Recycling is good.  It has it’s place and it should be practised to save energy, raw materials and waste.  In the UK, it’s made so easy for most of us as the council will collect it from our doorsteps.  But there is an alternative to recycling that should be considered wherever possible before we throw our waste into the bin or our recyclables into our recycling bins, and that alternative is, reuse.

Here are some ideas for reusing things that we usually throw away/recycle.

Egg-boxes can be shredded and put in your compost, or use egg boxes to sow seeds into.  Once the seedlings are ready to be planted out the box will be starting to rot away, so you can plant it out egg box segment and all and won’t disturb the roots.

Greetings cards can be cut up and used to make new greetings cards or gift tags.

Paper can be used on both sides, so don’t recycle until you’ve used both sides.

Wrapping paper can be reused time and time again if you’re careful when opening gifts.

Envelopes can be reused as envelopes or as note paper.

Yoghurt pots are the bane of my life because the little devils can’t usually be recycled.  So reuse them as paint pots, seedling pots or to freeze small portions of food.

Spray bottles are perfect for using with home made cleaning products.

Tights that have ladders can be cut up to be used as hair ties, stuffing for soft toys or for tying up plants in the garden without damaging them.

Vegetable bags of the sort that oranges and lemons come in can be cut open and sewn together to make shade cloth for your garden, or use one of them as a bath toy bag for your children’s bath toys.  Hang over the tap for bath toys to drip dry.

String should always be saved and reused.

Glass jars can be used for storage in the kitchen (sugar, rice, flour, pasta, pulses) and the bathroom (cotton wool, soaps), or for preserving your garden produce.

There’s not much I prefer to sitting in my garden after the sun has set, with a balmy breeze blowing, sipping some lovely local ale and eating a meal prepared from my home-grown fresh produce.  Of course this is even better with good company, and with some pretty garden lighting.

You can make your own atmospheric lighting by reusing or recycling stuff you already have at home.  Check out this video for how to make gorgeous garden lanterns from a pierced-tin cans, or turn saved brown paper bags into “luminarias” by filling half-way with sand and then putting a candle in them.

If you’re looking to buy some pretty lighting for your garden, please consider the environment and choose an option that will save energy, like these solar lanterns from John Lewis (pictured above).  Perfect for on an outside table or placed elsewhere in the garden.  The lantern has an LED light bulb and needs to be charged in full daylight before use.

So, we all know that we should be buying energy saving appliances these days to replace the old energy vampire ones that we had before (once they’ve shuffled off their electric coils of course).  But what do with with the old appliances once they’re no longer needed?  You could take them down to your local municipal waste drop-off to be recycled.  On the other hand, you could start a band and use them as the instruments.  Don’t believe me?  Check this out.

[via: greenUPGRADER]

Photo credit: johnrobertshepherd

Beachcombers don’t bother, there’s no treasure to be had on British beaches, just a load of trash.  This is the message in Reuters story about how our beaches have deteriorated into rubbish dumps over the last 15 years.  That’s right, the state of British beaches is the worst ever.

A survey by the MSC revealed an average of 2,195 items of litter per kilometer of beach.  Over 5,000 volunteers cleaned and surveyed 374 beaches for the survey, finding 385,659 items of litter.  A third of this litter was made up of food packaging and cigarette butts, and discarded fishing equipment made up another 15%.

All this rubbish not only detracts from the beauty of the beaches, it’s also very dangerous for the wildlife who live on and around them.  Birds and marine animals often accidentally eat litter or plastic, causing infections or death.  They also become entangled in fishing lines and nets that have been discarded.  There’s also the possibility that the plastic eaten by marine animals could end up in the human food chain.  And then there’s cost to taxpayers of cleaning up the awful mess.

Environment minister Huw Irranca-Davies said it was up to the public to take responsibility for the state of the beaches.

“Litter goes in our bins, not on our beaches — and ultimately this is an issue of personal responsibility,” he added.

“This is a problem caused by a minority who spoil things for everyone else, and campaigns against this behaviour can help us to make this unacceptable to everyone.”

So take your litter home with you, and make sure that you recycle all recyclable packaging.  It’s up to you whether our beaches stay beautiful.