Recycling... 7-Year-Old Style

I love candles and, as a child, remember making them at home. A few years ago, I thought that would be a fun activity to try with the kids. Our first try was impromptu, so we just rounded up a bunch of candles that were burned down past the point of being lit anymore, melted them down, poured the wax into an aluminum Coke can, stuck a string in it, and... presto pillar candles. We eventually got more sophisticated and bought real wicks from a craft store, and tried out other molds, as well.

We have a bunch of wax saved up now, including some broken crayons, so I told the kids we would make some this weekend. A few nights ago, I was pouring off some hot wax from a burning candle into a small bowl when my 7-year-old decided my little bowl of drippings had the makings of a great candle. He grabbed a wick and...presto, his own little creation. He rummaged through the leftover wax pieces and found enough small ones to make a whole series.

He has now proclaimed his little plastic blue bowl the best candle mold ever and is planning a lighting ceremony for the candles this weekend. His candles definitely have their own style and I may never have to buy another candle again with his inspiration and dedication!

Recycled Trees, Lights, and Packaging

The holidays tend to be a time of excess. In case you suffered some of that in your own household, here are some ideas for recycling your way out of the mess!

What to do I do with...

The tree? If you had a real tree, remember that it is biodegradable and can easily be recycled back into the Earth. In my neighborhood, the Boy Scouts come around every year and for a nominal donation will recycle it. If you're not so lucky, you can either put chop it up for your own yard waste or look for a drop off location at Earth911.

Broken or old lights? Rather than storing away the lights that no longer work for another year, you can drop them off at participating Ace Hardware stores. They were originally offering 15% coupons for the new energy-efficient LED lights, but those are actually marked down 65% now, so you can even get a bargain on next year's lights.

All that packaging? It is a few days past Christmas, so hopefully those messes are already cleaned up, but just in case here are a few thoughts. Save the boxes and bows for reuse next year. I just stack the nice gift boxes inside each other and then toss them down in the crawlspace for next year. Remember that in most cases, those horrendous plastic clamshells that encase many children's toys cannot be recycled. Unfortunately, those must be tossed. Did you get any styrofoam peanuts in packages that arrived by mail. Most packaging stores will gladly accept those for their own reuse.

Holiday cards? Recycling is an option for the cards that don't have foil or glitter, but another possibility is to reuse them for next year's gift tags. You can have your children cut out the designs and then pack them away with the decorations until next year. If your kids really like cutting out the penguins, snowflakes, and Santas, they may even turn it into a craft project to keep them busy while they're out of school this week. Ask them to create a winter scene from all the cutouts or have them make up a story to go with it.

What about you? What sort of excess is your home suffering from after the holidays? Feel free to post your own tips in the Comments.

Kashless Decluttering

I know Spring is supposed to be the season for spring cleaning, but for me Fall seems more appropriate. The kids are back in school and I actually have time to tackle things like mountains of magazines and piles of outgrown sports equipment. The age-old question is what to do with all of it. No, the garage in the picture isn't mine, but it is fun to post pictures of other people's garages!

Image by crumj via Flickr

One of my readers passed along some info on a new site called Kashless that could help with the whole process. I haven't tried it yet, but it seems like the new Craigslist with a Facebook/Twitter twist. Actually, since everything is free, it might be closer to Freecycle. Either way, all these sites offer a way to declutter your house and save useful items from ending up in a landfill. Recycling at its best!


I signed up on the site and their claim that it takes less than 30 seconds was true. Searching for an item is simple and the service is already available in nearly 100 cities. Personally, I like the Facebook angle to the site because it gives you a chance to easily pass on items you are no longer using to your own network of friends who may have similar needs. I'm thinking maybe I should investigate all those too-small ski boots in the garage before snow season starts.

To try out shopping on Kashless, I did a quick search for pianos since that was my recent Craigslist purchase and found lots to choose from. Of course, with pianos, the moving is the hard part. I did recently buy one for $400 on Craigslist and my kids love it! I think my husband and brother-in-law have almost recovered from the move. Note to readers: moving a piano is not recommended. That's why there are professional piano movers! Live and learn...

What do you have in your closets or garage that could find a new use in someone else's house? One more bonus to Kashless - they give tax receipts.

Technology Takes Out the Trash

Okay, it is Day #5 of school for my kids and I'm finally blogging again - hopefully, more regularly now! Thanks to my readers for sharing ideas all summer. I now have a giant file of things to blog about.

Yesterday, I read an article about the new trash cans at our neighborhood parks and since there happened to be one on our way home from music lessons, decided we just had to stop. As you can see from the picture, it also happens to be the trash can with one of the best views around. That's Puget Sound and Whidbey Island in the background.

They're called BigBellies and, for $4000 a piece, I figured they must be something special. Here's the deal - they are solar-powered trash compactors. Now, you may be asking, why would the city pay 10 times what a normal trash can costs, just to have fancy trash cans?

Well, it turns out that a big cost to the city is paying for the time and gas it takes their employees to make a daily garbage run to all the parks. The BigBelly holds five times the amount of trash of a regular can and uses solar energy to compact it. The city expects to break even on the cost within three years by reducing the number of garbage runs. Even better, once the program is fully in place, they will have reduced their carbon footprint by 45 tons/year.

So, there we were standing in front of the BigBelly. In went the apple core and graham cracker wrapper from their afternoon snack. We thought it might make some cool, smushing noise, but alas, the meter showed it was on empty and in no need of compacting. I guess we'll have to go back on a busy weekend!

