reuse Archives - Eco Thrifty Living

How to reuse old toiletry bags 10 ways

Zoe — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 08:00:00 +0000

Even if you’ve never bought a make up or toiletry bag in your life it’s very difficult to avoid them. As so many gifts sets are given in bags they seem to pile up. I have a drawer full of toiletry bags, many of which have sat there for years doing nothing. They are either too big or too small, or just not as attractive as some of the other ones. However, you don’t need to leave them in your cupboard feeling sad and lonely! If you are wondering how to reuse them, there are loads of ways

10 options for how to reuse toiletry bags

How to reuse toiletry bags as an organiser: Some toiletry bags have different compartments and these ones make great organisers. Especially if they have clear ‘windows’ – I used the one pictured above to organise ribbons. Other sewing or craft supplies would work well in here too. You could also store puzzles in it!
In a handbag or backpack. Small items float around my handbag getting lost at the bottom. Pop them in a toiletry bag keep them together. It also makes it easier to transfer from one handbag to another
Some plastic lined toiletry bags could be useful as lunch bags or snack containers
Re-gift the bag to kids. They love little bags and boxes as they are perfect for keeping their small toys and treasures in
As a pencil case. Even the large ones could work well if you have a lot of stationery to put in them!
Bike maintenance kit. Add in a puncture repair / spanner / torch.
As a jewellery bag. A pretty patterned makeup bag could work well for this or even an oddly shaped shaver bag!
Fill it with plasters and make it into a first aid kit!
Flannel bag. Use for kids instead of wet wipes/ bag for wet clothes (kids potty training)
To store hair bands and clips

If you still have more bags than you know what to do with they could make a great alternative to wrapping paper when giving a gift to someone else.

After years of learning how to declutter, tidy and organise my home, I am now offering my services as a professional declutter. If you feel you could benefit from help in this area, check out my website: Tidy with Zoe for more info.

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Why You are in the Pocket of Big Recycling

Zoe — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 14:38:00 +0000

I don’t usually publish guest posts on my blog, but I found this one really interesting. I have the mantra ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ (in that order) at the back of my mind, but I generally think in terms of the options available to me i.e. what I can do at home. This article got me thinking about what is going on outside of my home and how the government/ local councils seem pretty focused on recycling.

Why You are in the Pocket of Big Recycling

Since the 1980s, recycling has been the figurehead of the
environmental movement. Politicians keen to court the green vote have
championed recycling as a kind of cure-all solution to ‘the environment’, but
in our willingness to do the right thing ecologically, have we been taken in by
‘Big Recycling’?

In the waste reduction hierarchy, which was first introduced by
the European Union in 1975 and updated as recently as 2008, reuse is a flatly
better option than recycling, and for good reason.

Over the last few years, studies by the Waste Resource Action Programme
(WRAP) have definitively demonstrated that reusing is both more financially and
environmentally prudent than recycling.

So why does recycling continue to be viewed as the best way to
be eco-friendly?

The Big Business of
Recycling

In an article for Forbes, Amy Westervelt outlines a
number of reasons why recycling continues to dominate the environmental
movement.

She shows how attitudes to recycling have been manipulated to
encourage overconsumption despite having real inefficiencies.

In this way, we can see how recycling has become motivated by
money while potentially causing more environmental harm than good.

Recycling Encourages
Overconsumption

In her article, Amy claims recycling has: “given the
manufacturers of disposable items a way to essentially market overconsumption
as environmentalism.”

Fundamentally the idea has been sold to people that it is okay
to consume tons of disposable items as long as they recycle them.

Recycling is Motivated
by the Economy Rather than Environmental Issues

Furthermore, she explores how recycling has become a “commodity
business”.

One example typifies this completely: a few years ago demand
for recycled paper declined which resulted in a price drop, but as a result,
recyclers warehoused a great deal of cardboard in the hope the prices would
rise.

In certain instances where storage became an issue, much of
this cardboard was eventually landfilled.

Not All Recyclable Items
Are Recycled

Items actually being recycled depends on a number of factors:
consumers must actually dispose of the items properly, a collection system must
be in place, and the recycling must be deemed to be financially justified.

