What are some creative ways we can use our trash?

Incineration to generate electricity is one way, how about ink cartridges that don’t cost more than a new printer might keep things out of the landfills.

The plastic bags can be woven to make purses and sturdier reusable bags.

We could use fewer plastic bags to begin with.

Glass can be melted back down I think? Someone told me in Sweden (I think Sweden) they have machines in the bars where you put your empty glass bottle in it, and it crushes it into sand right there. It’s kind of a gimmick people will pay to see.

I’d love to figure out how I can repurpose the toilet roll tubes into something useful.

Where I live they recycle trash into energy through incineration. Here’s a video of the Covanta system. The video is partway down the page and looks cartoonlike. https://www.covanta.com/what-we-do/waste-to-energy

I’d like to come up with a way to melt plastic and turn it into building materials.

I know some places have turned old tires into a cushiony base on playgrounds.

Old tires are used for a lot of things: playground ground cover, walking paths, and as part of the aggregate for some asphalt road surfaces.

One of the big things to do with them in my area is to make sleeping mats for the homeless. They aren’t thick, but better than nothing when cold concrete is the best that’s available!!! The thickness depends on how much work you’re willing to put into them. It’s a great project for little children as it keeps them busy & can be a good learning lesson as well. The color of the bags aren’t that important because any color or mix of colors will serve their needed purpose…

Mats from plastic bags

They are fairly simple to roll up & light enough to transport to a new location as often as needed.

Here’s a video of the grocery bags being crocheted. There was a company that was employing third world women to make them. They had a nice model, they weren’t taking huge advantage of the women, they wanted to help the communities, it was a win win situation, but I don’t remember the name of the company. I think the company was employing women in an African country. https://youtu.be/ww24bSar-yg?si=UZHjsrGZ4acIiwow I have seen it on a loom also to be woven.

Those styrofoam containers – the thick, heavy duty ones like they ship frozen food in, like Omaha Steaks – make good homes for feral cats. I had some friends use one for this cat that wouldn’t come in the house and took quite a while to allow petting. You can put old flannel shirts in it or whatever. Can even put in a low wattage light bulb for warmth. I thought it was a great idea and a save on for styrofoam.

They feed feral cats who gather at a certain place and have put several of the containers there. Even without cloth inside they’re warmer than the ground.

I miss the days of spare tires being made into sandals. Yes, they still make them, but when the hippies were doing it you could actually afford them.

The smarter you live, the less trash you’ll have. This is my method. I do not use trash.

^^ That’s true, but everyone has trash.

I was just watching a PBS show about craft in America and they featured this artist from Colorado who makes sculptues out of plastic and other “garbage.” It’s amazing to see how she takes plastic Easter eggs, plastic marker caps, plastic Mardi Gras beads and other things and turns it all into incredible, fun sculptures. I just googled her and here’s an article about her:

https://www.summitdaily.com/news/artist-calder-kamin-makes-sculptures-out-of-recycled-summit-county-waste/

The problem of trash is best solved by creating less of it in the first place. I propose a tax on packaging and plastics. That would encourage companies to cut down on their use and the tax could be redeemed at supermarkets when customers scanned in the barcodes of the trash they were returning.

I would also like to see the litter laws properly enforced.

Some states and cities don’t allow plastic grocery bags and some supermarkets do it on their own. Some supermarkets give a 5¢ credit per bag that you bring with you.

For three years I wrote to Walmart feedback that I wanted the option to bring my own bags for curbside pick-up; we finally have it at my local Walmart.

I recently was surveyed by Coca-Cola about returning bottles for deposit and how I felt about bottles being cleaned at used again.

My creativity is focused on not creating any trash.

A very fun, though very broad question! Possibilities are quite endless.

If you’re asking for yourself, I think the first question is what kind of trash do you find your household generates the most? Material narrows down the possibilities.

And speaking of reducing trash, I would sign up for a service to compost or recycle harder to recycle items. When our county starting our compost program, our volume of trash went down dramatically.

There are also local organizations that offer other recycling programs.

- batteries
– appliances
– electronics
– medication
– textiles

Our county just started a program with our annual large item pickup where we label things that can be reused like furniture and they will take those too! It’s pretty rad.

My wife is on supplemental
oxygen. The tubing is made of plastic so I’m going to keep it for the g-son to use for loom weaving.

@raum It is a broad question, not about me in particular. Looking for what society can do to reuse things. I get a bit leery about recycling. Some places take it seriously, others don’t. I’ve worked several places that have bins for recycling paperwork. Since the businesses floated on an ocean of paperwork, this made sense. Unfortunately, the bin was as far as it went. The workers would use the bins, the cleaning staff would just combine the paperwork with all the other trash. They had no way to recycle it to begin with.

Things like that are what got me thinking of this question. For the paperwork: could it be shredded and used in a composting effort? Things like that.

@seawulf575 If anyone can find the right company, for paper you can wet it and do some other things to it, then make new paper out of it. I know of a number of greeting cards made of recycled paper.

@seawulf575 I’ve seen that happen at workplaces, too. Cleaning staff just figures they have to empty what needs to be emptied. It’s sad. I also worked in one place where they had a recycling container in the kitchen area, that was for plastics, and the janitor, who probably liked getting deposit money from can returns, put a sign on the bin that said the bin was for cans and bottles only, not milk containers or anything else.

Where I live, the place uses a private carting company and here, and also outside of here, the carting companies throw the recycling in with the regular garbage. I think they bring it to a big incinerator plant and burn it. I’m not sure.

Also, many recycling places don’t want cardboard that has grease on it (like greasy pizza boxes) and they don’t want jars that have food in them (like peanut butter jars that have traces of peanut butter in them). If the places can’t take that stuff, I understand but it’s not a very efficient system if that’s the case. Sometimes people will rinse out cat food cans so they can recycle them. Cat food is just gross and I don’t want it in my sink and I don’t really want to touch it if I can avoid it.

@jca2 my wife as a housekeeper at one of the places I mentioned. They weren’t being lazy, it was just how they were set up. They (the janitorial staff) were told to empty the paper and recycling bins, but they were not given anywhere to dump it that was separate from the general trash.

I’ve also questioned some of the options for dealing with recyclables. It takes a bunch of water, and probably chemicals, to recycle glass and paper/cardboard. All those fluids then need to be processed further to avoid them becoming contaminates. Incinerating trash also creates carbon emissions. It’s a tough nut to crack. That’s why I’d like to find other uses for things, rather than try to process them or let them fill landfills.

@smudges Yep. The problem is wide-spread use of those companies and getting the paper to them.