My only suggestion for an improvement to the program - put one in for recycling as well.

How Does Paper Recycling Work?

Most kids know the basics about recycling, but to take it one step further and make the process a little more real for kids, I decided to actually show a group of first graders how it works. Project for the day: making paper!

It is actually fairly easy to turn leftover paper into new paper. It was so successful, my son wants to know if we can stop buying paper now. Hmm... I'm not sure my paper is good enough to run through the printer yet, but I did agree we could start doing it for homemade cards.

Supplies: paper, frame/screen, water, large plastic tub, blender, dull knife

1. The first step is to buy, find, or build a frame with a screen. I actually had a paper making kit from years ago that came with screens. I found a few kits on the market today, but the reviews I read were questionable so you may be better off buying screens at a local craft store or building one yourself with supplies from a hardware store. To build one, you just need a basic wood frame and a screen to staple to it. Here is a picture of my screens.

2. Dig into your paper recycling container and pull out about 15 sheets of scrap paper. Any color will work, but you might want to think about what color paper you want in the end. I used mostly white with a few colored sheets. Newspaper can work if you're okay with grey-colored paper, but stay away from any glossy paper.

3. Rip the paper into approximately 1 inch squares. This seemed to be great fun for kids!

4. Put the paper scraps and four cups of water in a blender. Blend until it looks like a soupy pulp (no big scraps left). I did about 5-10 seconds on low and 30 seconds on high.

5. Pour the mixture into a large tub. I used an old plastic toy bin, but lots of things could work. Repeat step 4 until all of your paper has been turned to pulp.

6. Add enough water to the tub to make it a few inches deep.

7. Submerge your frame in the pulp with the flat side of the frame on top. Lift it directly up out of the water. Hold over the tub until the water has drained.

8. Dry the paper. My kit says that the frames can be cooked in the oven for 20 minutes at 250 degrees, but they weren't quite dry at that point. Also, if you're making your own frame, you might not know if it is able to withstand the heat of the oven. Sunshine for a few hours seemed to be the best method. A hairdryer can speed up the process, but be careful not to get too close to the screen or you can burn a hole in it!

9. Use a dull knife to separate the paper from the screen.

We added some glitter to the pulp, but lots of decorations (dried flowers, confetti, etc.) could be added for embellishments. It is a fun project with kids and gives them a chance to learn about recycling beyond throwing it in the right container.

Snack Mom Reduces Game Day Waste

It's game day and you're on the list as "snack parent" for the day. What do you do? Run to the grocery store and pick up one of those snack packs filled with Doritos and a case of water bottles?

I have absolutely been that mom - and have even done it during the game when I suddenly realized it was my day! I figured this week was my chance to redeem myself - what could I provide if I had some advance planning?

The goal was to reduce the waste, while still providing a healthy, fun snack for the kids. I settled on local Gala apples, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and cans of Crayons (a new all-natural, locally produced juice). I originally considered a big thermos of juice and paper cups, but I know, as a parent, that most of us are in a hurry to get home after an evening game so I went with something that was portable and recyclable instead.

One kid did ask what the fruit was for and then happily grabbed one when I told him it was part of the snack. That tells you how often we parents tend to offer healthy snacks after games.

I do admit it took more time to make the cookies than run to the store, but my younger son loves cookies and I rarely make them (because then I eat all of them) so it was worth it. The extras went to school today for Support Teacher Appreciation Day so we had homemade gifts for the teachers and no leftovers for me. Perfect!

Greener School Lunches

180 school days times two children = 360 packed lunches in my household. That's a lot of lunches! While my greatest challenge remains finding healthy food that my children will actually eat, another struggle is how to avoid all that plastic baggie waste. For me, I try to keep the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle mantra in mind with their lunches.

My solution was helped by the fact that from an early age, my kids refused to eat sandwiches. Why, I never could figure out, since they will eat bread, meat, and cheese separately, but that's another story. My default answer became a thermos full of last night's leftovers. This way they get to reuse the leftover food and we get to reduce the overall waste factor, by not using a plastic sandwich bag. The thermoses have contained everything from chicken and veggies to soup to spaghetti.

For all the other items (fruits, veggies, crackers, etc.), I use reusable plastic snack containers. Truthfully, these are the same ones I've been using since they were babies with their first snack of Cheerios, but they do the trick. They also each take a reusable water bottles and plastic silverware. I used to send them with cloth napkins, but those came back unused everyday, so I gave up. Who was I kidding? Little boys don't use napkins of any kind!

I'm happy that we skip the plastic baggie route most days, but we still have room for improvement. One of my kids gets a small can of apple juice each day, while the other buys a carton of milk. While these items can be recycled, I don't think that's currently happening. The school did just send out a notice on reducing its carbon footprint, so I'm going to make a note to follow-up on their in-class recycling options. They also each usually get a small yogurt (hiding under the carrots in the picture). I tried converting to home-packed containers of yogurt that come from the larger tubs from the store. It would be cheaper and there would be less waste, but I haven't sold the kids on that idea yet - their favorite flavor/brand doesn't come in the big containers. Ah well...

There are many options for going green with school lunches including reusable sandwich wraps, but I have yet to try these. I think it's all about what works for each family and our plan seems to be working for now. Anyone else have other tips or tricks?