Recycling shredded paper (merged)

Jamsi

I keep mine and use it when sending out ebay stuff... it's cheaper than bubble wrap and makes good padding!

Horasio

It goes in the blue bin - for paper recycling

Horasio

bizzylizzy wrote:

I have been saving mine in the hope that I can screw it up into balls and use like firelighters. I haven't lit a fire yet, am holding out as long as I can!

I would put it on the fire, if I had a real one

benji173

Paper mache!
The way I do it is to fill a jug up to the 800ml line with water, then put as much shredded paper in as you can. Suprisingly you can get a whole jug full with that much water as it soaks it up. Then you need to leave it overnight to soak. Drain it and put it in a blender. Blend it, gradually adding water, until it's a sort of runny paste. Drain this in a sieve and put the pulp into a bowl. Mix about 2 or 3 tablespoons of PVA in with the mixture, and then you can add a small amount of acrylic paint (PVA based) to change the colour or glitter, or you can leave it as it is (a grey/blue colour). You can make whatever you want out of it once you've got the mixture. I make bowls by getting a bowl, covering the inside with clingfilm, covering the clingfilm with the pulp, and blotting the pulp with kitchen roll (push down on the pulp so the water soaks into the kitchen roll). You then leave it to dry, or can do it in the microwave in around 10 minutes which removes the moisture. If you roll some of the mix into balls and put them in eggcups, you can dry them in a minute or 2 in the microwave and they make great baubles for the christmas tree.

purpleimp

All the recycling paper were we are gets given to our local animal rescue place,pet shop and rspca to save on their costs, we use all our extra paper on the fire,(last night was the first time I lit it since the spring) the other thing you could use it for is nesting paper for cristmas hampers.HTH.xxx

hazzie123

Thanks for the brilliant tips,I shall be doing paper mache and doing the stuffing of a draught excluder.I might even post finished pics of them too.

GrannyKnits_2

Just read that some of you can put your shredded paper in your wheelie bins. Here in Norfolk we have 2 wheelie bins. One general rubbish and one for recycling (but only certain things). On our list of 'do's' and 'dont's' it says not to put shredded paper in recycling bin which seems ridiculous.

I've just changed from an ordinary shredder to a cross-cut one. Everytime I emptied the old one i could practically piece everything back together - mind you it could just have been because i didn't empty it enough! At least now the bits are more compact cos they are so small.

pboae

I use it as firelighters too.

If you do use shredded paper for small animal bedding, only ever use the short cut or cross cut stuff. Full length shreds can get tangled round their legs and pull tight cutting off the blood supply. :-(

Shredded paper is no good for paper recycling because the fibres have been chopped too short. But most councils will accept it in cardboard recycling banks (though some don't even like that as it is very messy and awkward stuff to deal with).

Pink.

Hi hazzie,

As your thread has dropped off the front page of Old Style, I have moved it over to the Green and Ethical board to see if you can get some more suggestions.

Pink

SaverSarah_2

Hiya, in our region of Gloucestershire we're not allowed to put it in our green recycling bins but we ARE allowed to recycle it in the paper banks in the supermarkets etc (go figure!).

I've got a couple of friends with rabbits, and I often give them my shredded paper for pet bedding.