There are so many ways to eliminate skip hire and recycle your own household waste and believe it or not, by getting into the habit of recycling you will start to enjoy it, feel that you are adding to the avoidance of a hectic carbon footprint by your household and even save or make money for yourself. There are a number of ways we can recycle – so many that we can actually form quite a long list but will just provide a few items here to gloss over and hopefully, stimulate your imagination into doing your bit for our earthly global home.

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get into the habit of thinking “recycle” instead of “toss”. Seriously take a good look at every single thing before you toss it into your garbage bins and ask yourself “What can I do with this object rather than throw it away?” You will soon find that your imagination is becoming stimulated in ways you never imagined and not only are you throwing away less but actually producing things and saving money.

The first thing to be considered is plastic. This enormously user-friendly product has also become pesky to the environment with awful things happening such as seagulls choking on plastic packets to dolphins, seals and other wild life being trapped in plastic netting, plastic tubing and plastic fishing line. The deaths that they suffer as a result are appalling. By saving plastic you will be doing the eco system a huge favor. Start with your shopping. Avoid buying plastic wherever you can. Purchase bottled goods instead and re-use the bottles. Cut used plastic into pretty shapes and make ornamental flowers, lampshades, drawer linings and such. Encourage young mothers-to-be to invest in alternatives to plastic diapers. There are eco-friendly baby diapers on the market which have washable liners that are easy and simple to use and save young parents a great deal of money.

Used tyres, especially tractor tyres make wonderful sandpits for little children and provide seating right round the tyre. Simply fill with clean river sand and add some handcrafted recycled plastic objects to use as digging and scooping tools. Used tyres make wonderful children’s swings as well and in fact, there is quite an industry in these swings by local craftsmen in the city of Cape Town, South Africa, bringing money in to needy families. Used tyres tossed into the sea and weighted down makes a haven for a variety of sea life, forming a type of rubbery coral reef as it were. Tyres should never be burned as they release heavy toxins into the air and thick black smoke pollution. In Africa, tyres are often cut into treads for sandals. All this goes to show how much you can put your imagination to good use by recycling before the garbage is taken to the dump and then taken by skip hire to recycling companies. The implications are great, creating livelihoods for crafters who do not need to lay out vast amounts of money.

Old hand-knitted sweaters can be unpicked, the wool tied into skeins, washed and re-used for knitting new garments. Frayed and worn-out clothing make wonderful rags for use in the kitchen or for your car. Sheets that have worn thin with age make great bandages once torn into strips and rolled up ready for use in the first-aid box.

Old greeting cards can be cut out and recycled into gift tags. They can also be easily re-used as greeting cards by sticking the picture onto a piece of card with a tiny square of two-sided tape. Cover trays with pictures cut from old magazines and newspapers and varnish over the top after gluing them into a pretty collage. Weave rags into rag mats for the bathroom and shower. All you need is some old sacking and a crewel needle. See how to on the Internet.

Collect office waste. Make bundles off it along with waste-paper and cardboard and sell it to recycling companies yourself or encourage an unemployed person to do this instead. They can also collect soft-drink soda aluminum cans and sell them back to factories as well. Office waste paper without confidential information printed on one side can be collected and given to nursery schools for use in painting, drawing or writing on the back side of the paper. Nursery schools can never get enough of the stuff and will be extremely grateful for your services.

A simple tip to help the environment is by adding a signature to all your outgoing e-mails “Save our trees and do not print this e-mail unless absolutely necessary”. By doing your utmost to help protect our sensitive eco-system by recycling you will boost your self-esteem and that of others and save and earn quite a few pretty pennies in the process. Happy re-cycling!

To get your skip hire or waste management sorted, visit www.skiphire.org today.