Creative Ways to Recycle

​Sure, you can put your plastics, glass, and paper out in the blue recycling bin every week for someone to come pick up. Alternatively, you can do your own creative recycling of products.

​Finding creative recycling solutions not only saves you money, but it's also good for the environment when you find another use for an item you would normally throw away or recycle in the traditional sense. There's less material for those recycling trucks to come pick up at your home this way. So why not try these creative solutions to recycling instead?

1. Reuse toilet paper rolls as cord storage. You know all of those numerous USB cables and cords for charging your electronics? Roll them up and store them right inside the toilet paper roll. It keeps them from getting tangled with each other and you can easily label the toilet paper roll with which cord it belongs to.

2. Instead of cutting up your old credit cards and throwing them away, punch them out in neat shapes and make yourself a pair of unique earrings, or a guitar pick if you play guitar or know someone who does.

3. Remember the days of actually having to have film in your camera? And that film had to be developed and you were left with all of the negatives so you could ask for a copy to be made of a picture. Well, if you still have those stored in your picture box, why not turn them into a neat window shade?

4. Turn your old picture frames into a serving tray.

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​5. Got ketchup? Clean out the bottle real good and fill it with pancake mix. Now you can make perfect pancakes every time without all the mess.

6. Turn an old suitcase into a medicine cabinet or side tables.

7. Do you have an old computer tower you're never going to use? Take all of the computer parts out of it and turn it into a mailbox.

8. Next time you finish off a box of tissues, don't throw away the box. It makes a great bag dispenser. Stuff your plastic shopping bags in there to reuse.

9. Old doors can be made into dining room tables or coffee tables.

10. Use bulletin boards as a jewelry organizer. It's easy to hang a necklace and earrings off a pushpin stuck into a bulletin board.

11. Kids grown and not playing with their Lego anymore? Make a key holder out of the Lego.

12. Old mugs, bottles, and bowls can be turned into new and creative light fixtures.

13. If you're remodeling and taking out pipes with valves, instead of throwing them away use them as hooks for your coat.

14. Got any cassette tape cases and no cassette tape to go in it? Add some pizazz to it and you have a gift card holder.

15. Use old utensils (forks, spoons, ladle) as hooks in your kitchen.

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​16. Turn a wine box into a shoe rack.

17. Make tennis racket mirrors out of old tennis rackets.

18. An old paper towel holder can be turned into a ribbon holder.

19. The next time you have a picnic, instead of worrying about people losing their food on flimsy paper plates, reinforce those plates with old Frisbees. Make sure they are clean.

20. Use cupcake wrappers under sticks on lollypops or popsicles to prevent dripping and sticky hands.

21. An old back-of-the-door hanging shoe rack can be reused as a pantry organizer.

22. A cardboard six-pack holder can be turned into a condiment carrier.

23. An old chair can be turned into a hanging towel rack in the bathroom (the back of the chair) and a shelf (the seat of the chair).

24. Mason jars have many uses - marble holder, salad storage, a place to keep buttons or other small items like screws. Decorate it or leave it as is, there's always something that can be found for an old mason jar.

25. Turn an old bathtub into a chair or loveseat.

There are so many creative ways you can use old things, as decorations or really useful items. Just be creative and have an open mind to see the possibilities.

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