Reuse: plastic Nalgene-type water bottles as bedwarmers/coolers

Last Friday, our green elementary school hosted its carnival. Not really a fundraiser. Just a fun blow-out for the end of the year. Pizza slices for sale. Bouncy houses. Duck pond. You know the drill. But a heck of a lot of fun. They did skip the always popular toss a pie in the face of your 'favorite' teacher, which was a bit of a relief. As much as some kids like it, others feel sort of weird about how disrespectful it is. And it's a heck of a waste of whipped cream in a country that wastes far too much food as it is!! Well, maybe not exactly cream. Food product. Lite non-dairy whipped topping? In any case, what fat it does have gets in the eyes of the teachers and they end up all blurry eyed for days. The above photo was taken last year of our beloved kindy teacher who took it all in stride and wisely wore swim googles. I guess we should be thankful it wasn't replaced with a dunk tank!!

Anyhoo. Back to the carnival. As part of our Green Team, we've been selling stainless steel water bottles emblazoned with our school logo to promote reuse and drinking tap water. One of the parents ordered a bunch of them wholesale prior to our last auction, and while they have been a big seller, we've still got a fair inventory, so we set up a table and sell them at picnics, carnivals, etc. Don't ask me the margin on 'em. I don't know. But it is cool to see how many folks bring their own bottles and filled up from the 5-gallon durable water containers we provided, or would choose to buy the $12 stainless steel bottle over the single-use water bottles for sale over at the concessions table.

More yogurt cup re-uses (and --gag-- Modge Podge)

I don't remember buying Modge Podge, but I found a full bottle over the weekend in my craft disaster zone. And like the pig who asked for more pancakes after getting sticky from wallpaper paste, the Modge Podge got me thinking about potential uses. I've been wanting to make my daughter three piggy banks out of 32-ounce yogurt containers now that we're giving her a proper allowance. One for share, one for save and one for spend. So I had the idea to decoupage (a word I've never uttered) the yogurt cups using illustrations from a catalog. Easy! And I love the way they turned out.

But what the heck is in Modge Podge? Because the smell was toxic to my brain, and I walked around in a glue-induced daze all afternoon (and not in the good way). Blergh. I mean, I really had a good time with the Podge, but I cannot inhale that stuff anymore. And I wonder whether it will be off-gassing in my daughter's room. I've since discovered you can make your own Podge using three parts white (Elmer's) glue to one part water. It must be better.

We're also using an undecoupaged yogurt cup to store markers, and I've started setting a few aside for future uses (I remember Renee and JulieG saying they freeze food in them). They are pretty handy. We just eat way too much yogurt to reuse ALL of the containers. I've started experimenting with making my own yogurt and eliminating the container all together, but I'm still in mad scientist mode so I'll report back on that once I've completed my research.

101 re-uses for: old clothes

We frequently get asked what to do with old clothes: socks, jeans, sweaters, mittens, intimates, shoes, t-shirts, you-name-it.

We've patched the knees of our kids' worn out pants. We've darned the holes in our socks. Hope, our Eastside GreenGroup leader, made a darling tote bag from an old pair of jeans. We have one friend of a GreenGroup friend who makes rugs out of old wool socks. We've made as many sock puppets as our sock-puppet theater can handle. We've talked about local clothing re-use organizations that we particularly like. We've made t-shirt napkins. Yet, our rag bags runneth over.

What do you do with the rest of your old clothes (the clothes that are too beat up to hand down)? Surely, some creative EnviroMoms out there have some fabulous re-use ideas for old clothes.... Anyone, anyone?

KidTip: Teaching reuse via recycled art

Yesterday my 6-year-old marched off to school toting a very large paper grocery bag filled with recyclables. No, I was not making her run errands for me. It was for a school project. With Earth Day right around the corner, her kindergarten class was soliciting recyclables to use for their big Earth Day art project. Is your school doing this too? You've probably seen this kind of art. You've probably made some of it. If you're looking for ideas, Savvy Source has a huge list of craft projects made from reuse items.

While it's unrealistic to expect our young'uns will create true, museum-worthy masterpieces working with toilet paper rolls, bottle caps, polystyrene trays and egg cartons, I like the underlying message that these art projects teach: things can be reused. Even if they are created for one-time use: the egg carton, the bottle cap, the toilet paper roll, and yes, the foam tray. These "recycled art" projects plant the idea that using a big empty yogurt container on the beach as a sandcastle form is all you really need -- instead of buying a special plastic sand castle building bucket. Aside from a little text on the yogurt container, they're really the same thing: cheap plastic buckets. Reuse where you can. Make "precycle" the first step in any new purchase consideration. If your kids can learn this from a young age, maybe "retail therapy" will die a premature death.

If you're not in the mood for arts and crafts, or you're looking for other kid-sized projects to celebrate Earth Day, Savvy Source also lists a few eco-friendly activities for kids, along the lines of our KidTips.

Now go off and make your egg-carton caterpillar, or hug a tree, for crying out loud! It's almost Earth Day.

101 re-use ideas for mint tins

A couple of weeks ago my visiting sister-in-law left behind this empty Starbucks chewing gum tin. I like these little tins, but I never know what to do with them so I usually throw them away instead of saving them and creating more clutter. (I now realize that they can be recycled in the curbside bins because they are metal.) But I was determined to find a re-use for it, and it just so happens that Q-tips fit perfectly inside for traveling (which my family did last week). So I'm wondering, clever EnviroMoms, what are some other re-uses for Altoid and other small tins like this?

101 re-use ideas for yogurt cups

On our last day of Master Recycler class, Betty Patton, director of the Association of Oregon Recyclers, made a great point for those who grouse that certain plastics are not part of the curbside recycling program. She suggested we think about why we have these items instead. So if it's a plastic takeout container, think about ways to avoid getting it in the first place. She brings her own durable takeout containers when she dines out (I've thought about doing that, but haven't managed to yet). But I did see a very normal-looking mom her daughter the other day wrapping their leftover restaurant food to go in their own containers from home. And I just thought that was the best.

But for today I wanted to brainstorm on 101 re-uses for yogurt cups. I know I won't stop buying yogurt anytime in the near future. I have switched to the larger size, as that ends up being less packaging than the individual sized yogurts (I used to buy without those without a second thought). Since they are not currently collected as part of the curbside recycling program in our area, I'm getting creative on how to re-use them. Here are some of the things we do with yogurt cups in our house:

• Holders for markers and crayons
• Holders for small art supplies like sequins and beads
• Buckets for building sand-castles
• Rinse buckets for shampooing the kids' hair at bath-time
• Bathtub toys
• Rinse buckets for cleaning sinks, tubs, showers, etc.
• Holder for coffee grounds (I've been saving coffee grounds separately from the compost for a slug deterrent for garden plants)
• At our preschool, they use the little ones for paint cups at the art easel

Now hopefully, you can suggest a few more re-use ideas for yogurt cups, and see if we can cooperatively come up with 101 ideas...