Change Becomes Change

Recycling Surprises

Last week we shared 7 Surprising Things You Can Recycle and hope that you found one or two new ways to give something a second (or third) life. Now we want to hear from you. Yes!

Please leave a comment below and tell us, what has been your biggest recycling surprise? Could be something you'd been recycling and found out you couldn't...or something you hadn't been recycling and learned you could. Or something funny about recycling.

No strict rules here! Just an opportunity to share. Thanks!

7 Surprising Things You Can Recycle (or Reuse)

My son has been learning more about recycling this year at school and knows all about the usual suspects: paper, glass, plastics, cans and cardboard. But now he's ready to step it up and talk about recycling, or reusing, other things we no longer need but don't have to go in the trash. Why? Like you, we're concerned about our growing landfills. Anything that we can keep out of them is a great thing for future generations.

Here's a look at some of the more surprising things that we can recycle:

Packing peanuts can be taken to your local Kinkos/Fed Ex shop, or other pack and mail place to be reused. Or save it for the holidays if you ship gifts across the country. I've also seen preschools and daycare facilities use them in their sensory bins.

Shoes. Yes, you can take old sneakers, no matter their condition, to one of the many drop off locations to be turned into Nike Grind. Nike then uses that material to surface playgrounds and other athletic areas. 

Toys can enjoy longer playlife by sharing them with friends, your church, shelters for families, or places like Goodwill or Salvation Army. You can also drop them off at a children's consignment store and replenish your own toy funds.

Wine Corks can be collected and dropped off at many places. Our local Whole Foods accepts them and I know other grocers do as well
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Appliances big and small can be recycled too. Visit Earth911 to find a local donation center near you.

CFL Bulbs contain mercury and need to be disposed of in an eco-friendly way so that we keep that out of the ground. Thankfully Home Depot stores accept these bulbs and take care of that for us.

Doing some work on your home? Donate old hardware, molding, windows and doors to salvage companies, restoration organizations or put an ad on Craigslist. We gave away about 700 sq feet of our old carpet when we put wood floors down that way.

For so many items that we're done enjoying, we can always turn to places like Goodwill or Salvation Army. Sharing gently used items with friends is a great way to help another family out who might not be able to afford fancy new toys or clothes. We also know a few friends who rotate toys with other families so that their kids don't get bored with "the same old toys". And, of course, another option is to put your items up for sale on eBay or Craigslist or plan a neighborhood garage sale this summer.

Key: almost any thing can have a second or third life, even if it doesn't work or is in poor condition.

And it's easier than you think. We organize items that can't go out to the curb in our pantry, garage or in a closet by the front door - depending on the item. We drop off our donations as we run errands in that area so that we're not making an extra trip.

So, tell us...what do you recycle or reuse that might surprise us? Help us all with your ideas. Thanks

Kid Safe Gear for Healthy School Lunches

I've been thinking a lot about school lunches lately. Probably because our son just started an elimination diet so we can determine what he's allergic or sensitive to, which means no gluten (wheat, oat, barley), dairy, eggs or citrus fruits of any kind. Sounds like fun,doesn't it?

Not really. But it does is force us to be more creative with his lunches. And there lies the fun in school lunches with a restricted diet. Yes, my husband thinks I'm a little insane but I believe that my kids appreciate the extra attention and love I put into their mid-day meals. I have to admit, I wouldn't be able to serve up tasty, safe lunches for school if it weren't for the gear we have. We have most of our bases covered and I'm always looking for new ideas.

Some of our eco-friendly (we're not using baggies, brown bags or buying bottled water at school!), kids-safe (no BPA here) lunch gear includes:

Crocodile Creek Water Bottles - Since I can't bear the thought of my son buying bottled water, he brings his own. And loves the fun designs on the BPA and phthalate-free stainless steel bottles. They're the perfect size for his bag and hold just the right amount of water. Stainless steel is a great alternative to plastic or other epoxy-lined metal containers.

