Welcome to The Budget Ecoist, where we help you go green on a budget. Check out our tips for recycling and reusing everyday items, our reviews of eco-friendly products, and share your tips in our green forum.
Category: Recycle and Reuse
Mosaic Recycled Placemat: Go Green
July 23, 2008
There are some things that are just awkward to recycle. Water bottles, easy. Pizza boxes, not so much. Some city recycling rules don’t allow items that have held food, others do. Lucky for those of us who are easily confused, some innovative designers are making use of some of those borderline waste products.
CB2 is exclusively selling this mosaic recycled placemat made from shredded juice boxes and milk cartons. Isn’t it fab? The mats are...
Magazines: Recycle This
July 22, 2008
Here are ten great things to do with all those old magazines cluttering up your home: 1. Donate them to retirement homes, libraries and doctor's offices. (Be sure to remove your mailing address first, if you have a subscription)
2. If you have recipe magazines (hello, Rachael Ray!) that you can't bear to part with, try these options: cut out the recipes you want to keep, hole punch and pop into a binder for safe keeping amongst your other...
Hot Fuzz: A Second Life for Dryer Lint: Recycle This!
July 18, 2008
Using a clothes dryer isn't the greenest way to dry your laundry, but they haven't been phased out yet, and even with increased usage of clotheslines and drying racks, dryers are not going anywhere anytime soon. So when you do use your dryer, and remove a fuzzy layer of lint from the catcher, can anything be done with this lint instead of throwing it away? The answer is yes, and not too surprisingly, many suggestions can be found on the...
Homeless Photos: Recycle This
July 15, 2008
Let’s see a show of hands for everyone who has individual photos floating around the abode, looking for a resting place. That’s what we thought - all of you. Face facts, you’re not going to create a new look book any time soon. No. You’re not. And you don’t want to leave all your cute pics loose, falling off a shelf and getting kicked around and battered beyond recognition until you reluctantly toss them in the trash. We’ve got some better...
Fish Tank: Recycle This
July 9, 2008
We want to give credit where credit is due. So the idea for this post came from one of our favorite British blogs, How Can I Recycle This? It just so happens that one of the Ecoists over here has a husband (and we're not naming names) who has a thing about fish tanks. You know....buy fish, kill fish, buy more fish, insist these fish will survive the obviously cruel fate you're subjecting them to. The next thing you know, the fish tank is...
How To Make a Bathmat out of Towels: Green Video
July 1, 2008
Continuing with today's "recycle theme," here's a great way to make use of all those old bath towels. This DIY lesson from ThreadBanger teaches you how to make a bath mat out of old towels. After all, that bath mat is meant to be absorbent, might as well go to the source to create it!Brown Paper Bag: Recycle This
July 1, 2008
Occasionally you go into a store and buy a little something. A really little something. You know all the smart boutiques where they don’t waste money having logos and store names printed on small bags, they simply hand you that one-of-a-kind bamboo bracelet in a discreet, unassuming brown paper bag. Here are ten great ways to make re-use of that bag: 1. Pack your lunch to-go. There was a time when this bag was the go-to staple for packing...
Home Depot Launches National CFL Bulb Recycling Initiative: Recycle This
June 26, 2008
Something exciting happened this week. Finally we can stop worrying about that moment when our first CFL blows out (they really do last forever, don't they?). What would we do with it? Gone are the days of mindlessly throwing the dead lightbulb into the garbage. This is mercury, afterall. But as of Tuesday, June 24, it's easy sailing in the mercury anxiety department (except for the worry of what happened to all those old thermometers...
Crocs: Recycle This
June 18, 2008
You already know you can recycle newspapers, cans, and bottles. But did you know you can also recycle those soft, colorful shoes called Crocs? And what's more, they're going to a good cause. A few years ago, a little plastic shoe became a fashion phenomenon. But what happens when your Crocs go kaput?
The Crocs company wants to save all that plastic from landfills and make the developing world a more comfortable place. So it started a...
Everything Becomes School & Office Supplies: Recycle This!
June 16, 2008
If there is a cooler green company out there right now than TerraCycle, we'd like to hear about it. TerraCycle recently partnered with Office Max to produce a line of recycled office and school products. The results? One marvelous waste-free future unfolding before us!
A recent rundown in Ecopreneurist goes into more detail, but here are some highlights:
Trash/recycle bins made from recycled computer cases and production waste
Eco...
Mommy-WOW! Diapers: Recycle this!
