Knowing About Plastic Recycling Codes

Can really help in your craft making using alternative materials. Take a look at the code on your plastic recycle material to determine if it will be a good material for your craft project. Here’s a site that makes fun Shrinky Dink items out of #6, Polystyrene.

Really Getting In The Know

Teach plastic recycling codes to your kids when recycling. Some of these plastics are easier to recycle that others. Recognizing a plastic package that may be difficult to recycle can help in your precycling efforts.

Knowing which plastics that are easier to work with can open a whole new chapter in your reuse efforts.

Coming Soon: Recycled Plastic Crafts

Using Shampoo Bottles Again

Using shampoo bottles again is a great idea when you are gathering materials for crafts for kids. At the end of each bottle, I rinse and dismantle! Cut off the top and bottom of the bottle, slice down the side and open up to lay flat, you have a great piece of colorful plastic to use for so many wonderful creations! You can press this material between two heavy books to keep flat until you are ready to use. Don’t forget to pull off the labels and recycle the scraps!

Pre-used shampoo bottle plastics have a rainbow of great colors to make exciting creations. The finished product can be outrageous, yet very stylish when creating jewelry or other cool trinkets. Easy to cut with sharp scissors (parents help with this), you can draw a simple shape and cut out or even use your die cut machine.

We layered a few of these cute little colorful shapes and punched holes in the top to make a great pair of recycled earrings! Using shampoo bottles again gives you a nice piece of material to work with that really stands up to time and is so versatile. Take a look at what you are giving up when you throw something in the recycle bin. It may be a treasure!

The possibilities are endless when you have a great material and a creative mind. Easily stored for future use, remember to use your ‘precycling’ skills when purchasing any type of packaged product material for alternative materials in crafting. Using shampoo bottles again  can save you a ton of money while being environmentally conscious. Enjoy!

Alternative Materials For Crafting

There’s nothing worse than buying those prepackaged, 5 minute crafts for kids. I guess this won’t make me too popular with the stores that sell them.

I have found that a few initial investments can save a ton of money and time! If you have a collection of craft supplies on hand, you will be ready to go whenever the urge to create stirs.

Die cut machines and homemade clay can be the beginning when using alternative materials. Kids will love the ‘hand’s on approach’ to creating their own alternative materials while being environmentally conscious because kid’s recycle too!

Planning projects for the year (like teacher’s do) can really save you time and money while you are teaching your kids about precycling. You know that your child will be invited to a fair amount of friends Birthday Parties this year. There’s holidays like Christmas and Valentine’s Day when we give gifts or cards. Tally up what you think you may be spending all year for gifts from your kids or just crafts that they can do at home during vacations. Investing one time in a machine such as a die cut or other such instrument can save you a ton of money over a lifetime instead of spending countless dollars on cards, gifts, wrappings.

The main reason why we sometimes cave and head out to the store at the last minute and purchase a quick gift is simply a matter of not preparing ahead of time. This happens, I know. That’s why we want to make sure that our precycling efforts include alternative materials for crafts. With a little preplanning, we can be eco conscious, teach our children a valuable precycling lesson and save money. Now who can say no to that?

 

Foam Stickers Not Environmentally Friendly

Last night, while attending a meeting for the upcoming holiday party held by the parents of the 3rd grade, we browsed a catalogue for crafting ideas for the kids. Just about everything in the catalogue was made with those popular foam stickers! Unfortunately, foam stickers are not environmentally friendly. They are just another ‘quick fix’ for planning craft projects for kids. I know where those projects will end up in a few years: the landfill!

I immediately went on a quest for finding any information about environmentally friendly foam stickers. There’s hardly anything out there! The more I searched, the more I found only those puffy plastic stickers that we used to use when I was a kid!

While foam stickers are fun for kids, they are harmful to the environment. These stickers do not break down. The good point is that they will last almost forever and are easy to give to kids for crafting in a classroom environment where we only have a limited amount of time to create a project for home, but are we exchanging an easy ‘fix’ yet again in allowing our kids to use foam products on a massive level? Our entire 3rd grade will be using these foam cut-outs for crafting ornaments, picture frames, etc.

Time seems to be of the essence here. With a little careful planning and a little time given for kids to gather their own materials, couldn’t we have assigned each child to bring in items such as leaves, pine cones, etc., to create environmentally friendly Christmas gifts this year?

Give it some thought..

My plan is to begin collecting biodegradable project materials for future class projects. Being Eco Conscious does not have to be hard with the right planning.

Reimagine Beverage Containers

November 15, 2010
Reimagine Beverage Containers
Coca-Cola Recycling LLC and Environmental Products Corporation (Envipco) announced today that they will introduce Reimagine Beverage Containers, the newest innovation in beverage container recycling.The first Reimagine center is being piloted in Arlington, Texas – a municipality working toward a greener footprint….

Recycling With A Smile

The word today is- “Today’s kids will be tomorrow’s leaders”. What does this mean to us as parents?  We have a lot on our plates right now, yet teaching kids to be environmentally responsible can be a commendable undertaking while thinking about the future. Teaching our kids not only to recycle today, but to continue to recycle will build an evolutionary awareness that can be shared with their communities now, in the future and may even be passed down to the next generation.

Did you ever make something when you were a kid that, at the time, seemed so wonderful you just HAD to share? Here we discover the many ways that things we once considered to be ‘trash’ can become great treasures to our kids.