Crocodile Creek Lunchbox - Marcelena loves their Sunflower lunchbox and feels likes such a big girl carrying it to class. Their lunchboxes are PVC, phthalate and lead free and has an insulated lining. The padded walls protect her sandwiches and chips, and the zipper is easy for a 3 year old to open it herself.

Thermos Food Jar - This little jar makes it all happen! The double-wall vacuum insulation holds his lunch to "just right" temperature (his own testimony). We fill it up with hot water while we warm up leftovers, his favorite chili, pasta or soup, shake it up, then fill it up with the hot food. The jar has a wide mouth so we're not making a mess when filling it up, and it's easy for him to eat without a mess. I know those lunch bags get tossed and turned, yet we've never had a leak. And it holds just the right amount for him. We've yet to find another lunch container like it for keeping his meal warm.

Reusable Sandwich/Snack Bag- Did you know that using one reusable bag has the potential to eliminate an average of 1,000 plastic bags over its lifetime? That there is reason enough for me to use these bags, but it helps that the kids like their cute designs. We give them a good wash weekly in the dishwasher or launder them with towels but mid-week we simply rinse or wipe them out. Ours are sandwich size and hold chopped veggies, fruit and chips well too.

Rubbermaid BPA-Free Storage Containers- I've shared these with you here before but continue to use them on a daily basis for my own lunches or the kids. Our mixed pack has a size that is perfect for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, another that's perfect to protect chips and crackers from being crushed, and a small size for hummus or peanut butter to dip in to. We've used these containers alot, always put them in the dishwasher and they're still holding up great.

Nalgene Grip-N-Gulp Water Bottle - Another BPA-free water bottle option that is great for a day on the go. The loop on top acts like a handle for little fingers and you can always find one (or two) of these in our car. The kids love that they each have their favorite colors and they look like "mommy's water bottle" (also Nalgene, along with Kleen Kanteen).

Whether you have "special" lunches or simply make sure that all the lunches you serve your children are safe, warm and healthy, having the right gear is important. I'd love to hear if you've got other containers, bags or jars that work well for you.

Reusing Children's Art

If you have young children you probably also have a lot of art. I know some parents have wonderful systems for rotational displaying and organized storage of their children’s masterpieces, but we’re certainly not one of those. It was a little easier when there was one child, and he really didn’t like art so there was very little of it. But now it takes over our house. And the last thing I want is to break their little hearts by seeing their work in the recycle bin.

So, here’s a few ideas I’ve picked up over the past few months to capture the special memory of their work while giving it a second life.

Capture the memory by taking a picture of your child with their art. Looking at these photos years later will bring back so many wonderful memories of that age.

Scan it! If you have a scanner, you can scan any flat work and download it to a CD or print a book of their art at the end of the year. There are many convenient services out there that scan, print and bind it all into a book

Make it a wrap. Paintings on large craft or art paper make beautiful wrapping paper for family and friend’s gifts. Grandparents cherish the paper sometimes just as much as the gift.

Personal touch. We’ve made postcards by cutting up art into strips or larger pieces just smaller than postcard stock. Glue the art to one side of the card and write your message on the other. These turn thank you notes into something personal from your child.

Take note. Simply cut up the art into pieces for note paper. We haven’t bought notepads in years! Our special note paper is used for shopping lists, to-do lists, notes in lunchboxes (which they love since it’s their work!), etc.

Art-on-the-go. Cut the larger art into smaller pieces, pack some markers, stickers or felt and glue, put them in a large plastic bag or bin and you’ve got a simple art bag that’s ready to go for dining out, church or long lines in the post office. We have a variety of these bags with different contents in each so that we can mix it up for the kids.

Shred it. When you’ve taken full advantage of the paper, rather than toss it into the recycling bin, put it through a shredder. The colorful bits of paper can be used to pack gifts, keep fragile baked goods safe in transit, or cut up smaller for party confetti.

By then, you might be ready to hit the recycling bin. But you can feel better about it.

