Love 2 DIY on the Weekend: Easter Edition

Happy Easter weekend!  I hope you find a little DIY time for yourself in between cooking the Easter dinner and the Easter egg hunt.   Just in case you find those few moments of peace, here are some very appropriate DIY projects for this Easter weekend.

If you're home is suddently flooded with those plastic eggs that you just don't know what to do with, head over to TrashN2Tees and she'll give you "egg"xactly 14 ways to reuse them.  Including ideas like using them to store individual necklaces to keep them from tangling while you travel.  Of course, she also offers up plenty of crafting ideas, both hers and.....

Flower Made From a Plastic Easter Egg
by TrashN2Tees

....and others, like these adorable Plastic Egg Cupcakes from Creativity in Progress

And you can always substitute the plastic eggs for the real egg shell that I used to make this little spring time egg decoration:

I hope that gets the creative juices flowing just a little bit. What other ways do you repurpose those plastic eggs?

Happy Easter and Happy DIYing from Tricia at Upcycled Stuff

Breaking the Plastic Habit

I'm so excited about my first blog post on Love 2 Upcycle. Based on the title you would never know that I plan to make my feature center around gardening, but that is the idea. What inspired this title you ask? All the plastic bags that lodged themselves in my shrubbery. They didn't even come from my yard but they ended up here anyway.

The Problem:

Do you have a plastic bag problem? or even a paper bag problem? If I forget to take my reusable bags, I generally get paper over plastic, but only if they have handles. (Seriously what is the use of a bag with no handles?) Even doing that I have managed to collect an alarming number of plastic bags over the last year.

The problem is that plastic doesn't biodegrade, it is with us forever. If you want to hear more about the  larger plastic problem, check out this article on the Great Plastic Garbage Patch in the South Pacific:

http://www.howstuffworks.com/environmental/earth/oceanography/great-pacific-garbage-patch2.htm

The Rationalization:
Why do we continue to use plastic bags from the grocery store?

"I'll use them for my trash bags." is my personal favorite. I use it all the time.

"I forgot my reusables." Sigh, only too true.

"They are so handy." Especially those Ziploc's.

Alternatives:


There are a lot of great alternatives to plastic bags. Here are a few options:

Reusing:


What if you have a stash like mine? Rather than throw them away here are some fun ways other (smarter than me) people have come up with to reuse plastic bags.

99 ways to reuse plastic bags (How Stuff Works)

Plastic Bag Crafts (Green Living Tips)

Hoping your garden is a little greener,

Nikki
www.etsy.com/shop/ThisNThatbyNikki

Greener Shopping: Plastics - part 2

Last week I wrote about plastic resin codes.  This week, I’m going to further discuss what we, the consumer, can do to wisely use and reduce plastics in our daily lives.  If take three small steps to understand plastic, we can make better choices for our health and the health of the planet.

Recycling is a big part of using plastics.  The first thing you can do is find out what you can recycle locally.  Not all recycling programs take all seven resin codes so check with your county to see available options.

Sustainable living options aren’t huge here in the South, so I am excited to say that our curbside recycling program takes all seven codes, everything but Styrofoam and plastic bags!  Our local zoo will recycle Styrofoam, and of course grocery stores and office supply stores will recycle the plastic bags. Realizing that I could recycle all the plastic I was using was a big start to a greener shopping list!

The second step is reducing the amount of plastic we use. I’ve spent the last two years trying to find ways to reduce the plastic in our life. I thought I’d share a few of them that have been successful with our family of four:

Reduce sandwich bag use.  When our daughter started school we invested in some adorable reusable cloth sandwich bags on Etsy.  They have been great and easy to clean.  I still use sandwich bags for things like freezing the fish that we catch but I am using at least 5 less bags a week, so that’s 260+ plastic sandwich a year that don’t go into the environment, (and I don’t have to pay for them).   Sandwich bag shown in photo was created by Upcyclers team member Greener Route.

Replace plastic with glass when possible. Each time my plastic salad dressing bottle was empty, I would replace it with a glass salad dressing bottle.  Sometimes there isn’t an option for glass (i.e. mayo, yogurt, cream cheese, etc), but I found I could find most condiments were available in a glass container.   

Stop using plastic water bottles. Use stainless steel water bottles or other reusable bottle options. This was one of the first things I tried to tackle, and it was easier that I thought it would be!

Use cloth bags.  Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard of this popular way of reducing plastic.   Plastic bags are offered to shoppers everywhere.  I use my cloth bags for more than grocery shopping though.  I try to keep different sized bags in my car so when I’m out running errands I can keep from using plastic everywhere I go.    A quick trip to the pharmacy I grab a small cloth bag I keep in my purse.  A trip to the local library and I grab the medium sized bag that is behind the seat of my car.  At the farmers market, I pull out my reusable produce bags.  When I forget them (because sometimes they bring the items in to the house and they don’t go back out), I ask for paper or just carry the items without a bag.  Produce bag shown in photo was created by Upcyclers team member TNTees. 

Upcycle plastic containers for non-food related tasks. We store crayons, toys, screws, beads, and an assortment of other household items in our leftover plastic containers. My favorite plastic containers to upcycle: yogurt, spinach, and nut.

Start small and pick one way you can reduce plastic in your life.  I didn’t change everything at once.  I would integrate one new method, and then I would move on to the next one.  