June 13, 2008
Here’s another major source of non-biodegradable landfill waste: baby diapers. Just think: the plastic diapers we used as babies are probably still buried in some landfill today, and will continue to be there long after we are gone. Factor in that each baby uses about six thousand before toilet training is complete, and that’s a sizable problem. Sure, the oldschool cloth diapers never completely went out of use, and now not too surprisingly,...
Green Glass Vintage Goblet: Green Home
June 11, 2008
Sometimes your fancy friends come over and it’s time to put away the tumblers and PBR, clean off the good china and pour a Pinot. Why not spend your hard-earned home entertainment dollars on sustaining practices of elegant craftsmanship that you can pass down to your grandchildren? Green Glass is a group of adventurers who were looking for a new business idea as one of them lamented after tossing a fine-looking wine bottle in the trash during...
A Trio of Companies That Take Your Junk: Recycle This!
June 4, 2008
The already Earth-conscious, animal-friendly Aveda line of haircare products recycles water bottle caps (which can’t be recycled using the usual plastic-bottle-recycling process) for an upcoming line of their limited edition retro-style Clove shampoo, in stores this September. Send caps to: Aveda Re-Cap Program
ACA Waste Services
40 EADS Street
Babylon, NY 11704
When you’re sending Aveda your caps, why not throw in some plastic caps from...
The Gift (Card) that Keeps on Giving: Recycle This!
May 29, 2008
Now that unwanted gift card can turn into giving trees through the site Gift Cards for Trees. Here's how it works: You get an unwanted gift card, say it's for Outback Steakhouse and you just gave up red meat. But instead of letting it expire, as so many gift cards do, you mail in your $25 gift card to Gift Cards for Trees, then they'll plant trees through the organization American Forests! The amount planted varies by the amount of each...
Ziploc--The Other Plastic Bag: Recycle This!
May 21, 2008
This is one of those tips that will make significant others look at you askew. But it's all for the greater good, and you're used to it anyway, right?
Ziploc bags are so handy, yet so wasteful. Use 'em once and throw 'em away, right? Wrong! Why not simply wash' em? You probably don't want to do this if the storage bag was holding raw meat or fish, but if it was only holding crackers or even cheese, try this:
Let your used storage bags...
Stick a Cork in it: Recycle This!
May 14, 2008
Now this is the kind of recycling anyone can get behind: Step 1 is "Drink 180 bottles of wine (adults only)."
That's right, it's time to start collecting those wine bottle corks when you recycle the wine bottles, and then put them to good use. If you're feeling ambitious, you're going to make a decorative yet functional cork board. The rest of the directions are here.
For those who prefer emptying wine bottles to getting crafty, how about...
Recycled Flip-Flop Doormats and Baskets: Green Home
May 13, 2008
While you’re out shopping for new summer flops, take a moment to pay homage to the ones you wore down to the nubbins at last year’s beach parties. Then thank the people at Uncommon Goods who are selling cool products made from the waste at flip-flop factories. Using every part of the rubber, these baskets, nesters and our favorite – doormats also place a splash of solid color in your home (bolds are beautiful right now, ya’ know). For...
Five Ways to Reuse Chopsticks: Recycle This!
May 8, 2008
At first, “disposable” chopsticks that come with Chinese takeout or sushi may appear wasteful, and the matter has actually become a hot topic in China recently. But many pairs are made from ultra-renewable fast-growing bamboo, and others are made from other fast-growing woods like birch. However, there’s some debate as to how safe it is to reuse wooden chopsticks as eating utensils (especially if they’ve been used to handle raw fish),...
10 Uses for Newspaper: Recycle This!
May 2, 2008
1. For storing holiday decorations, you can use newspaper for wrapping ornaments, but here's a tip to put multiple newspaper sections into service for years to come. To keep lights tangle-free, roll up a newspaper section, tape it in place, then wrap lights around it. Tuck the plug end inside the roll at either end. (You're also making fun time capsules for the grandkids to discover!)
2. The above tip also works for your extension-cord...
Crochet Plastic Bags into Mats and More: Recycle This
April 23, 2008
Even with the best of intentions, there are times when we forget to bring our totes grocery shopping and it quickly becomes obvious that the most extensive collection of canvas and cotton totes won’t do the world any good if you don’t remember to bring them to the store. Then bam! Back home with another ten or twenty plastic bags to stuff into that bag full of other bags.
Ugh.
There must be something to be made out of all these bags,...
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