Westervelt focuses on PVC and bioplastic as case studies. Both
of these are indeed recyclable but are not commonly recycled. When PVC is recycled the resultant material
has colour problems and is therefore not marketable. Also, polylactic acid,
which is the most common bioplastic, will contaminate the recycling stream and
there isn’t enough of it to financially justify recycling it separately. As a
result, it is disposed of as waste.

Some Recyclable
Materials Cause Harmful Emissions When Recycled

While recycling some materials undoubtedly lowers greenhouse
gas emissions, there are others which emit dangerous particles during the
recycling process.

In the Forbes article, Westervelt focuses on the
environmentally damaging recyclers of glass, plastic and metal. In particular
she cited Oakland, USA, where recyclers were named among the city’s top
polluters.

Reuse as an Alternative

What is Reuse?

Reuse means passing on an item to be used again in its current
form only if it is still in working order or can be restored to working order.

Manufacturing new products, even recycling old products, is a
massive drain on the planet’s limited resources and pollutes our environment.

Combined with this is the financial expense of disposing waste
in landfills, recycling items, and making new items. Reuse is by far and away
the most environmentally and economically friendly solution.

Stigma of Reuse

For many, while reuse is on the rise due to austerity, there
remains a distinct stigma associated with reusing second hand items as Jane
Stephenson, chief executive of Resource Future, asserts in an article in MRW Magazine.

Reuse and the Circular
Economy

According to WRAP, a circular economy is: an alternative to
a traditional linear economy (make, use, dispose) in which we keep resources in
use for as long as possible, extract the maximum value from them whilst in use,
then recover and regenerate products and materials at the end of each service
life.

Rufus Hirsch from clearance company Clearance Solutions, frequently deals with
clients that need full-scale home removals. “The kind of items that we clear
ranges from living room furniture to a kitchen sink” he says, “but thanks to
our networks like London Community Resource Network, we can find a new home for
almost anything.”

The LondonCommunity Resource Network is responsible for the London Re-use Network
which collects and repairs unwanted or broken furniture, appliances and household
items. The repaired items are then either sold or donated to community groups,
schools and homes.

Environmental Benefits
of Reuse

In 2009, WRAP published Meeting the UK Climate Challenge: The
Contribution of Resource Efficiency. This found that increasing reuse could
reduce UK greenhouse gas emissions by an average 4 million tonnes CO2 eq per
year between 2009 and 2020.

In 2011, WRAP published Benefits of Reuse Case Study: Office
Furniture which found that around 200,000 desks are reused in the UK every
year. This is approximately 14% of desks that reach the end of their life cycle
each year.

In this example, the practice of reusing avoided 3,600 tonnes
CO2-eq that year.

Economic Benefits of
Reuse

In a Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) study published in
2011, it was found that only 14% of office desks and chairs that reach the end
of their life cycle in the UK each year are reused. The rest go to landfills,
energy recovery and recycling plants.

A large amount of these items could be reused. If these
reusable desks were, in fact, reused and not dumped or recycled, both the
financial benefits to businesses and the environmental benefits would be
enormous.

Financial Benefits of
Reusing for Business

Businesses that reuse as much as possible will have to make
fewer waste disposal trips. They will also have less need for raw materials. In
the long run, small changes could help to save a substantial amount of money.

Depending on the business, money can be saved through reusing:
refillable toner and ink cartridges, wasted printer paper, durable utensils,
crockery and tableware (as opposed to disposable styrofoam and plastic
equivalents).

Even if these options aren’t available, similar cost-effective
results can be achieved with the resource saving Industrial Symbiosis plan.

In this practice, businesses can create collaborative networks
where waste is moved free of charge. It works on the premise that the waste of
one business is a fundamental aspect of another.

Reuse Encourages Job
Creation and Opportunities

In a report from Friends of the Earth called “More jobs, less
waste”, favourable statistics suggested that turning waste into a commodity can
help the environment and encourage new business plans and job opportunities.

Indeed, if a 70% recycling rate were achieved by 2025 in the
UK, nearly 19,000 additional jobs would be created as a result. And most of
these additional jobs would be in the reuse and remanufacturing sectors.

If more businesses made strong efforts to reuse rather than
recycle, we could witness the rise of a new form of industry based on the
utilisation of waste resources for other purposes.