The third step is using plastic smarter.  We can’t eliminate all the plastic in our daily lives.  My two year old isn’t going to use a glass sippy cup, so I make sure that the plastic cups she does use are BPA free and have a resin code 2, 4 or 5 on them.  I make sure my food storage containers and other plastic wares display these less toxic resin codes on them as well.

If there is NO resin code on your plastic containers, call the manufacture and ask. Since the resin codes are only for recycling, this would tell me that the manufacture doesn’t care about the environment and recycling the plastic they are creating!

To help remember the resin codes, I hang a list on the inside of my kitchen cabinet ----->

See what else you can do to reduce and wisely use plastic, by visiting Healthy Child, Healthy World’s list of plastic solutions: http://healthychild.org/5steps/5_steps_1/

Whether it is buying organic, handmade or reducing plastic use, becoming ethical consumers is something that everyone should look into. Does value or values determine your purchases? Educating yourself about the products you buy & their affect on the environment is vital to our future and the future of our planet.

Greener Shopping: Plastics 101

Conscious Consumerism:

Plastics 101, or is it Plastics 1-7

Plastic is everywhere. The word plastic means capable of being shaped or molded. And it has shaped itself into almost every aspect of our daily lives.  However, scientists are finding that an unseen cost to using plastics may be the health of our planet and our bodies. The production and disposal of plastic contribute to an array of environmental problems.  If we take some time to understand plastic, we can became a wiser about using it, and therefore make better choices for our health and our environment.

A Small Chemistry lesson… Plastics are typically polymers of high molecular mass, and may contain other substances to improve performance and/or reduce production costs. ~Wikipedia

In 1988 The Society of the Plastics (SPI) Industry developed a set of symbols placed on plastics to identify the polymer type. The resin identification coding system is used internationally to allow efficient separation of different polymer types for recycling. The most common plastics have a resin code in a universal recycling symbol often found on the bottom of the product. It is an arbitrarily-assigned number that has no other meaning aside from identifying the specific plastic.

While doing my plastic research, I thought The Healthy ChildHealthy World Organization summarized the safety of the resin codes the best:

PET or PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate): AVOID
Common Uses: Soda Bottles, Water Bottles, Cooking Oil Bottles
Concerns: Can leach antimony and phthalates.

HDPE (High Density Polyethylene): SAFER
Common Uses: Milk Jugs, Plastic Bags, Yogurt Cups

PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride, aka Vinyl): AVOID
Common Uses: Condiment Bottles, Cling Wrap, Teething Rings, Toys, Shower Curtains
Concerns: Can leach lead and phthalates among other things. Can also off-gas toxic chemicals.

LDPE (Low Density Polyethylene): SAFER
Common Uses: Produce Bags, Food Storage Containers

PP (Polypropylene): SAFER
Common Uses: Bottle Caps, Storage Containers, Dishware

PS (Polystyrene, aka Styrofoam): AVOID
Common Uses: Meat Trays, Foam Food Containers & Cups
Concerns: Can leach carcinogenic styrene and estrogenic alkylphenols 

Other this is a catch-all category which includes:
PC (Polycarbonate): AVOID - can leach Bisphenol-A (BPA). It also includes ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene), SAN (Styrene Acrylonitrile), Acrylic, and Polyamide. These plastics can be a safer option because they are typically very durable and resistant to high heat resulting in less leaching. Their drawbacks are that they are not typically recyclable and some need additional safety research. New plant-based, biodegradable plastics like PLA (Polylactic Acid) also fall into the #7 category.

Now go look at what number is on all of your food containers.  What are they? While 2, 4, 5 are the safer, they are sometimes hard to find. For instance when it comes to condiments, I can’t find a ketchup or mayonnaise bottle without a one on the bottom.

If there is NO resin code on your plastic containers, call the manufacture and ask.  Since the resin codes are only for recycling, this would tell me that the manufacture doesn’t care about the environment and recycling the plastic they are creating!!!

To further understand plastic and its numbers, let’s look at the second part of recycling it…what is plastic being recycled into?  That ketchup bottle with a resin code of one isn't turned into another ketchup bottle. It is recycled into polyester fibres, which are a base material for the production of clothing, pillows and carpets.

Here’s a quick summary of what the resin codes tells us the plastic can become:

Polyester fibres, thermoformed sheet, strapping, and soft drink bottles.

Bottles, grocery bags, milk jugs, recycling bins, agricultural pipe, playground equipment, and plastic lumber (like outdoor deck flooring).

Pipe, fencing, shower curtains, lawn chairs and non-food bottles

Plastic bags, 6 pack rings, dispensing bottles, tubing, and various molded laboratory equipment

Auto parts, industrial fibers, food containers, and dishware

Desk accessories, cafeteria trays, plastic utensils, toys, and insulation board and other expanded polystyrene products (e.g., Styrofoam)

Bottles, headlight lenses, and safety shields/glasses, (and may leak bisphenol A in the food & environment).

Whether it is upcycling, buying handmade or reducing plastic use, becoming ethical consumers is something that everyone should look into. Does value or values determine your purchases? Educating yourself about the products you buy & their affect on the environment is vital to our future and the future of our planet. 

Look for our next article to discuss safer options that we, the consumers, have to reduce, reuse and recycle the plastic in our lives.