Strange Recycling

Editor's Note: This is a recycling (no pun intended) of a blog post I published on another site in 2013, but it's still relevant. So, enjoy.

If you thought about all of the products you use and the waste these products generated, you might be surprised at the range of waste that does not get reused or recycled or even thought about.  That's why I wanted to put together this little think piece to go way out there and talk about some of the more esoteric and bizarre wastes and see if we can not only think about some even minor reuse for them but also get us to ponder our purchases more in relation to the waste it will result in.

Dryer Lint

Who has pulled the dryer lint off the screen and thought to themselves, "Hmm, there must be some use for this stuff..." ? Hell I thought about this question well before recycling or sustainability ever became mainstream, probably when I was doing laundry once a month in college.  The self-sufficiency blog Bacon and Eggs suggests using dryer lint for a variety of uses such as a fire-starter (provided no petroleum derivatives are a part of the stuff), doll and teddy bear stuffing, batting for quilts, stuffing for home-made cushions, crafts material, animal bedding or nesting material, or candle wicks.  I particularly like this recommendation:

"Take an empty toilet paper or paper towel roll and stuff it with old newspaper and dryer lint. Close up the ends and you have a great fire-starter.  Use it in your fireplace or put a couple in your stash for your next camping or hiking trip."

This article suggests using dryer lint for plant mulch, compost material, and making lint paper. The bottom line is just make sure you are not creating a fire hazard or using inappropriate lint such as from rayon or polyester unless it will not be a potential health hazard or safety risk.

Coffee Grounds

The amount of coffee brewed at home and in restaurants, coffee shops, and countless other places where caffeine is in hand shaking demand, is staggering. This Old House came up with a list of 11 uses for old coffee grounds. First they suggest putting them in a container and stashing it in your refrigerator to deodorize it. Well, this of course depends on whether you like the smell of coffee since that's what you'll get.  I actually use a Ziploc bag filled with old, unused coffee that I never brewed in my office as an "air freshener" and it's amazing how powerfully the smell of hazelnut coffee comes through the sealed bag.  Other TOH suggestions include scouring dishes and tools, hide furniture scratches, antiquing paper, repelling insects in the garden, containing fireplace ashes, scrubbing hands, making a cockroach trap (I told you this was going to be "out there"!), and fortifying houseplants, among others.  This article from the Mother Nature Network includes uses for both coffee grounds and used tea leaves. I love this one: "It is common in Southeast Asia to wash straw sleeping mats [and beds] in tubs of water to which tea has been added. The tea works as a deodorizer, so you can apply this method to yoga mats and air mattresses."

Old Pens

How many pens that you use for work or at home run out of ink annually? What do you do with the pen when it starts to fade away? Usually a first impulse might be anger or annoyance and you fling the pen with all of your might into the trash can (well, at least I do, maybe I have anger issues?). Well, you know somebody was thinking of this problem before I did so first let me tell you what an article on the DIY Life site suggested.  Their readers suggested cutlery handles, garden labels, a sewing caddy, and others, most of which are fairly marginal and not related very much to necessity.  The Sustainable Attorney web site (you know they use their fair share of pens) highlights a report by Green Seal's Choose Green Report on writing instruments that says that Americans discard 1.6 million pens annually (which sounds a bit low) but is still quite a pit of plastic to be added to the landfill. The Sustainable Attorney article suggests reducing the number of pens purchased or buying refillable pens (what to do with the spent cartridge?) which makes sense if feasible.

Conclusion

These three items are just a few that I could think of while sipping my morning caffeinated beverage so I'm sure that many more could come to mind if I put my mind to it as I'm sure you could as well. I would love to hear about your sustainable and practical reuse ideas about these three items. I would also like to hear about how the primary consumptive article (laundry, coffee, pen) could be used less or an alternative method or use devised. Certainly the most sustainable alternative is to develop products and procedures that are as durable, benign, and practical as possible. I don't want to hear about the reuse of plastic happy meal toys since these are an abomination to begin with.