In a recent example of this kind of collaborative enterprise,
the waste heat produced by a glass manufacturing plant was used to stimulate
food production in a greenhouse. This agreement not only saved vast CO2 emissions, it also saved a lot
of money for both companies.

The bottom line on
recycling and reuse

While they’re both better options than discarding, recycling
seems to have taken centre-stage over its more environmentally friendly
counterpart: reusing.

The increased awareness of our responsibility for the
environment has been influenced in part by councils insisting on separate
collections for different kinds of waste. For example, in Thurrock recycling
bags will not be collected if certain types have been mixed.

With this kind of public push that associates the idea of recycling with
helping the environment, the feeling of contributing to a worthy cause can
become blinding in everyday aspects of life.

Instead of promoting a focus on using sustainable materials
that can be reused again and again, we’re still facing products with far too
much unnecessary packaging and being encouraged to think that it’s okay because
we know how to recycle the plastic.

Buying coffee in a cardboard cup that proudly announces its
100% compostable and recycled history should not be worthy of a well deserved
slap on the back. Especially not when the recycling plants that make such
drinking containers are actually responsible for C02 emissions that rival
industrial power plants.

Reuse doesn’t always come with the satisfaction of posting
items into clearly delineated bin slots or bags because it requires a little
bit more effort. But that effort can prevent resources from needlessly entering
the waste stream when they could be put to good use.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored guest post

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A mendathon!

Zoe — Thu, 08 May 2014 09:58:00 +0000

Ages ago I put a whole load of things that needed mending in a large laundry bag, which I then didn’t look at again until yesterday. I tipped everything out of the bag and I was pleasantly surprised to rediscover some clothes, bags and even a pair of sandals that I had forgotten about. I decided that it was time I went on that mending spree I planned to months ago (plus I promised I would mend at least 5 things this month – read more here) and I was quite excited about the prospect of being able to wear/ use the things that needed mending again. I had a kid free day and was able to just sit for hours and fix things. I managed to mend 12 things in total including a shopping bag, a handbag, a dress, 3 tops, a rain coat, a belt, a pair of shorts, a cardigan, some sandals and an apron! In the last few weeks I have also mended a dishwasher cutlery container and a backpack.

I started off my mammoth mend with a rain coat that had a broken button, a missing button and problems with the seams under both arms. It was a frustratingly slow mend to start off with and took up the entire morning. I began to wonder whether I was being ridiculously idealistic about the whole mending thing and whether I could really justify spending hours mending one jacket. As the day went on though I felt more relaxed, the mending got easier and time flew. In the end I actually really enjoyed the day.

As I was mending things I was thinking that each mend might be the first of many mends. We have a backpack (the one mentioned earlier) which we take everywhere with us when we go out with the kids and we have mended and mended it. Things wear out. Better quality things last longer and taking good care of them helps but eventually almost everything that gets used will wear out. So the mends I did yesterday may well just be the beginning in a long line of mends on each item.

It got me thinking about two things:

there is no better incentive to only buy good quality long lasting items than the prospect that things can’t just be chucked out and replaced i.e. I will have to mend them when they break and that
although I did enjoy my day of peace and quiet and mending, if I’m going to be mending things regularly it would have been more fun if I had some company (and I would be more likely to do the mending more frequently).

I didn’t need to spend a whole day mending by myself, some of the mends only took me 5 to 10 minutes. I could have very easily done a mend or two an evening while watching tv with my husband.

I also could mend in the company of other menders:

I could go to the monthly Brighton Repair Cafe – find out about them here, although they are more there to help with mends that people don’t know how to do themselves, or
I could start up or look for a more local mending group… I’m now getting why people go to stitch and b*tch or the more politely named knit and natter groups

For the time being though I’m really happy that I have crossed 12 things off my mending list and I’m going to be publishing a series of blog posts showing some of the things I mended and how I did it, so watch this space!

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What is the problem with fast fashion and a challenge for you all!

Zoe — Tue, 06 May 2014 10:53:00 +0000

My next challenge on My Year of Eco Challenges will be all about slowing down fashion. I am writing about it early, because I want to invite you all to join in with this one!

Why do I want to slow down fashion?

