Making use of Product Packaging

Do you keep the packaging containers from product you purchased? 

I do keep some of them if they are suitable for storing my stuff. I like the clear containers from Ferrero Rocher. I usually use them to store my beads and finishings for making handmade jewellery.  I recently discovered a way to make use of their 24 piece container which is rather shallow.  

It is perfect as a base for my crochet granny square bag which I can use without its cover.  I like it that it is the perfect size for carrying a box of cake.

If I leave it as is, this crochet piece and the container will work well as a decorative receptacle for serving food during a festive event, like the forthcoming Raya celebration.  

This is the video instruction for the bag.  

You will have to modify the base if the yarn you use is different in thickness.  I enlarged my base with another granny square design so that it fits the size of the Ferrero Rocher container I used.  I also used leftover wool from another project to make part of the base.

This is how my modified bag looks like.

Packaging You Can Eat

In future, maybe most of our food packaging will be made of waste material that we can eat. You may even consider growing your own.

Solution to plastic litters in the Philippines

According to a report by Greenpeace, Philippines is the third worst plastic polluter of oceans.

However, there is hope for change through a trash management programme developed by nonprofit, Mother Earth Foundation. The city council of San Fernando allows the poor to make a living by picking through trash from every house daily and bring it all to sell at one of its 35 waste warehouses throughout the city.

Through this new system, more than 75 percent of waste gets composted or recycled and it costs the city council about 80 percent less to manage waste, as trash trucks are no longer required to collect waste from every house.

To boost plastic recycling, Dutch designer, Dave Hakkens, provides free tutorial at Precious Plastic so that one can learn t build a machine that can shred up plastic waste so that the material can be used to make useful artifacts.



More money can be made from a finished product than from recycling, if the poor adopt this idea.

Old clothing? Give it a second life.

If old clothing can have a say in how they should be used, this will be its autobiography.



Other than donating your old clothing, what else can you do on a personal level with clothes that you or your family members no longer wear?  Maybe reading this book, "The Upcycled T-Shirt: 28 Easy-to-Make Projects That Save the Planet Clothing, Accessories, Home Decor & Gifts" will give you some ideas.

Retirement "cave" home. Learn to build your own.

What can you do to reduce the cost of managing a house when you retire?

Steve Rees could still remember how cool it was inside the caves he played in as a kid and decided that he will live off-grid in his make do cave by burying two shipping containers.



His retirement "cave" home attracted so much interest that he decided to write a book about how it was build and you can find it selling at


It is great to know that being kind to the environment by conserving energy and by re-using what could have been abandoned material can also be kind to the pocket.

Plastic litters are precious plastic

Take a breather from complaining about plastic bottles littering the environment and take a look at this video.



Don't you like it that you can now process plastic discards into something useful again?

And, don't worry about the cost of getting the machines you need to start because, you are going to learn to make your own with affordable basic materials at Precious Plastic.

Living in a container

If you like the idea of living simple.  Consider getting yourself a container home.

 

I would like to be an owner of one and hope that we can create a community where we can swap containers home to live in for a break.

Party's over. Now what?

When the party is over, start picking up those drink bottles to keep before they get discarded in the bin.  Find time to watch this video and decide what you want to do with your own collection of bottles.



There are definitely lots of stuff that you and your children can create so that they can have lots of fun during the weekends, even when they are spending them at home.

You can find the full "how to" instruction posted on Instructables at the following link:

10 Fun Things to do with a 2 Liter Bottle

When a piece of cloth will do.

Do we really need more clothes?  Maybe a piece of cloth with holes cut in the right spots will do.



I hope that the "Vestido Multi Look" will inspire more fashion designers to work in this direction.

Need more inspiration?  Here it goes.

Bags? Make your own!

Do you need to buy more bags to match what you wear?

How about getting yourself a multicolored one that would match most of what you have?  You think that is too gaudy?  Watch this and you may decide to make your own.



Now you know what to do with scarves and stuff made out of fabric in your home that you have intended to scrap.

Strong weaving material? Found in plastic bottles.

If you need strong weaving material, what you should be looking out for are plastic bottles.



I hope this innovative idea will catch on.

Re-use plastic bottles the Coca-Cola way

Plastic bottles can be an issue if left to litter the environment.  Coca-Cola in doing their part gives you a reason to take their bottles out of the bins to re-use them.

Gift boxes? Handmade and eco-friendly.

If your children are sociable, they are bound to be invited to lots of parties.  If they are still schooling, think of the number of students each one of them have as classmates.  Add them up and you know that you will have to spend quite a bit on gifts for them to bring to parties they are invited to.

Other than storing up on gifts when sales are on, here is another way to save cost.  Make your own gift boxes.  You can start by keeping the empty plastic bottles.



The small gift boxes mean smaller and less costly gifts to look out for, right?

Plastic bottles? Great as broom.

If you are thinking of buying a broom, maybe you would like to check this video out to see if you could make yourself one.  After all you should not have any problems getting the material you need to start making it.


May your new broom sweeps clean.

Let's play a better game.

Let's play a better game?  How?  By changing our goals this way.

Displayed! Trashy art.

What would you expect to see displayed at international airports?  At the San Francisco International Airport Terminal 3 they are showcasing trash.  Before you huff and puff off the notion of visiting such an exhibition, look at what Recology Artist in residence have done with them.

Architect, Shigeru Ban? Why trust him?

I wrote about the cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch, created by Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, as a "temporary replacement" for the one damaged during the earthquake of February 2011.

Want to know what Shigeru Ban did to gain confidence in the statutory authority involved to consider allowing him to use cardboard tubes as construction material for the Cathedral?  Just take a look at some of the past projects he shared during his talk at TED.

New look? Let's start from old.

Spring cleaning?  Take a look at what Pablo Fernández can do with the stuff you are likely going to throw out of your house.



Decision made?  Still throwing them?  Before you do, make an online search for "unwanted items pick up" to see if there are any charitable group that could make good use of them.   

Happy thoughtful cleaning. 

Lego, the printer wannabe?

Matthew Krueger make it possible for his Lego bit and pieces to be transformed into...

...LEGObot, the working 3D printer.

 

What's green about LEGObot is that it is made up of everything that Matthew already has on hand.

So, now you know. You can never outgrow that Lego connections and there is always a second life for everything you have, if you put your mind to it.

Batteries? Not required to light up.

Best kept warm to enlighten.  It's not me I am talking about.  It's the "Hollow Flashlight", an invention by a 15 years old Canadian high school student, Ann Makosinski, that lighted up by the warmth of  her hand holding it.

Here is a video of her talking about her submission of the "Hollow Flashlight" for the Google Science Fair.



No batteries required?  Definitely, the torchlight of the future to have.