10 easy ways to recycle and reuse around the home

1. Don’t throw out ice cream containers; they make the perfect reusable food storage tubs.

2. Use unwanted magazines, comic’s or even newspapers to wrap gifts for your loved ones.

Image found on: Creative Gift Wrap Ideas – Designer Gift Wrap – Country Living

3. Make your own business cards by cutting tissue box cardboard, cereal boxes, damaged books, greetings cards, or even discarded paint sample cards, and stamp with your logo on the blank side.

4. Use small plastic juice or water bottles as ice blocks to keep your lunch cool and fresh.  Simple fill with tap water, freeze, and add to your lunch box.

5. Greeting cards can be reused as gift tags.  Simply cut the front of gift cards to appropriate tag shape, punch a hole and add string/ribbon.

6. Paint soda drink cans white for a simplistic flower vase.

Image c/o EMA

 7. Cut an old t-shirt into strips, stretch out, and use to wrap opened packaged food. 8.  Store your plastic bread bags and reuse for freezing meat or cookie dough in the freezer.

9. Empty roll-on deodorants tubes; fill with sun screen for an easy sun protector applicator that you can carry in your handbag.  Another idea would be to fill roll-on tubes with paint for children’s paint pens.

Image c/o LetTheChildrenPlay

Caine’s (Recycled) Arcade

Caine Monroy, from East LA, is a 9-year old boy who spent his summer vacation building an elaborate DIY cardboard arcade in his dad’s used auto parts store.

Nirvan Mullick visited Caine’s arcade, and soon after put together a social media campaign to make this wonderful documentary film, that brings a tear to the eye..

Proof that a little resourcefulness, and a lot of imagination, can go a mighty long way.

Eco-friendly recycled bath mat tutorial

This looks easy enough to do?  An eco-friendly bath mat tutorial, using old towels, as seen on finecraftguild.com

Recycled Denim Coil Bowl Tutorial

As seen on Until Wednesday Calls

Pavel Sidorenko Upcycled Vinyl Clock Designer – Artizen Magazine

Ever wanted to know a little more about Recycled Market’s Pavel Sidorenko and his amazing upcycled vinyl clocks? Now you can on page 10-11 of Artizen Magazine.

Making Recycled Plastic Toys in East Jakarta

Jamaludin and Mutiara, children from Atap Alis community house, East Jakarta, make their own toys using recycled plastic bottles, which are then painted black.

‘Mutiara Putri Anggrayeni, 9, enthusiastically explained that she once made a doll made from a mineral-water bottle, rubber hose and a sliced piece of a lotion bottle.’

“The plastic bottles and unused things were already available. I made the doll from my imagination,” she said.

Story found here on The Jakarta Post

Eleven-year-old Jamaludin can make his own toys

Jet fighter

There are stories similar to this all over the world, we shouldn’t think of it as a sad tale, but more of an inspiration for our own children.

Interview with Recycled Market artisan Be-Cycle Trashion Jewellery

An interview with artisan Laurette, about her sustainable recycled jewellery range Be-Cycle Trashion Jewellery, produced in a small studio, based in France.

Can you tell us a little about who you are?

I trained as silversmith at Plymouth Art college in Devon England, but now I am based in France ( I am half French) where I have a workshop and still make a small amount of silver jewellery that I sell locally, but over the years I have been turning more and more to recycled, reclaimed and salvaged materials to make jewellery and accessories.  Mainly due to the polluting extraction techniques legal or illegal, violence and warfare associated with some precious gem mining, and more often than not the exploitation of the workers. Also due to fact that we live in a world where every thing is disposable. I enjoy the challenge of turning useless in to useful and beautiful.

Can you tell us about your products?

I do a range of jewellery from bicycle inner tubes, I like working with this material as it has certain of the quality’s of leather, but also some interesting quality’s of it’s own (it is elastic and I like to make use of this in my jewellery designs) I also do ranges of jewellery from melted, fused glass bottles, beer bottle caps, ring pulls, up-cycled plastic packaging, natural materials such as twig beads, stones and vintage objects. Part of the creative process is collecting sufficient quantity’s to be able to play around with a new material; this is one of the most enjoyable moments, getting new ideas and inspiration.

My workshop is cluttered with experimental pieces and volumes of collected recyclable materials all this gets my creative juices going. I have to work with the limitations that using up-cycled materials posses but this adds an interesting dimension to the creative process, having to work out new techniques and even making or adapting certain tools.

