Turning trash into treasure is at the heart of Crafting a Green World. A green crafter sees beauty in scrap heaps, recycle bins, and objects on the side of the road. Julie talked just yesterday about making sure you know exactly what you’re working with before you start your project. Even after you’re sure you aren’t about to take a blowtorch to a rare piece of vintage vinyl or antique Colonial silver, sometimes you still need a little inspiration. Here’s a little art assemblage eye candy to get you going!

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I’ve been seeing a lot of clever uses around the internet for used plastic lately, particularly plastic bottles. Have you seen any of these?

The Recycled Plastic Boat. David de Rothschild is trying to promote the importance of recycling. He’s constructing a 60 foot catamaran and planning to sail it across the Pacific in April. The aim of The Plastiki is to

captivate, inspire and activate tomorrow’s environmental thinkers and doers to take positive action for our Planet and to be smart with waste, ultimately we hope to inspire people to rethink waste as a valuable resource. One person’s waste could be another person’s treasure.

The Plastic Bottle Greenhouse. A public school group from Australia, ECO (Environmental Care Organisation) built an entire greenhouse out of 1,652 plastic bottles. A steel frame supports the structure and the bottles are threaded on pvc pipes. The greenhouse will help to enhance the school’s environmental education program.

The school won the Make a Difference competition run by radio station C91.3, which supported the project.

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Java City is doing its bit to make a difference with its Joe-to-Grow program. Folks can pick up spent coffee grounds to use as fertilizer for acid-loving plants. On top of recommending that you sprinkle them on your garden, the Java City folks say that used grounds make a great repellent for ants, slugs and snails. They also recommend drying out the grounds and then sticking them in the fridge or closet to absorb odors, just like baking soda!

So what are some other uses for spent coffee grounds?

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[Reclaimed Upholstery Fabric from Sample Scrap]

A certified LEED-AP, she was taken aback by the waste associated with the design world. So many pieces of quality scraps head straight to the bin once their life as a sample is over. Emily wanted to change that, so she launched Sample Scrap on Etsy in June of 2008.

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So, I’ve become a HUGE fan of:

Freecycle. Seriously, folks. You sign up, get email updates with freebies being given away in your area and you offer up the extras in your closets. I gave away a sewing machine that was in need of TLC and an old wooden play structure. I’ve found clothes for the kids and baby equipment. The only money involved is the cost of driving to pick the items up. Awesome.

Craigslist. While this isn’t a great place to find freebies (though they do have a free section), it is a wonderful resource for new to you furniture, auto needs, tools, and kids items. I’ve sold bags of clothes for $20 a pop and purchased a couch for $150. Yay.

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Mom #1 “My garage was so jam packed with boxes of things. I didn’t even know what was in half of them. I finally go so tired of it all I just took them all out to the curb.”

Mom #2 “Isn’t it such a great feeling when the trash men just make it all disappear?”

Mom#1 “Yes, ‘poof’ and it’s all gone.”

To which I wanted to scream over to their table “Your trash just doesn’t disappear, stupid!” But I didn’t because I was raised better than that. And my son was with me. And I’m fairly gutless in situations like that. But I was screaming it in my head.

What an absolute waste. What still perfectly useful items were in those boxes that the trash men hauled away to be burried in a landfill. There’s no way of knowing, but I do know this one thing. There were many ways she could have easily found new homes for the still useful things in those boxes.

As I see it, when you’ve got something that is still useful but you aren’t using it anymore, there are three responsible ways to get rid of it. None of them involve putting it out at the curb for the fairy trash men to waive their wands and make it disappear.

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The average American replaces an old cell phone with a new one about every year and a half. With around 256 million cell phone users in the U.S., that’s a lot of electronic waste. Because we replace them so often, cell phones are major contributors to the “wireless waste” in this country.

Cell phones contain a number of toxins that build up in the environment over time, like arsenic, antimony, beryllium, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel and zinc. These chemicals are linked to all sorts of nasty health problems, such as neurological disorders and cancer. That’s the bad news. The good news is, there are lots of free, easy ways to safely dispose of your old cell phone and keep it out of the landfill. Rather than pitching your old phone in the trash, check out a few ways you can use your old phone to do good or even score some cash!

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Perfect for blogging but not so great for the environment. So I have come to a decision to instead of throwing things out; I will reuse them in hopes that my family will make less impact than the Earth. I wish I could say that I live off the grid and grow my own vegetables and all that; maybe one day I will get there. For now we rent, we use electricity from coal generated power company (When asked about alternative resources, the sales associate had no answer for me). We do things for the Environment, but I feel not enough. Well here’s a way you can do something for the environment free… it doesn’t cost nada, zip, nothing. Reuse what you have and use until it’s standing on its last leg. Take for example the Ikea desk that my significant other had since his single days. I hate that desk. I hate its MDF cheapness and how it’s coming apart since the move. It’s really standing on its last leg. I want to throw it away (or donate to Salvation Army) and get a brand new desk. I saw one on Pottery Barn catalog that’s SO me. However, I decided to put some pretty wall paper over the ikea one and call it a day. It’s a waste to throw it out and anytime, you purchase something new. More renewable resources are needed to build another one. Just remember that.

I am getting quite creative with uses of things. Another example are the tab curtains we had that are SO outdated and didn’t fit the windows to our new place. As someone who puts considerable value in aesthetics and design; the curtains were blight to my stylish sensibilities. However, with a curtain rod and modern textile, I repurposed the curtains to be a shade for the window. I didn’t have to go out and buy a new curtain or shade. I just used the one I have to create something that worked for the new place. It saved the curtains to going to the landfill (or the Salvation Army, my solution for unwanted things) and I saved money in the process.

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Long before the waste audit, which took place close to the end of the semester, my students went on a field trip to the Fred Weber landfill. There, they saw where our trash goes, how much space our metro community needs for its trash, and learned how a landfill is structured.

The waste audit itself took about a week. During that time, kids interviewed building officials, weighed and sorted classroom trash, and analyzed purchasing by the school. The counted copiers, students, fax machines, soda machines, printers, and dumpsters. Finally, they donned jumpsuits, gloves, and goggles and dove right into the dumpster to collect bags of trash, which were sorted into individual components and weighed.

Their findings were shocking. An overwhelmingly large amount of what we threw away can be reduced, reused, or recycled, and our school was doing none of that. We found blank paper in the trash, unopened snacks, and cardboard, paper, cans, and plastics that could easily be recycled. We found bagged yard waste, enormous amounts of styrofoam and disposable utensils, unopened sodas and snacks, and perfectly good books. Our Abitibi paper-recycling bin? Empty.

The students were now invested. They realized that they throw away a lot of stuff, and when they throw stuff away, it doesn’t disappear—it has to go somewhere. The next task was to create an implement a project that would, in some way, make our school more sustainable. Because the waste audit was fresh in the students minds, their projects focused on solid waste reduction and reusing.

In only a few shorts weeks, the students were able to start a school-wide paper recycling program, designed and run by students. They also designated one of the school computer printers as a “draft printer,” printing on the blank side of previously used paper. Finally, students are currently working on recycling 20oz plastic bottles (the plastic most commonly discarded at our school) through Terra Cycle. Teachers and students are working together to decrease our waste, and later in the spring, we will do another waste audit to measure the impact these projects are having.