Recycled Green Onions

Reusable Coffee Cup Sleeve

Paper Stool

Biodegradable Twig Coaster/Hot Mat

Energy Saving Night-light

Recycled greeting card placecards & pine cone holders

Berry Safe Food Coloring Glaze Icing

Beach Glass Collection

Nature Paints

Recycled Advertising Leaflet Paper Beads

Rice Glue

Milk Carton Recycled Paper

Recycled Green Onions

Composting is nature's way of recycling, but if you don't compost, this is a great way of making good use of vegetable waste - recycling by letting them grow again Green onion bulbs, which are usually discarded, grow easily and quickly allowing you to 'recycle' them to sprout brand new green onion leaves.

What You'll Need:

• Green onion bulbs with roots
• Container of water
• Pot with soil

Steps:

• After cutting the leaves off, leave the bulbs and roots intact.
• Place the bulbs in a container of just enough water to cover the roots. Allow the roots to grow here for a day or two.
• After a day or two, position the bulbs in a pot, allowing at least an inch of space between bulbs and add potting soil to cover up to three-quarters of the bulbs. Leave the tops of the bulbs exposed (do not bury the bulbs completely). Water well.
• Place the containers on a kitchen window or a window location that receives much light. About 6 hours of direct sunlight is recommended, but a very bright window is sufficient.
• Water the container when dry. Be sure drainage is good because onion bulbs rot in standing water.
• When leaves have grown, cut off leaf sections to fill the quantity needed in your recipe. Use scissors for clean cuts.

Did You Know?
Dumping food waste in a landfill causes environmental damage. By volume, it is the largest contributor to methane gas production. It causes odour as it decomposes and attracts flies and vermin, too.

Do Your Part:
What can you do to keep it food waste out of landfills? A simple and easy way is "source reduction," or creating less excess and waste. That means planning meals, making specific shopping lists, and sticking to them. At restaurants, order sensibly and take home leftovers. If you can, home composting is another great way to steer food scraps such as apple cores, used tea leaves, banana peels, etc. away from landfills.

Reusable Coffee Cup Sleeve

Cardboard cup sleeves are almost always discarded with the empty coffee cup. With this clever reusable coffee cup sleeve made out of an old clean sock, mum and dad won't encounter the problem of burning their hands grabbing a hot paper cup, and they'll significantly reduce waste by not using a cardboard cup sleeve!

What You'll Need:

• A clean tube sock
• Thread
• Needle
• Scissors

Steps:

• Cut the tube sock at the base of the stretchy tube.
• Turn the tube inside out and fold up the cut edge.
• Stitch the hem to create a finished end.

Other Things To Try:

• Sew on colorful buttons and use brightly colored thread.
• Use different textured tube socks for variety.

Do Your Part:
Avoid using straws and cardboard cup sleeves - they aren't really necessary, and when they're used, they're usually thrown away after a couple of minutes along with most take-out food and drink containers. Remember to take along reusables - a cup, container and/or bag from home with you when you know you'll be getting take-out food or drinks. This will save a lot of unnecessary single-use disposable cups, containers and bags from being used, most of which end up in landfills.

Did You Know?
Some estimate that a coffee drinker can save 6-10 lbs of paper waste a year by substituting the cardboard sleeve with a reusable sleeve.

Paper Stool

The concept for this paper stool is similar to cardboard furniture. It's amazing how sturdy paper can be when it involves multiple layers.

Q: How does this activity benefit the environment?

Every year we cut down more trees to meet the world's demand for paper. Recycling your old magazines will help save trees from being cut down to create new paper and prevent deforestation of the earth. You'll also be using no additional resources by reusing a material that already exists in your home!

What You'll Need:

• 2 old magazines

• Pull out any subscription cards from inside the magazines.
• Open the magazine, leaving the cover out to the left. Take about ten pages, and fold them in half, tucking the page ends towards the binding.
• Repeat for the entire magazine, including the back cover.
• Fold the front cover over and tuck it in towards the binding over the first folded pages. You will end up with a semi-circle fan.
• Repeat for the other magazine. Place them back to back, with the flat sides together.

