Green Patchwork

I have had a lot of people looking at my posts about felted sweater crafting, and realize that I should include a post about recycling the actual wool sweater for the yarn. Quality wool yarn is pretty expensive, but if one were to buy a nice wool sweater at the thrift store for about $7 and unravel it you could potentially get about 2 pounds of yarn which would cost almost $80 new at the yarn stores. (I’m basing that on a 3.5oz.  skein of Irish wool yarn I bought recently for $9.50.) Read the rest of this entry »

Next time you get something in the mail that is packed with packing peanuts don’t just throw them away. And definitely don’t burn them in your trash! Polystyrene packing peanuts are not biodegradable and will not decompose in the landfill for a very very long time. Instead, reuse them when sending outgoing mail or bag them up and bring them to your local UPS store or Mailboxes Etc. These stores will gladly accept your peanuts, because it saves them money, time, and resources. Read the rest of this entry »

After a Capri Sun juice drink is drunk the container gets thrown away and sits in a landfill for decades or centuries. When I was a kid I loved these juice drinks and their convenience, but I never thought about what happened to them once I threw them away. Kids love these drinks and I bet if we went to a local elementary school we would find tons of these empty containers in the trash.

A women’s cooperative in the Philippines has found a useful solution for these bags and created a business out of it, called Doy Bags. They collect, wash, sanitize, sort, and sew these drink containers into functional bags that are also stylish and fun. The cooperative uses the bright colors and designs of the drink containers to their advantage by sorting and sewing them accordingly.

Wild Child kid’s clothing store on Monroe St. has a good selection of Doy Bags if you would like to have a look at them up close and see for yourself how unique they are. Renee at Wild Child uses her personal oversized Doy Bag totes for grocery shopping.

After a long search for affordable 100% recycled office paper for my home printer I discovered that Staples office store has 100% recycled paper and they are committed to finding ways to be more environmentally responsible. They also take empty ink cartridges and recycle them.

At Earth 911 you can enter your zip code and search for a recycling center for whatever you would like to recycle, i.e. batteries, ink cartridges, paint, light bulbs, carpet, or automobile oil.

According to Caboodle Cartridges’ website, it takes approximately 3.5 quarts of oil to manufacture one printer cartridge and it takes about a 1000 years to decompose. When ink cartridges are thrown into landfills toxins from the inks and chemicals used to make the cartridges seep into the groundwater and soil and cause more pollution. Instead of throwing your cartridge away have it refilled. I started taking my printer cartridges to Caboodle some years ago and I discovered that along with not polluting the landfills I am also saving money. When I take my empty cartridges to Caboodle I exchange my empties for new ink cartridges that are compatible with my printer and I pay about the half the cost of new cartridges. You can read more about Caboodle’s cartridge procedures at their website.

Madison’s Caboodle store is located at 2858 University Ave in the University Station plaza, next to Dairy Queen and the old Magic Mill.

Not every city has a Caboodle, but there are other companies recycling ink cartridges. Just do an online search to find your nearest retailer. A little time and searching is worthwhile in the long run, don’t give up and throw out your cartridges. Think about the future generations everytime you throw something away.

Many years ago I decided to wrap all of my X-mas gifts in decorative scarves and fabrics, and I was thought of as an extreme environmentalist. But now if I wrap a gift in fabric or a fancy silk scarf most people appreciate the extra attention to their gift and think i’m being creative (and not just a crazy hippie).

I love receiving gifts wrapped in unique fabrics and luckily the trend has picked up speed. I was just browsing the Inhabitat site and found a posting on silk scarves being sold as something to wrap gifts in, similar to a furoshiki. I hope you don’t start thinking you have to only use fancy silk scarves as wrapping material, because you can use any interesting fabric that you find to wrap a gift. Check out thrift stores or buy a yard of fabric at the craft stores to use for wrapping a present. Handkerchiefs and bandannas work great too and are always appreciated when someone catches a cold.

If you have been wondering what to do with a broken umbrella or your jeans that are beyond patching then look no further, ReadyMade Magazine is packed with ideas for what to do with stuff that is broken or you just don’t know what to do with it.

Every by-monthly issue has a challenge for people to find new uses for broken or out of date stuff. Last issue’s challenge was to find a new use for broken umbrellas. Two women from Madison,Wi had the idea of creating a magazine rack out the umbrella frame and fabric. Next issue’s challenge is to find a new use for a broken suitcase.

I love finding out about businesses that use reclaimed materials to create new products or repurpose materials and save them from the landfills. If you are remodeling your home or just want to make some small changes but don’t want to spend a lot of money or buy brand new stuff then a great place to visit in Madison is Habitat ReStore. I volunteered for them some years ago to find out what they did and had a lot of fun while I was doing it. Read the rest of this entry »

Everyone enjoys shopping and finding unique treasures to keep or give away as gifts, but the items that we buy usually do not reflect the real price. The real price of an item would reflect the cost of gathering the raw materials which can be economic, ecological, and social. Our natural resources are invaluable, but they are often exploited for short gains and leave lasting marks on the environment. Read the rest of this entry »

In the early 1800’s flour, sugar, seed, rice, and fertilizer were sold in large woven cloth bags that resourceful farmer’s wives used for dish cloths, diapers, nightgowns and other household uses. Manufacturers started offering these sacks in many different patterns and solid colors to encourage customer loyalty. It took 3 identical feedsacks to make 1 dress and a farmer’s decision to buy from certain manufacturers could be swayed by this one reason.

This is a great example of how people reused utilitarian materials to create new objects that could be used in the home. Read more about the history of feedsacks to learn more about this popular trend.