window envelopes make great "shaker" cards. Filled with punched shapes from junk mail.

I've even got the girls at work trained now to bring in bits and pieces from their junk mail for my cards. I just need more space to store it all.

Sweet wrappers are turned into butterflies and cd's are cut into thirds and painted with old nail varnish. Both are used as christmas decorations.

I save a fortune as I don't have time to go out shopping any more!
Zoe

[Milims]

Zoe - that sounds fab - although I'm not sure wht you mean by "shaker" cards???

[Thomzo]

Hi Milims
A shaker card is basically a cross between a normal greetings card and one of those snow-dome things that you shake and the snow falls down.

You make it by putting a clear plastic window over a scene and filling the gap with something like glitter, beads or confetti. When you shake the card the filling moves around.

The idea doesn't really show up very well in pictures but this gallery has some examples:

http://www.coxes.com/stamping/samples/s ... /index.htm

Of course this website is selling their stamps and stuff but I'd rather use recycled bits. Old cards are great for the backgrounds or scenes from holiday brochures or garden catelogues. Then fill the window with coloured paper shapes punched from junk mail - little flowers for the garden scenes or little suns for the holiday ones. You need something to make the window stand away from the background but a bit of old cardboard is fine. Just need to be careful of the thickness of the finished card if you are going to post it.

Zoe

[multiveg]

Went to the Algarve for half term - ok, we went by air. Anyway, came back with new ideas (visited a place in the hills that does their own "firewater" which they also sweeten with their own bees' honey). Even visited the one link on s'ish homepage re property in Portugal!

Anyway, we stayed near Alvor, and on a walk there, saw this

These are recyclebins. Blue bins are for recycling paper. Green takes glass bottles. Yellow takes plastic bottles and metal tins/cans. Brown bins take kitchen waste - not just kitchen peelings but meat and fish as well. The bins look like they are situated over large pits. On a couple of holiday excursions, saw these also in tourist resorts.

[Thomzo]

Wow, Multiveg, they look so clean and tidy. Our local recycling centres are a real tip with people dumping bags and glass everywhere. I might send this photo to our local council. Just to give them the idea of what they could be doing. I bet they would still let the bins overflow and never clean them out.

Cheers
Zoe

[Ireland-or-bust]

Hi all,

We do a fair bit here.
The local firm that collects rubbish is VERY expensive at 9 euro a bag.
The bags are only 25litres too.

I take everything to the dump myself.

Batteries, Bulbs, Plastics, Scrap metal and tins, Old electrical appliences.

I start the fire with the papers i get, which as few, usually bills or bank stuff.

Anything the chickens can eat, they do, anything else goes on the compost heaps.

The only things i don't recycle are, baking foil (is it classed as scrap metal?) Chicken(cos i can't feed it to chickens or compost it,) and
Celophane.

I have bags of celophane that i have to take to the dump.
Can't avoid it really. The dump is only 40 euro so more economic for me.

PS does anyone want 65 tractor tyres i got with the house? they're 25 euro each to recycle in Ireland......


Mark.