Do Your Part:
Be sure to put these paper items into the Paper Recycling Bin for collection and recycling:

• Newspapers
• Weekly magazines
• Magazines/books with stapled/sewed binding (any coated glossy cover should be removed)
• All stationery paper (including coloured paper, computer printouts, cards, etc)
• Envelopes and folders (including stamps but remove adhesive flap or plastic window)
• Leaflets from junk mail

Did you know?
Recycling 1 ton of paper saves 17 mature trees, 26,500 liters of water, 3 cubic meters of landfill space, 1,500 liters of oil, and 4,100 kilowatt-hours of electricity — enough energy to power an average home for up to five months!

Biodegradable Twig Coaster/Hot Mat

Fallen twigs are all around, and they're great material for nature arts & crafts projects. Here's one idea that's a lot of fun - the weaving is a good challenge... try out different methods until you find the perfect one that holds the twigs together.

What You'll Need:

• Twigs of similar thickness and length - the straighter, the better. Use longer twigs for a hot mat, and shorter ones for coasters.
• String, yarn or ribbon.

• Cut or saw the ends of the twigs if necessary or if you want a neater edge (adult supervision required)
• Fold a generous length of string, yarn or ribbon in half.
• Place the first twig inside the fold of the string, yarn or ribbon, and tie a knot around it.
• Add another twig, placing it at the knot just created and secure it to the first twig with another knot.
• Continue this procedure by twisting the string, yarn or ribbon after each twig until all the twigs are secured together at one end of the coaster/hot mat.
• Tie a double knot at the last twig.
• Do the same all the way down the other end by carefully weaving the string, yarn or ribbon between the twigs at eac twist. You may want to secure the twigs by adding more knots along the middle of the coaster/hot mat too.

Do Your Part:
Take kids on a hike and encourage them to observe the nature around them. Remember that today's youth will be tomorrow's stewards of the environment. Hiking allows for a deeper appreciation of nature and a conservation ethic. While hiking or camping, remind them of the following:

• Don't leave any rubbish
• Respect wildlife
• Leave any plants, animals and insects you find in their natural habitat
• Be careful with fire

Energy Saving Night-light

LED string lighting uses much less energy (90% less) than conventional incandescent string lighting, and the epoxy plastic that encapsulates the LED bulb never ever gets hot and is moisture-proof, so you can safely leave them on for hours.

What You'll Need:

• LED string lighting
• Any glass container - a jar, bottle, fish bowl, etc.

• Place the LED string lighting into the container.
• Turn the container upside down and place on any surface.
• Plug in and switch on.

Do Your Part:
Using energy efficient products means power plants won't need to burn as much fossil fuel to generate as much electricity as it would have had to for regular energy consuming ones - that means less pollution, cleaner air, and less global warming. By using longer lasting products like LEDs, you won't need to replace and dispose of them as often, so you'll also be cutting down on waste too!

Did you know?
Your LED string lighting will last for 50,000 hours or more - If you sleep an average of 10 hours a night, that's every bed time for the next 13 years!

Recycled greeting card placecards & pine cone holders

Spending time with your little ones to creatively decorate your home can be a fun holiday project that focuses on togetherness and thoughtfulness rather than consumption and spending. Here's a great activity that'll see the kids having fun outdoors in search of pine cones, and later, decorating them with beautiful cutouts of old/used greeting cards and ribbons from previous Christmases to make great placecards with holders. The beauty of nature combined with that of recycling!

What You'll Need:

• Pine cones
• Old/used greeting cards
• Colored pencils, pens, crayons
• Ribbon or fabric

• Make placecards using the back or front of greeting card pictures, depending on color and space available for writing. Do this by cutting pictures from old greeting cards and writing a name on either the non-picture blank side or colorful side.
• Fit placecards into pine cones.
• Attach a festive ribbon or strip of festive fabric to decorate.

