Recycle Week: Re-use, Recycle and Save Money

Catastrophia

We've recently signed up to Who Gives a Crap for our toilet roll and paper towels. We have 5 permanent residents in the household so we go through tp quickly which is expensive and wasteful due to the plastic wrapping.

We discovered Who Gives a Crap who deliver entirely recycled toilet paper to your door, with no wasted plastic packaging, plus 50% of their profits go to help build toilets in less fortunate countries.

So far we've saved over £50 by subscribing to their delivery service, and reduced our environmental impact in the process!

Pagan_Princess_2

So glad to read that I'm not the only one that repairs her knickers......

Pagan_Princess_2

1) Use soap nuts for your weekly wash and to make washing up liquid out of......really cheap 'nuts' on ebay........
2) Sell all unwanted stuff on ebay
3) If you use Ace stain remover - you will save money and get a better result if you put it in a spray bottle.....you use a lot less and get a better coverage.
4) Dare I say it - reuse your tea bags - you can make 2 cups from 1 teabag.
5) Switch to alternative 'milk' and make your own - home made almond milk is easy to make.
6) Empty the contents of your hoover bag in the compost bin.....
7) Take the Vegan Challenge - veggies are cheaper than meat and you don't have any nasty 'sunday roast' dishes to wash
8) Charity shops are brilliant for balls of wool to make small items or granny blankets.
7) old t-shirts cut up make great floor cloths and I have a pile in the garage for checking the oil

River.Bee

Living in a student house, I'm constantly digging through our shared bin and pulling out recyclable things that my flatmates can't be bothered to put in the recycling bin :mad:

I also surprised myself that I thought to cut off some of my tops' coat hanger ties and to use them as bookmarks for my (many) spiralled notepads. I was going to buy some ribbon until I thought of the idea, so I saved some pennies

I used a big Thornton's delivery box from Christmas to use as a temporary and recyclable emergency stray/ feral cat shelter during the recent 'beast from the east' cold snap. It worked very well (this area I live in is a bit dodgy, I feel so sorry for all the cats around here I couldn't just do nothing )

Rubik

Great thread - sorry I'm a little late to the party.

We've taken a serious look recently at the horrendous amount of single use plastics we were using each week. So - we've swapped:

single porridge pots for home-made ones using an old butter tub (it gets washed each day then reused, and the oats and skimmed milk powder costs just a few pence per day)
Take our own tubs to the deli counters for ham, cheese etc rather than having them wrapped in plastic
A complete ban on anything that comes in or with black plastic
Started having doorstep milk deliveries in glass bottles -while the cost of milk is more expensive, in the long run it will save us money. We make on average 10 trips per month to the local shop to buy additional milk - and each trip costs us an average of £12 (because we buy stuff we don't need like chocolate and other such treats!)

At home, I've extended the life of many clothes; if they have holes I will crochet a patch to cover the hole with, replace tired old buttons with new to give an item a fresh look, added beading or fringing to a tired t-shirt to give a little sparkle, etc - I now look a bit oddly dressed, but hey individualism is awesome I've been known to mend knickers and bras on occasion too.

Katiehound

What? Doesn't everyone repair their knickers??
I have indoor pairs (or stay at home ones) and going out ones!! It really annoys me when the channel at the top for elastic falls apart......that's not allowed.

Hopeless_Case

Great thread!

I've made a lot of changes over the last year, I'd already been using reusable carrier bags and proper dishcloths instead of j-cloths for years, and recycling what I could, but in the last year I've:
Stopped using kitchen rolls, I use old cloths or tea towels
Almost entirely cut out cling film and foil - I use old plastic take away pots or food savers to store food in, or the good old plate over the top of a container, and where I used to cook food wrapped in foil, I find a pyrex bowl over it (or even nothing ) does just as well
I take our lunch into work in plastic boxes, no food bags or clingfilm
I carry a water bottle around with me
I've switched to a Eurocrubby instead of disposable scourers
I've stopped using cotton wool and cleanser and I use a facecloth and (bar) soap = stopped buying liquid handwash
I use a bar shampoo (haven't found a good bar conditioner yet)
I've switched to hankies
I make my own oat milk and humous and eat a mainly plant based diet
I'm composting (still struggling with this but determined to get it right!) and aiming not to renew my garden waste bin and save nearly £60 a year
I'm buying clothes (and whatever else I can) from charity shops
I took cuttings of my pelargoniums and overwintered them on the spare bedroom windowsill to save money and pastic pots buying new ones in the spring
I'm going to buy an Eco egg for washing clothes - I'm generally not automatically putting things in the wash after wearing them but checking if they really need washing
It is just me doing this not my OH, he still uses tissues, eats a lot of meat, buys junk food and fizzy drinks etc, etc, but our waste has cut down massively, we get our landfill bin and recycling bin emptied on alternate weeks and they both used to be full but now I often only put them out once a month - this still means that we are filling 2 big wheelie bins a month though, which is huge. My mum only used to have one of the little metal dustbins for a family of 5! I'm working on reducing it, and a big part of it was the mindset that filling the recycling bin is NOT good for the environment (and I think a good proportion og it ends up not being recycled anyway), better not to create the waste at all!

kazwookie

I've been using up small tubs from the kitchen and planting next years seeds in ready for the spring plant out 2019!

Willowtree222

Hi,
I have been doing lots of the tips around here. Little things like saving all the little bits of soaps and then putting them together to form a large bar.

We have four bins so we pretty much recycle all the bits we can in the format, but doing other things round the house too.

I've been saving my old candle jars and making my own wax melts and buying wicks and using them as a way to make cheaper candles.
I've been using old clothes that little one has to put together and make ones.

Using scraps of wool that would normally be thrown out to tie them all together and crochet to make a multi coloured blanket. They are little things, but that are making a bit of a difference.

Robots

I've found that the best way to attack the catastrophic environmental impact we're having on the planet AND save a few quid along the way is to reduce what we're using. One thing really does lead to another here and you'll find that you're doing much more than you originally thought.

1. Make your own stuff

Growing your own veg/herbs/whatever not only gets you something that tasted better than supermarket veg, but it really cuts down on the amount of plastic and other packaging being used (a lot of which can't be recycled). You can go even further and make your own compost etc. Use fabric you already have to make other things (maybe you'll even enjoy this one), and take five minutes to make a packed lunch for work.

2. Stop buying stuff you don't need

How did we end up in a world where people say "I need to change the living room accents" and then chuck the old cushion covers, light shades, etc into the bin (yes, this really happened!).

You don't need a new outfit for every social function, you don't need water in a plastic bottle (use the tap, you're paying for it anyway), and stop buying the kids mountains of toys for Christmas.

Sorry, went on a bit of a rant there...
:T