Wasteless Wednesday~ Staycation Instead!

We all know how expensive it is to travel, especially with today's economy and high cost of fuel~ Some families just can't afford it! What's the popular alternative nowadays? A Staycation!

Here's some great ideas for your summer days, and best of all by staying close to home, you'll be supporting your local businesses, saving money and WASTING LESS!

1. Have a Spa Day in your home! This may not appeal to everyone in the family~ but you never know...Plan a party with a spa theme, or just put on the ritz for your visiting friends. BHG has some great tips for a spa themed "get-away"!

BHG.com

2. Host a Croquet Tournament! Traditionally, white is the popular attire, dress it up with some fancy decor and drinks, design a homemade, whimsical trophy or two and` Woohoo! You've got a fun day for all ages! Don't like croquet? How about volleyball, frisbee or badminton!

StaycationIdea.com

3. A Family Summer Book Club~ Choose a book each week or two, or even monthly for all of you to read separately or to each other. Then pick a night to have a themed dinner or snacks and talk about the book you've read! Liven it up with some trivia questions from the book written and asked by a rotating family member and give small prizes to the winner. But watch out, this idea could turn into a year round event! You could also use this idea for a Neighborhood Kids or Adults Book Club!

4. It's Movie Night! Rent a movie to watch indoors or out! You can make your own outdoor theatre with popcorn and everything~ and you can wear your PJ's if you want!

5. Which leads to the next idea: A Backyard Campout! Tents, campfire and, of course, S'MORES!

6. How about a Neighborhood Concert Under the Stars? If you don't know anyone who plays music, see about pitching in with a few neighbors to hire some musicians and put on a concert! Families can bring a dish or snack~ or each bring their own blanket or chairs and a picnic!

7. Not Music Lovers? Throw a Backyard or Neighborhood Carnival! Rent a bounce house, get some face paints and have someone artistic paint faces, make a dunk tank, have a pie throw and get someone to do some clowning around! You can even make balloon animals!

Whatever you like to do, there are ways to do it with friends or family and have a fantastic summer right in your home or neighborhood. Venturing out is easy too, we'll give you some great ideas for one tank trips next week! In the meantime, have fun getting ready for summer!

Have a great Wasteless Week!
;) Cat

Wasteless Wednesday: Slow Your Roll!

Okay, this week's post may not be for everyone~ some of you may be a bit queasy about some of these suggestions, but if you take into consideration the waste produced by these common problems, you might think twice!

Toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, baby diapers, baby wipes. 

The U.S. produces 160 million pounds of waste just from the 17 billion toilet paper tubes  manufactured annually!  iReuse.com claims 40% of the waste in our landfills is paper products. Keep in mind most of the toilet paper we use goes to waste treatment facilities. So factor in our 17 billion rolls of toilet paper and the mind starts to reel.

Diaperpin.com does an excellent job breaking down the materials found in baby diapers and argues the case for cloth diapers. Polyethylene, polyacrylate, wood pulp, fragrances, not too mention the packaging and inks, all eventually wind up in our landfills. Heather L. Sanders wrote her article in 2002 and back then we were using 18 billion disposable diapers. That figure is now estimated at 28 billion!


We could go on and on.


Perhaps now the following seven alternatives will seem more attractive.


1.

Reusable Paper Towels~ Darling Discoveries

2.

UnPaper Jumbo Everyday Napkins~ Love For Earth

3.

Cloth Baby/Family Wipes~ Lover of Life Designs

4.

Eco Potty Wipes~ EcoFamily777

5.

Cloth Diaper Kit~ PoshDirect

6.

Wool Soaker Diaper Cover~ Chickadee and Me

7.

Cotton Handkerchiefs~ Whole World Bags

So, there you have it. Pretty products for not so pretty messes. You'll find them all on Etsy, as well as countless other handmade alternatives. Isn't it ironic that in our efforts to clean up our act, we're making an even bigger mess. Think about it.

Have a fantastic week~ and Remember to Waste Less!

Wasteless Wednesday~ Contain It!

This week we'll show you seven ways to reinvent a container! Beverages are one of the most consumed and waste producers on the market today~ but Upcyclers find a way to "contain" the container problem everyday! Innovative, imaginative and practical, these products are becoming more and more mainstream and aesthetically popular. We are proud to be part of the movement to reduce the content of landfills and offer quality products that fill the needs of today's consumers. What goes around is coming around!