Bicycle inner tubes is an interesting material to work with, can you tell us why you started to work with inner tubes, and where you source your material from? 

I used to live in Amsterdam for a while, and as every one knows the Dutch cycle a lot. You see all types of people in Holland riding bikes. That’s where I started using inner tubes, as I wanted to find a recyclable material that was easily available.  In France, I know a friendly local bicycle repair man and he is more than willing to give me the old inner tubes, he would otherwise discard.

Are you a keen cyclist yourself?

Yes, I ride regularly, but I do think that bikes are undervalued.  Cycling is a green form of transport and it helps the rider to stay fit and healthy which can only be beneficial. Here in France you rarely see anybody on a bike and cycle lanes are a novelty. Unfortunately in some places it can be too dangerous due to the large amount of traffic on the roads.

Whilst the French worship the “tour de France”, “cyclism” is a hobby that only retired men take up and practice all dressed up in Lycra body suits!  Bike riding should be promoted a lot more.

We notice you have started to work with ‘natural ingredients’, we love, in particular, your pine cone necklace and earrings, this is an interesting and effective choice of material, can you tell your inspiration behind working with mother nature’s materials?

I live in the countryside and love to walk, finding inspiration in the nature that surrounds me.  I believe that we have distanced ourselves from nature, and do not notice the beauty in simple natural things, concentrating only on what is modern and innovative, such as all the new synthetic materials, colours, technology. Primitive man would make jewellery from shells, feathers, stones that he would find. Jewellery doesn’t necessarily need to be shiny and be blingy!

Will you be selling your pine cone pieces in your online shop soon?

I made the pine cone jewellery mainly as a tutorial, to inspire people that you can make some thing of beauty with some simple tools and materials, you don’t need gold and silver or the new synthetic materials ( fimo etc) to make jewellery.

How to you incorporate recycled material into your products?

I try to use as much recycled materials in the design as possible, sometimes up to 100%. I never use glues, varnishes, if I do I make sure they are totally ecological or I try to find alternative ways. Using recycled materials in my jewellery designs is an ecological philosophy, to live my life as green as possible.

What does the future have in store for Be-Cycle Trashion Jewellery?

This summer I am planning some pop up shop events, in the South of England, Northern France, Berlin Germany, Copenhagen Denmark, and possibly some other locations. I would like to be able to devote more time to my blog, It is not easy
juggling making, selling, blogging and living.  I am working on a range of pebble jewellery one of the reasons I am in Cornwall at the moment. And I am widening the range in the inner tube jewellery and shall hopefully start to make accessories as well, such as belts, belt/bag type things, smart phone case etc.

You can shop Be-Cycle Trashion Jewellery from Recycled Market > here

Recycled Paper Art and Craft

Ways to craft paper into beautiful and useful recycled pieces..

Recycled paper basket DIY tutorial

as seen on duitang.com

Recycled magazine butterfliesas seen on Basteln

Recycled magazine bead earrings

c/o RecycledFashion on Recycled Market

by BluReco on Recycled Market

by BluReco on Recycled Market

Recycled map origami paper swan

by Ruti’s Roots on Recycled Market

Fair trade newspaper gift bags

by ‘I’ve No Idea‘ on Recycled Market

 Recycled Music Note Kusudama Flower Ball Origami

by Meligami on Recycled Market

Recycled magazine bracelets made in Uganda

by AfriBeads on Recycled Market

David of My Cloud Designs – Recycled Handmade Bags

David MacLeod of My Cloud Designs in the United Kingdom, incorporates material from recycled clothes into his bag designs.

David has kindly taken the time to answer a few interview questions for us at Recycled Market.

Can you tell us a little about who you are?

Hi, let me introduce myself. My name is David and I live in Edinburgh, Scotland. I am a research scientist by training, but a lack of jobs in my field means that I am currently work for the Scottish Government and I’m surprised by how much I’m enjoying it. Hobbies include sewing (obviously), model making (mostly boats and planes), painting, cycling, cricket (left arm seam bowler, if you’re interested), football, and the usual mixture of reading, cinema and music. I think I’ll leave it there for the introductions.

How did you get involved in sewing and producing bags?

This may take a while…. So, [wavy lines] back in the mists of time, the 1980’s to be precise, here’s how it all started:

I’ve always done craft stuff including sewing for as long as I can remember. In fact, I still have one of my earliest sewing pieces: a sampler I did at primary school aged about 7 or 8 I think, with different types of stitch on it. Whilst growing up, I progressed from doing cross stitch and making Christmas tree decorations, to making stuffed toy animals from little kits and then started to make little projects of my own. I found that if I could think of something to make I could generally think of a way to make it. I’ve found that planning and patience are key to successfully making your own designs.

