Posts tagged recycling

So another holiday season has passed by - gifts given and unwrapped, food eaten and your tree has probably been taken down by now.

Hopefully you’ve had a reasonably green Xmas by crafting, upcycling or regifting your presents and then following our tips on alternative present wrapping. But what to do with your leftover greetings cards, wrapping paper and, if you had a real one, Christmas tree?

Greetings Cards

Don’t just throw them out! As long as you have somewhere to store them, there are loads of ways to re-use them throughout the year and during the next holiday season. Why not spend the dark and dreary January and February evenings making them into postcards, gifts tags, gift bags and decorations for next year?

Easiest of all - cut off the front part of the card (the part with the pretty picture on it) and use the other side as a postcard to write your holiday message on next year.

Gift tags are also super easy, all you need is an old card with a nice design and some ribbon, thread or string. Cutting the edges with shearing scissors or into interesting shapes also looks great. Then punch a hole and put the ribbon through. Voila!

Left over cards can also be made into decorations like garlands, baubles or this awesome wreath.

Anything else left over can normally be recycled like normal paper, or even put into your compost bin. And don’t forget to keep the envelopes to re-use throughout the year or as scrap paper.

Wrapping paper

Wrapping paper is harder to recycle in your normal recycling bin as it’s often shiny, glittery or made of plastic, so check before you throw it out.

The best thing to do, if it’s still in one or two pieces is keep it and use it to wrap a present for someone else next year. However, if it’s completely fallen to pieces shredding it and using it as stuffing for packages or furniture bags. Or why not use scraps to make paper beads or bowls.

Christmas trees

Ideally you had an articifcial, recycled or potted Christmas tree which is now safely stored back up in the loft or replanted in your garden. But if not, what should you do with the, now probably pretty dead-looking, fir tree that’s been in your house for the last couple of weeks?

Most cities have a facility where you can take your tree to be recycled which is then normally turned into mulch for local parks and woodland, or sometimes you can even take it home for your own garden. Ask your local authorities about the services in your area.

If you compost at home, fir trees can be chopped up or shredded and added to your compost bin - just make sure you take all of the decorations and lights off first.

Or if you have a garden, why not use your tree as a new habitat for birds? You’ll need to support the tree with stakes or a stand, or stand it against a garage or shed. Adding a pine cone bird feeder will really attract those song birds.

If you’re unlucky enough to not have any local recycling facilities or a garden for your tree, you could always donate it to a farm or chop it up to use as firewood.

Whatever you do with it, chucking it out onto the street with the rest of your trash is the worst option imagineable.

Yesterday, we had a recycling workshop at the Rogers School, where we re-purposed bottles into flower pots that water themselves (will post photos later!). This post is the result of research done in advance of the workshop to educate the kids about what we were doing.

Image source

Wikipedia describes PET as:

Polyethylene terephthalate (…) a thermoplasticpolymer resin of the polyester family and is used in synthetic fibers. (…) The majority of the world’s PET production is for synthetic fibers (in excess of 60%) with bottle production accounting for around 30% of global demand.

More than 60 million drink bottles are used every year worldwide. The problem isn’t necessarily the material, since 1960 plastic has replaced materials like glass and aluminium which use a lot more heat in production and which cause more pollution in transportation because they are heavier.

That being said, the carbon footprint of PET bottles is 13 kg of CO2 per kg of plastic. Producing 1 kilo of PET requires 2 kilos of oil for enrgy and raw materials. Burning one kilo of PET releases 6 kilos of CO2. The facts are not pretty, but apparently this plastic is better than if all the bottles of the world should be made with a different material.

The problem with PET bottles isn’t really that it can’t be recycled either; throwing the drink bottle in the appropriate yellow container (Hungary) will lead to the PET bottle being reused. The problem is that most of the PET bottles used in the world are not used in homes, where many have easy access to recycling. The bottles are used away from home and thrown away in public garbage bins where recycling is rarely an option, which has the sad consequence that only 25% of bottles are recycled. 

The remaining PET bottles end up in landfills around the world (or just thrown away in random places, which is also a problem). It takes an estimated 500 years for these bottles to biodegrade in landfills. This is a massive problem. This is why we need to recycle bottles and fight for recycling to reach more parts of the world (and the countries we live in). Recycling needs to be easy and available in order for people to do it since very, very few people can be bothered to hunt down a plastic recycling bin. 

Alternatively, you can save your bottles and make pretty things like these:

Self-watering flower pot

Hanging lamp

(Source: ensobottles.com)

Magazine bowl!

This weekend, an energetic team from Messzelátó Egyesület were lucky enough to be invited to have a stand at the Green Expo in Budapest. The Expo is mostly a garden fair where people can buy anything from orchids to fountains and garden furniture, but it also has a strong environmental profile, with businesses and NGOs representing themselves and how they propose to make people’s homes (and the world) greener. 

We have posted all the pictures from the Garden Expo on our Flickr page!

Messzelátó had an opportunity to promote ourselves and our activities and we did it well! We talked to hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of three days, most of them very supportive to our cause. We also had a crafts table where people could take part in our recycling efforts by making magazine bowls, paper beads and t-shirt bags. People were super impressed with how pretty recycled things can be, and we heard lots of “jaj, de cuki!” [oh, how sweet!]. Hopefully we opened some eyes to the wonderful world of recycling and green lifestyles!

Tünde ready to promote Messzelátó to the expo visitors!