These days very cheap fashion items are readily available. Why mend, repair or embellish something, when it is so cheap to just buy something new? Why buy only what you need, when at those prices you can wear something new every day?

Well some of the problems with constantly buying new low quality clothes are as follows:

Many clothes contain cotton. To produce cotton takes a large volume of pesticides – according to this site cotton ‘soaks up 11-12% of the world’s pesticides. Pesticides can be very damaging to the environment and to those that work with them. The same site also claims that most of the cotton grown in the US is genetically modified.
New fashion trends are being turned around so quickly that it is putting tremendous pressure on factory workers, who in some cases are being locked in factories with no regard for health and safety, until the work has been finished e.g. Rana Plaza (read more here).
Clothes are being chucked out at a fast rate and a large proportion of them are ending up in landfill – according to WRAP ‘Around £140 million worth (350,000 tonnes) of used clothing goes to landfill in the UK every year’, ‘More than 30% of our unwanted clothing currently goes to landfill’ and ‘More than 60% of householders in the UK say they have unwanted clothes and textiles stored in their homes’ (see here for more info). There are a large proportion of clothes being recycled too, but recycling puts pressure on the environment too.

When I stopped buying new things and started shopping in charity shops, although it is a more eco-friendly way to shop, I had the same attitude. It was so cheap I felt that I could buy as much as I liked and I didn’t take quality into account at all. Last November I decided to take things further and haven’t bought any new clothes new or secondhand for myself (read more here), but I think I can do more.

Just because I’m not buying any new clothes it doesn’t mean I can’t have any fun or look good, so I am going to set myself and anyone who wants to join in a new challenge.

The challenge:

Over the course of a month (beginning on the 1st June 2014) I am going to try and create an outfit from my wardrobe i.e. without buying anything new, that fits in with the latest fashions. I don’t plan to buy new things, I just plan to modify or embellish things that I already have.

I appreciate that not everyone will have time for or will want to do this exact challenge so I have the following alternative suggestions for anyone who wants to join me in slowing fashion down for the month:

Wear the same pair of shoes every day for a month
Thin out your wardrobe and choose a set number of clothes to wear for the month – how low can you go? Do you need 20 items or could you cope with 5 or even less?
Get creative and embellish just one unloved item of clothing, shoes or accessories. You could even make an accessory like a brooch with scraps you find around your home..
Mend something that wouldn’t otherwise
Take on the Passion Fashion DoAction in support of my Year of Eco Challenges – see more info here

Or join me and create a whole new outfit – it doesn’t have to fit in with the latest fashion trends, it could just be a reflection of your own personal style!

In case you are wondering what the latest ladies fashions are, I have been doing a bit of research (sorry guys, I didn’t get as far as men’s fashion). Apparently pastels, culottes and ripped denim are in this spring. There is a whole article about wearing ripped denim here, with some of the jeans pictured looking like they might not make it until the end of the day! I feel so much better about letting my kids run around with massive holes in their trousers now! It’s hard to tell in the picture at the top, but there are holes in both kids trousers. The Metro has an article with spring / summer trends here, which features some patchwork Karen Millen jeans – I think I can rustle up some patchwork jeans without the £99 price tag!

Thanks to Nancy Carter who blogs at Mum-Ra (you can read her blog here) for inspiring this challenge! Nancy and Emma Northcott (who blogs here) have both agreed to join me in this challenge and there may be some more bloggers joining in (I will keep you posted about this). Everyone is welcome to join in and I would love to hear about how it goes for you. Keep me up to date on Twitter or Facebook (or even by email) and I will share what you are all up to (probably in a round up at the end of the challenge on the blog, but I will also retweet what you are up to on Twitter and share on Facebook).

I am currently undertaking a Year of Eco Challenges . If you have a moment I would really appreciate it if you would consider sponsoring me with an action (no money involved) on my DoNation page. Also if you liked this post please click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks so much!

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How hungry is your appliance?

Zoe — Wed, 12 Feb 2014 20:28:00 +0000

This is a guest post from Mr ETL (my husband) about how we found out exactly how much we are spending on our background electricity usage throughout the year and how it is broken down by appliance.

We are spending around £365 a year on our background electricity usage!

