Plastic bags...they're everywhere! Have you ever wondered what to do with the ones you have, the ones family/friends have, or even ones you might see lying about?
A great place to start with some crafty ways of reusing/recycling all those plastic bags can be found at Craftzine.com, while two of the simplest ideas I've come across elsewhere are:
1) combining old fabric (with some synthetic content) with plastic bags. Pretty much all you need is an iron and you can make bags and dresses, and
2) Oscar Lhermitte’s idea of putting a bag over a wire frame & light bulb and taa-daa - you have a lamp!
If you want to get straight into it, check out Instructables.com for a step-by-step guide to turning plastic bags into "yarn", which has photos at each step of the way. The possibilities are endless! (......I'm really tempted to try my hand at making a recycled bag rug)
And if you're really up for a challenge, how about knitting some dresses (they're bound to be waterproof! haha) or making a chair like this Inkuku chair by Ryan Frank?
I just found out about Enable Community, a New Zealand not for profit organization, working to provide access to affordable communications to those that would otherwise be unable to afford it.
The cool thing is: they partner with Vodafone New Zealand to collect and re-use old mobile phones, and the phones are then given to provide entrepreneurs in developing countries through micro-credit programs, helping to provide one of the basic tools that we take for granted when trying to run our own businesses.
Have a mobile phone you'd like to get rid of? Just take your mobile phones and accessories like batteries and chargers to any Vodafone, Bond and Bond or Noel Leeming store!
Or freepost it to Vodafone at:
Freepost
Vodafone Handset Recycling Programme
Private Bag 92222
Auckland
If you want to take it a step further, you can even run a mobile recycling drive at your office or any other group/club. For more info, click here...
This is a great mix of doing good and recycling at the same time - and it's so easy to do too!!! Plus someone else out there gets a snazzy cool phone : )
Finally! Somewhere for your used plastic CourierPost bags to go to rather than the rubbish bin (which then leads to the landfill) - CourierPost are recycling their courier bags : )
As part of our commitment to the environment, CourierPost is helping to minimise the impact of waste products. That’s why our Trackpak range is fully recyclable.Not only that, but the proceeds from the recycled plastic goes to CourierPost's sponsorship of Diabetes New Zealand. How nice is that!
We encourage all of our customers, both big and small, to recycle your Trackpaks rather than throw them away.
BackTrack Your Trackpaks
1. If you’re a frequent user of our plastic Trackpaks, just ask your local CourierPost courier to provide you with one of our large (reusable) drawstring bags to store all your used Trackpaks. Your courier will collect them when calling into your premises.
2. Or you can drop your used Trackpaks into one of our specially marked recycling bags at any CourierPost branch.
What we do with the used packaging
CourierPost has partnered with leading New Zealand plastics recycling company, Astron Plastics, to recycle on our behalf.
Used Trackpaks are collected from all CourierPost branches nationwide and delivered to Astron Plastics recycling plants in Auckland and Christchurch.
(Source: http://www.courierpost.co.nz/recycle.htm)
So...we hope this means you can drop off your used bags at NZ Post offices nationwide since they are part of the CourierPost network : )
What do you do with our t-shirt bag? Keep it / re-use it? Throw it away in the rubbish?
The plastic bag packaging has been on our mind for a wee while.
On one hand, we want to protect your t-shirt from the elements and have it get to you in pristine condition. It's also easier to get packaged tees into the courier bag as we can "vacuum pack" the t-shirts by just letting the air out of the bag prior sealing.
On the other hand, it's yet another plastic bag!
Knowing & reading items like KR Connect: I Am Not A Plastic Bag just convinces us more that we should be doing something about it.
We would like to use paper bags / packaging but don't want more trees cut down even if paper can be recycled! Does anyone know of a New Zealand business that sells affordable recycled paper bags / packaging??? It's the tough bit trying to find them in NZ - or maybe we're not looking high & low enough?
Or how about you, our customer, returning the plastic bag to us to be re-used? It would save us from having to buy more new bags too. Would you need an incentive to return the bag to us? Freepost envelope? Then again, it might end up cheaper buying new plastic bags than paying for post & an envelope?