Do Your Part:
Millions of greeting cards are sent every Christmas, many of which get thrown away and do not get recycled. There are so many creative ways to reuse cards - from bookmarks to place cards to gift tags and gift boxes. Don't forget to get creative with birthday cards and Valentines Day cards too! If you do end up with cards you don't want to keep, please don't forget to put them in the paper recycling bin so they can be remade into something super useful!

"Berry Safe" food coloring glaze-icing

The US FDA's Advisory Committee on Hypersensitivity to Food Constituents concluded in 1986 that FD&C Yellow No. 5 may cause hives in fewer than one out of 10,000 people. Some reports indicated that it provokes asthma attacks. Usage of Red No. 3 was voluntarily terminated in 1990 after animal testing indicated an association with thyroid tumors. There is no guarantee that the food coloring used to color the icing on those vibrantly colored birthday cakes is really safe. Knowing how most kids love icing more than cake itself, we've done some experimenting and came up with a great recipe for an amazingly luscious bubble-gum pink and purple icing made purely of berries that is sure to please all princesses (and some princes!) on their birthday!

What You'll Need:

• Frozen raspberries and strawberries (for pink)
• Frozen blueberries and blackberries (for purple)
• Bowl and spoon
• Microwave oven
• Sieve
• Icing sugar

• Place berries into a bowl and microwave on high for 5 seconds or until the berries are soft
• Crush the berries to release juices
• Run crushed berries and juice through a sieve to remove skin and seeds
• Pour 1 cup of icing sugar in a separate bowl and stir in 3-4 teaspoons of the berry juice. Double the recipe for a large cake
• Stir until smooth, adding more juice if necessary to form a good consistency

Tip:
Using frozen berries will give a deeper shade of color. You won't believe the amazing colors they'll produce!

Beach glass collection

Have you ever heard of 'sand glass', 'sea glass', 'beach glass', or 'mermaid's tears'? Well, all of these are names for glass that is shaped by nature. Sea glass actually begins as a bottle or piece of glass tossed into the ocean from a ship or dragged into the ocean on a shoreline. The glass is broken by the sea, tumbled by the waves, and polished by many grains of sand until it is smooth like a pebble.

Beach glass can be beautiful when used to decorate the base of a vase or made into beads to make jewelry and accessories. Next time you take part in a beach cleanup, look out for these glass gems - they make a great collection in white, green, brown, blue, orange, and red. Remember that the beach glass you're looking for is round and smooth like a pebble. Be careful not to pick up any sharp pieces of glass with bare hands that could get cut.

Do Your Part: Although beach glass is pretty, we should never throw glass bottles into the ocean or leave them on a beach. Dispose of glass properly and don't forget to recycle where glass is collected for recycling. ALWAYS ask a grown-up to help you pick up any sharp pieces you find on the beach.

Keep beaches and the ocean clean... Take part in local beach cleanups whenever you can!

Nature paints

Thousands of years ago, before there were shops selling paints and dyes, people looked to the earth for colors. Art on cave walls and colorful clothing were decorated using paints from crushed seeds, plants, berries, water, oil, and soil.

Here is a list of ingredients that can be used for nature paints and dyes, and the color each one creates:

What You'll Need:

• Your choice of color and the ingredient needed (see above list)
• Pot or pan for heating
• Hot water for soaking and softening (onion skins, seeds, and petals)
• White cloth or T-shirt for dying, or paper for painting on

• Soak skins, seeds, flowers in hot water overnight, peel and cut up beets and berries and boil in hot water to release color. (adult supervision is required for handling hot water.)
• Use the resulting nature paint to create beautiful vibrant paintings. Store the nature paint in jars for up to a month, adding water when they dry out.
• Alternatively, dip or soak white cloth or a T-shirt to dye. Rinse well and let dry to enjoy a new, natural, non-toxic hue.