When I look at our energy usage we are always using some electricity, even in the middle of the night. It’s only 200-500 watts per hour so not a huge amount but it does mount up, averaging roughly 8.4kwh per day, about £1 a day, so approximately £365 a year which is quite a lot before we actually turn any lights on or cook anything. I wanted to gain a better idea of what’s using all that electricity and a quick search of Amazon came up with quite a few plug in energy monitors which tell you how much a particular appliance uses. The one I bought is a Belkin one. I liked this one in particular because you can plug the appliance you are monitoring into the back of this energy monitors plug and there is a cable leading to a screen. This is really handy when the plug socket is behind the appliance as not all energy monitors have this feature (i.e. there is no cable between the plug and the screen on some of them) and getting my head down to read the value with all the dirt and creepy crawlies behind the fridge for example didn’t appeal. We try to turn things off when we aren’t using them, so I hate to think how much we could be spending on electricity throughout the year if we weren’t.

Which appliances are costing us the most?

So I had a walk around the house and looked for appliances that are either on or on standby that might be contributing to my “background” energy usage. Below is the list I came up with in order I thought would be using the most electricity

Fridge
Tropical fish tank
Outside pond pump
Cooker on standby
House cordless phones (base station plus charging units)
Kitchen radio on standby
Mobile phone chargers
Cable TV box
NAS box

I started with the fridge, plugged the unit into the wall and then the fridge plug into that and left it for a week, it reads the energy usage and estimates a yearly cost based on a electricity cost you can enter on the unit. So it estimates the fridge will cost me about £66 a year, not a huge amount I can do about it, but might look at how much a newer fridge might cost, can’t see it being cost effective though.

Next I looked at my tropical fish tank, I’ve got the lights, pump and heater on a multi plug so plugged it into that. A few days later it told me I was spending about £70 in electricity a year on my fish tank.

The cable box is costing about £25 a year, interestingly it doesn’t seem to make much difference between standby and running but as it’s not advisable to take it off standby, again I don’t have much choice.

That still leaves me with over £200 of “vampire” usage to find, next on my list is the NAS box, for those of you less technical it’s where we put all our pictures, kids films and laptop backups so the whole family can access it, it’s on 24/7 at the minute, it sleeps most of the time and actually is costing me another £45.

We’ve got 2 ponds that we inherited when we moved in, we got some fish from a friend and put some in each pond. They both have filters which need running 24/7, I hadn’t really thought about how much they were costing me but a day of running one of the filters with the monitor told me it was costing us over £40 a year. The other pond has a leak so I moved all the fish into one pond, have stopped running the other pond filter and I think I won’t bother any more. One pond for fish and the other can be au naturel. Saving me £40!Say no to standby – you could save a surprising amount of money!

I’ve still got more appliances to monitor to track the rest of the usage but what this exercise has shown me is 3 things:

A big chunk of my electricity bill is things that are on all the time, some I can’t do much about and some I can.
Lots of electrical items left on standby add up to a surprising amount of money.
The plugin monitor (Belkin Energy Saving Insight Energy Cost Monitor
) will easily pay for itself in finding appliances to turn of standby or use more sparingly.

Once I’m finished with the monitor I’m going to lend it to someone so they can benefit from it to. I’d recommend this monitor or one like it, if it finds just one thing that’s costing you more than you thought it will probably have paid for itself.

Note: we have solar panels and the energy monitor can’t factor in the electricity which we haven’t paid for, so for us it provides a rough guide to how much certain appliances are costing us throughout the year.

Disclaimer. I bought the monitor and this is not a sponsored post so have no affiliation to the manufacturer. Of course you do want one and buy it through the link here we make a (very) small amount of commission from it so buy buy buy

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Found

Zoe — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 17:33:00 +0000

I’m often out walking somewhere with my family on the weekends. Our kids have so much energy that they need to get out and about and burn some of it off. While we are out, they are constantly finding things on the ground that they want to pick up and play with. More often than not it is a twig, or a bit of rubbish, or a conker, or a hair band – they seem to find these fairly frequently. Generally I tell them not to touch things on the ground explaining they are dirty and not nice, unless we are near a rubbish bin and they have already picked them up, in which case I would tell them to put them in it.