Any other ideas? What do you do with art?

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Surprising things you can recycle (and some you can't)

Just last week I learned something new about recycling: we can recycle plastic straws! Thanks to Alicia Voorhies from The Soft Landing site (she has wonderful site with BPA-fee products), we have already started doing our part at home to keep those fun bubble-making tubes out of the landfill.

So, with my new recycling knowledge in action at home, I thought I'd see if I could find a few other items that might surprise us about recycling...and share them with you. So, here's what I came up with.

Yes...you can recycle these!

• Plastic Straws

• Paper Gum Wrappers (without the gum, of course)

• Plastic Yogurt Cups

• Egg Cartons (not the styrofoam ones)

• Empty Vitamin Bottles

• Envelopes with plastic windows

• Foil Paper (as long as it doesn't have food on it)

Nope...these go in the trash (or maybe compost if they're compostable, no meat, etc>)

• Used pizza boxes

• Paper plates

• Napkins

• Tissues

Did anything surprise you? Have something to add? Tell us in the comments section below or send me an email.

It's pretty important that we don't try to recycle something that can't truly by recycled since food or the wrong type of plastics can make an entire batch unusable. That just seems like such a waste.

Now I don't feel so bad when the kids want to use straws for cotton ball races.

Keep rolling the rolls?

We like to reuse as many fun things as we can around our house and one thing we tend to have a lot of are toilet paper rolls. I'd like to believe it's not just us.

The kids have made cool-looking spotting scopes with some pom-pom balls, felt, paper and glitter pens, and we've even used some to hold cupcakes in place inside a container that was too large.

In preparation for a gathering of kiddos recently, I saved up about a dozen toilet paper rolls, along with paper plates from past birthday parties, paper lunch bags and other random things we keep in our art bin - and construction paper. Since not one toilet paper roll was used (pink construction paper was the big hit since the activity table was dominated by girls), I now have about a dozen rolls and don't just want to toss them in the recycle bin.

So, I've been tracking down ideas to reuse our rolls and here's the best that I've come up with:

* stuff a bunch of plastic grocery bags inside one or two and keep them in the car
* fill with soil, plant the seed, keep inside a butter tub and water until it sprouts. Then place the roll, soil and sprout in the ground - just like a peat pot.
* store loose ribbon around the tube so it doesn't crease
* put some heavy construction on one of the open ends to make a pencil holder (decorate, of course!)
* collect six and arrange like bowling pins to knock down with a tennis or wiffle ball
* napkin rings - great for holidays or family gathers for the kids to have some fun with

My research dug up a few other ideas that weren't much better than the sword fighting I hate seeing with the paper towel rolls - thankfully, we go through a lot less paper towels so there's not many of those.

Have any ideas of your own? Anyone know how to turn one into a fairy or pixie? I'd have one happy little Tinker-Marci if so! 

Precycle, recylce and freecycle

So, we all know about recycling - we take our glass, paper, plastics, metal and electronics out to the curb in a special bin and feel good that processing plants will turn our used items into something new with less energy or materials than it would take to start from scratch.

Do you know about precycling? It's about reducing your amount of waste that ends up in the landfill, or recycled. It's the first R in Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. And sometimes, the hardest. Because so many manufacturers make it really hard to reduce things like packaging. Remember Christmas morning, and the hours spent with small tools trying to pry toys out of their packaging? And, unless you're buying strictly in the bulk aisle, you're sometimes throwing food packaging away before you even begin to prepare a meal. Even my kale from Whole Foods last week had a twisty-tie near the bottom of the bundle, a think rubber-band around the top with a fancy label promoting the type of kale.

