Recycling

For more than a few years now I've been making an effort to recycle everything and anything I can. I have the most success with fabric; I've found ways to use up my scraps to make gift bags, coasters and crumb patchwork. 99% of the materials I use for my sewing and quilting are vintage or repurposed as well. I'm not looking down on anyone who uses new fabric, by the way. I know professional sewers and quilters have to use new materials in order to create the best products for their customers; I don't sell my work so it doesn't really matter what I use.

Paper is really the biggest recycling problem for me. Junk mail and printing out work for my day job create a lot of paper waste. Junk mail is really tough to recycle because I can't write or print on most of it. I might try making that into some pockets and pages for junk journals.

Printed paper is my major recycling headache (the photo above is from a bin at the recycling plant where I take my waste paper.) I always try to work off the screen versus a print out, but for the final stage of every work project I do I have to look at the work on paper. Next year I'm going to recycle the print outs I make by using the blank back sides to print out other work; I can also use some of it to add extra pages in my desk journals or as note paper.

There's also a cost benefit to reusing my printer paper. When I finally ran out last week after making a case last for two years (I really don't use a lot) I went to restock at Office Depot. The cheapest case of 10 reams was their brand at $69. I paid half that for my last case.