Sometimes though some of those things are just calling out to be rescued. Things like this toy that we found in the woods a while ago:

We took it home, washed it thoroughly and soaked it in vinegar for a couple of hours. Then off it went to play.

Last week we found this leaf:

It is part of a game where you poke these leaves through a beehive, fill it with bees and then take the leaves out one by one trying not to let the bees fall. We have the game at home (we bought it from a charity shop of course!) and seeing it on the ground bothered me. I felt obligated to take it home and add it to our set. I haven’t quite got round to the vinegar treatment yet, but when I do it will be added.

If you are thinking – ugghh how unhygienic, well have you ever had toys which have been left out in the garden that your kids have then found and played with the next day or even weeks later – anything could have happened to them while they were out. I bet you didn’t get a chance to whisk them inside and sterilise them before the kids started playing with them. Plus have you ever seen the way kids are with things. I’ve seen kids licking not very clean looking tables in cafes or younger ones putting toys in their mouths, which have just been in their friends mouths – it is practically impossible to get young kids to be really hygienic. Vinegar is a natural alternative to bleach anyway and these things will probably be the cleanest toys in my house by the time I’m done cleaning them!

What do you think – would you have rescued these things, left them where they were or chucked them in the bin???

If you liked this post please click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks so much!

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Rock IT!

Zoe — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 15:00:00 +0000

Recently I went to the Eco Technology Show in Brighton and got chatting to various people at various stands. On one of those stands was Rock IT. I feel that they really deserve a mention on my blog as I think what they are doing is great! They are a not for profit social enterprise based in Burgess Hill in West Sussex. They ‘refurbish and sell [donated] IT equipment…and use the profits from sales to provide IT training to young people not in education, employment or training…’

It is a great way for businesses and individuals in the Brighton and Hove and surrounding areas to recycle their unwanted IT equipment and also a great way to purchase affordable IT equipment once the equipment has been refurbished. Another bonus is that if you are unable to go to them they are happy to come and collect the equipment. They are only after specific types of IT equipment, as specified on their website though and I’m not sure they are selling any refurbished equipment yet, but they will be soon!

So if you are local and you want your old IT equipment to go to a good cause, then what are you waiting for – send it over to Rock IT!

Are there similar organisations to this near you? I’d love to hear about them!

If you liked this post I would really appreciate it if you click like on Facebook and follow on Twitter – thanks!

Disclaimer – this is not a sponsored post.

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Upcycled Magnetic Notepad!

Zoe — Sun, 27 Jan 2013 20:00:00 +0000

A few years ago a friend bought me a fridge magnet notepad. At the time I didn’t get why I needed a notepad on my fridge. I wasn’t a mum of two young boys then. But now, I totally get it. On a daily basis my house gets turned upside by little hands. They also like to hide things in the strangest places. They tend to leave the fridge alone, so now I know why it’s a great invention. A notepad that I can always find!

Feb 2020 – I wrote this post several years ago and decided it was time for an update! Note: Affiliate links in this post are marked with an asterisk.

That notepad is no longer with us. Page by page it went to recycling bin heaven. The magnets that were on the back I was able to reuse though and the fridge magnet notepad lives on in spirit!

Make a magnetic notepad from recycled paper

I made a new notepad using old envelopes, junk mail, paper bags and any bit of unwanted paper I could get my hands on. I then stuck the magnets to the back of the pad with sticky tape. This didn’t work that well though as the pad kept falling off the fridge, leaving the magnets behind.

After a couple of weeks I came up with the idea of cutting open a toilet roll tube and sticking the magnets to that with superglue. I punched holes in the top of the toilet roll card and all the pieces of paper. I then threaded a ribbon through and tied it at the front. It can be topped up on an ongoing basis as needed.

I love my new fridge magnet notepad and although it might not be quite as attractive as my old one, it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. It’s a useful way to reuse paper, I made it, it is free, it’s recyclable – what more could you want! It is so easy to make. You just need a toilet roll tube, some flat magnets, some superglue, some scissors and some junk paper with blank sides, so why not have a go yourself!

Fast forward a few years I now use this reusable white board* reusable white board on my fridge to meal plan and keep track of notes.

Have you got any tips for using up junk paper? I’d love to hear about them!

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