Well, there are some easy, low-cost ways to reduce the stuff we bring into our homes that eventually has to go out somewhere. Here's just a few:

• at the grocery store, buy in bulk and reuse the containers on your next trip or for storage

• use non-disposable utensils, cloth napkins and dish towels instead of paper, and reusable shopping bags

• buy used sports equipment, baby gear, cars and children's clothes - they outgrow them too darn fast anyway

• use rechargeable batteries for all those toys, gadgets and other electronics - or better yet, don't put batteries in those toys that light up and make horribly loud noises - kids won't know what they're missing

• if you have a water filter, or good tap water like we do in Portland, invest in a good reusable water bottle from Sigg, Klean Kanteen or Nalgene - all BPA free

• avoid single-serving containers

• reuse scrap paper or let your kids use the back side of those printed emails and powerpoint slides - again, they won't notice

• donate your gently-used items or log onto Freecycle to share your goods with others who need them

This list could go on and on and on, but Idon't want to overwhelm, so we'll save more for later. If you have some of your own ideas to add, please do. This is a great hands-on lesson for kids too. Ours love playing with yogurt cups, scraps of ribbon or yarn, and other trinkets that would've found themselves by the curb. Just ask them what they'd do with it and listen. They'll do the rest.

Can we find zen with 20 pounds of rice?

About two years ago, we had a pirate birthday for Patrick and I had all sorts of fun activities planned for him and his guests. One of these activities was a treasure hunt - in a bottle. We saved all of our soda bottles over months, washed and dried them, then filled them with little trinkets buried in grains of rice.

My husband and father-in-law are the usual suspects for me to involve in my project, and this one seemed pretty simple: I need lots of rice. Enough rice to fill a dozen 12oz bottles. Being the funny guys they are, they brought home the Costco-sized bag of rice. It must have been over 20lbs since I could barely move it. Needless to say, filling the bottle barely made a dent in the bag and, since we don't eat much rice, it's sat in our pantry for years.

Until last summer. I filled up a huge plastic storage container with the rice, along with measuring cups, spoons, bowls, cars, funnels and other random items for the kids to play with when boredom hit. This quickly became an outside activity since they had a really hard time not getting rice all over the house, which meant that we hadn't seen the rice bin since last summer.

Well, boredom hit this week. The combination of one sick child inside and ugly weather outside kept us indoors trying to find restful activities. Upon it's reveal, we were instantly reminded why this is an outside activity but each time we put the bin away, Patrick would pull it out again. I think Justin has vacuumed rice mess at least six times in the last three days.

There must be something soothing, calming or very relaxing in the rice. At first, they'd measure (ok, Patrick would measure and remeasure and measure again) and pour the rice in and out of bowls. But recently, we've found them just moving their hands in, around and through the rice - running it through their fingers, and even trying to lay in the rice. They do not want to stop playing with the rice!

 

I'm glad that we were able to turn our 20lb bag of rice into something the kids find comfort in. I'm kind of hoping the rice bin is out when I come home from work so I can test it's soothing powers too!

Can I recycle this?

We find ourselves asking this question a lot at our house as we try to recycle as much as we possibly can (in addition to reuse and reduce). I think we do ok, but am convinced we could do better. And as much as I'd love to take the Master Recycler courses, I just don't have the time (yet). So, we sometimes get it wrong, I'm sure.

Yesterday I learned that pizza delivery boxes are not, yep, NOT recyclable if they've got grease, cheese or labels on them. Ok, seriously, when don't they? One suggestion I heard was to tear off the messy part and recycle as much of the box as you can. But here's a crazy thought of my own...what if we didn't have the box to begin with? 

My kids love Amy's Kitchen frozen pizzas which come wrapped in plastic (trash) inside a box that we can recycle. And even though Amy's pizza are delicious and organically good-for-you, I wonder if I could make as equally good of a pizza at home that would result in money and trash savings. I'll take that challenge!

I found a recipe for whole wheat pizza dough in the bread machine that looks like a good start for me. My secret long-term goal is to make all of our bread at home (by hand), but for now, the expensive bread machine that we had to have when we tried a gluten-free diet will work just fine. 

So, we'll give this a try and report back our results - taste, trash, and time. I'd love another pizza dough recipe if you've got a favorite to pass along.