Making bags started by accident really. I was given my Mum’s old sewing machine as I had the idea of being able to fix things. Shortly after I got the machine, I ripped a pair of jeans beyond repairing. I started to take the back pockets with the idea of using them in some sort of project and then thought about the material in the actual jeans. I took them to pieces and decided to use the material to make a simple tote bag for my wife.

Once finished, she took it into work and her boss liked it and asked me to make one for his sister. I did, but I wanted to make something a bit different. I ended up using denim and for contrast I used some cream upholstery fabric that had been used to package up our sofas.

Everything spiralled from there: I made another bag for my wife because she really liked the second one that I had made; then I made bags for myself, a couple of friends and my sister. Everyone loved them and suggested that I started making them to sell and that’s where I am now.

Where do you source your materials from?

The majority of my materials come from cast offs from friends and family. People know that when they ‘kill’ an item of clothing they should see if I would like it before sticking it in the bin. There is a surprising amount of material in a single pair of trousers once you start taking them to pieces!

Most of the material I use for the bag outer carcasses is denim, but I also get thinner materials from shirts or blouses to make linings for the bags. Then some of the smaller details (such as the fish scales on my fish scale bag) have been made from fabric off cuts from other projects.

In addition to this, I do buy some printed material off the roll to add a bit of interest to what would otherwise be a fairly plain bag. I use upholstery fabrics as they are made to be durable and have found that Ikea is a really good source of bright, interesting yet durable and relatively cheap material. Additional details such as zips or buttons come either from my local fabric shop (LFS) or from an online wholesaler. I have found that the LFS near to me puts all of the odd buttons they have left over in a jar and you can usually find some really nice ones in there. I’ve started looking for buttons at flea markets as well.

Why is the use of recycled materials important to you?

The throw away culture that we live in today is unsustainable in terms of the use of resources and in disposing of the old items. I think it is quite worrying that when something that requires very little attention to be fixed or put to another use is merely thrown away and something new bought. You can see that this culture has had an impact on the quality of the items that are available for sale today because they are no longer designed to last. In turn, this has lead to super corporations who can mass produce cheap goods and has pretty much destroyed smaller companies that produce unique and interesting items. The world has become universal and people are starting to lose their individuality.

Your ‘fish scale’ bag in particular is very unique, where do you get your inspiration for your bag designs from

My designs go through two phases: design of the main bag structure; and design of the detailing. In designing the bag structure, I think of the overall bag shape, then the shapes that will be needed to produce the bag and how I will put the bag together. Part of the design process is to try and make the bag practical and useable in every day situations.

In terms of the detailing, inspiration comes from all over the place. Anything and everything that I see in my day to day life can be incorporated into my designs. I have designed bags with a Gaudi influence, in an art deco style, art nouveau style etc. I have been influenced by Bauhaus and the De Stijl movement in particular as a lot of these use simple shapes in order to design a functional object.

With the fish scale bag, the detailing design came to me after I visited a bag museum in Amsterdam. They had an enamel bag which was principally made up from a series of overlapping scales. I sketched this idea down with a view of using it in a future design. The main bag was designed to be put together simply and to be functional once it was finished. You may notice that it is actually the same bag structure as the red and purple art deco inspired bag that I have also made.

Do you replicate your bag designs, or is each one unique?

The designs I have made for people are one offs and all of my commission pieces will remain unique. I may take ideas that I have developed from these bags to use in other projects, but the design as a whole will remain unique. Furthermore, because my bags are handmade from recycled materials each bag will end up being different. That’s one of the joys of using recycled material: it’s next to impossible to find an identical material because of the wear and tear the material has already gone through in it’s previous life. On the whole I like to try different things mainly to keep me interested, so I will try something new over duplicating designs and mass producing (as much as one person can) a product.

What does the future have in store for your work and your products?

I have some ideas for some new designs and I am thinking of branching out into making laptop bags in the future. I would also love to start incorporating leather into my designs, although that idea might take a while as I would have to learn the skills needed to work leather so that I can achieve what I want with it. Other than that, it’s business as usual.

Recycled Packaging Art

Mr. Kazuma TAKAHASHI creates art from recycled packaging, as seen on Design Blog SPGRA.

Recycled KitKat Wrapper Frogs

Marlborough packet R2D2

Whiskey Monkey

images c/o Design Blog SPGRA