1. Wine bottle necks become:

Dessin Creations

2. Wine Bottle Bottoms become:

Glass Galore Gal

3. Wine Bottles become:

Le Couteur Art

4. Wine Caps become:

Eco Imbiber

5. Bottle Caps become:

Eileena Jewelry Studio

And: 

Pir8te

6. Soda Cans become:

Sparkly Trash

And:

East Street Tins

 And not the last, we hope, and certainly not the least!

7. Plastic Bottles become:

Deko Projects

And:

Down Side Up Studio

So there you have it. Seven post consumer by-products turned art, turned jewelry, turned home decor, turned accessories, turned UPCYCLED! Best of all~ not wasted! So before you toss that container in the trash...Contain your waste, if you don't want to upcycle it yourself, find someone in your local area who does! Or put it in a recycling bin at the very least.

Have a great Wasteless Wednesday and we hope each day this week you find a way to save even one container.

Reducing Consumer Waste

Reducing Consumer Waste…and I don’t mean just recycling.

Reducing consumer waste is an important part of sustainability. The importance of keeping waste out of our landfills is crucial to the health of our planet. It is reported that almost all landfills leak or eventually will leak as their liners decay and they leach toxins into our environment. Call it what you want, reducing, upcycling, repurposing or reusing, it is basic conservation of both raw and manmade materials, and reducing waste is crucial to our future.



Consumer Waste can be grouped into two categories:

Post Consumer Waste is generally the waste we routinely discard in our trash cans and at the dump. This is the waste that litters our highways and sidewalks. It is leftover from consumers buying products and either using them or creating waste from buying them. There are many different types of post consumer waste: paper waste like magazines and junk mail, disposable waste like batteries & tissues, broken items we no longer want, food waste, human waste, pet waste and water waste from different forms of cleaning are all considered post consumer waste.

The Wooden Bee upcycles some of our family’s post consumer waste. We reuse plastic containers for storage and organizing. We turn unwanted magazines and discarded beer cartons and cereal boxes into recycled wall art. We recycle shipping and packaging materials in our studio and in our orders. Our stain and paint rags are taken only from old tshirts & towels. Even the Sustainable Supplies section of our shop allows us to find unwanted hardware pieces a new home.




Pre Consumer Waste is a newer term to consumer waste. It is a material that was discarded before it was ready for consumer use. Pre-consumer waste is the reintroduction of manufacturing scrap (such as trimmings from paper production) back into the manufacturing process. Sometimes it is not thought of as traditional recycling, but is an important way to keep large amount of manufacturing waste out of our landfills. For example, if carpet companies can take their scraps and incorporate them back into their products, things like yarn, fiber and other natural resources will be saved from taking up landfill space.

We feel our wood, the main material we recycle, falls under both pre and post consumer waste categories. Sometimes we come across reclaimed wood that is decades old and has served another purpose like a cabinet door. It would obviously be considered post consumer waste. However, a large portion of our wood is left over from the new home construction process, and has been cut for cabinets and moldings but was never used. It comes to us raw, with no paint or stain, and often it never left the manufacturing facilities where it was cut. This wood is then the trimmings of the new home construction process and we are reintroducing it, therefore we feel it is pre consumer waste.




When I first went into business last year, we decided to call our wood “recycled wood,” since it fell into both of these categories. Since then, we decided “reclaimed wood” gave our audience a better understanding of our products as a whole, especially since many people don’t know about the term pre consumer waste. What category our wood falls into could be debated, but one thing is for sure, it is beautiful wood being saved from taking up landfill space!

Quick Tips to help Reduce Your Consumer Waste

• There are a number of online resources:
o Freecycle.Org is a great one! Just look up your local group and start recycling. Or you can check out Upcyclers' own version: Freeupcycle!
o Craigslist is another resource to help people buy, sell and trade things they no longer want or need.
o Etsy has a large selection of vintage items and using their search engines you can find amazing handmade creations made from all sorts of recycled materials.
• In your community, you can find resources like:
o Buy from and Donate to places like Good Will, the Salvation Army, and local church and charity consignment shops.
o Hold garage sales & visit estate sales.
o Donate to your local Habitat for Humanity’s Restore. They take almost ANYTHING for the home (except electronics & clothing) and will even take full gallons of unused paint, if you happened to buy too much or the wrong color.
• If you do have to buy new, try to buy durable.
o Take into consideration product packaging, product life, and the options you will have in recycling or reusing the product once it has come to the end of its shelf life.

Becoming ethical consumers is something that everyone should start looking 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.