Do Your Part:
Your nature paints don't contain any dangerous toxins or lead that some paints contain. When you're done with your nature paints, wash your hands with with great confidence knowing that you're not washing down any toxins that contribute to water pollution or harm marine life.

Recycled advertising leaflet paper beads

The technique of paper bead making originates from Victorian times when women would cut up and roll scrap pieces of wallpaper on knitting needles to make bead curtains. A wonderful project that recycles all those unwanted advertising leaflets that pile up in the mail.

Q: Why do we need to recycle paper?
Every year we cut down more trees to meet the world's demand for paper. Recycling will help save trees from being cut down and prevent deforestation of the earth.

What You'll Need:

• Advertising leaflets or posters (A4-A3 size work best)
• Glue
• Toothpicks
• Needle and thread or beading wire
• Varnish (optional)

• Cut paper into long thin triangular strips with base of the triangle measuring the desired size of the bead.
• Brush glue onto one whole side of the strip, leaving a small portion at the base of the triangle for a toothpick.
• Roll the toothpick carefully until the entire strip has been rolled up to create a bead.
• Carefully remove the toothpick from the center.
• Allow the bead to dry for a few minutes while continuing the steps to make more.
• Thread beads to create a necklace.

Do Your Part:
There are a million and one ways to reuse those unwanted leaflets -- be creative! And don't forget to put them into the paper recycle bins when you really need to throw them out.

Did you know?
There are numerous groups in East Africa making paper bead products, generally groups of women. As the technique is simple and requires no special equipment and few resources, paper bead production is an activity which currently supports some of the most impoverished and vulnerable communities. Support fair trade!

Rice Glue

In Japan, rice glue has long been a well-known and used product. This extremely resistant adhesive can be used to glue all types of paper. It was traditionally a common adhesive, used in the creation of luxury origami cardboard products, as well as in making paper screen doors ("shoji"). Though white when moist, rice glue becomes transparent as it dries. It is an economical, natural, guaranteed non-toxic adhesive.

'Non-toxic' labels on many commercial products are misleading because they refer to the immediacy of the poisoning if ingested, inhaled, or absorbed by the skin, but do not reflect any danger in long term use of the product.

What You'll Need:

• Cooked Rice
• Water
• Jar for storage

• Place cooked rice in a bowl.
• Add a small amount of water and mash the rice.
• Continue the process until the rice grains are well mashed and a white paste forms.
• Pour the paste into a jar and keep sealed in the fridge until needed.

Do Your Part:
Keep on refilling your jar of rice glue and reduce waste! By using leftover rice, you will be steering the rice out of the food waste from your kitchen. By not buying glue from the store, you can avoid that plastic container it comes in. Once contaminated, it is unlikely that plastic containers make it to the recylcing plant for recycling.
When you're done with your arts and crafts project, wash your hands with a big smile knowing that you're not washing down any toxins that contribute to water pollution.

Milk Carton Recycled Paper

Q: What is recycled paper?
Recycled paper is paper that has been used and treated for use again. Used paper from homes, offices, and schools can be collected and sent to special recycling centers and remade into paper that can be used again. This process can take place over and over.

Q: Why do we need to recycle paper?
Every year we cut down more trees to meet the world's demand for paper. Recycling will help save trees from being cut down and prevent deforestation of the earth.

Ingredients:

• Used milk carton
• Screen on a frame
• Bucket
• Blender
• Magnifying glass
• Water
• Old newspapers

Steps:

• Rinse, cut open, and remove plastic parts and thick base of milk carton. Soak in water for several hours or overnight.
• Remove thin polyethylene lining and tear paper into little pieces.
• Scoop out about 1/2-cup of paper and put into blender, add about two cups water from the soaking container. Blend about 30 seconds. (Blending breaks the paper into pulp. After blending, you'll be able to see the individual wood fibers that make paper when bonded together! - use a magnifying glass to help you see the fibers better...)
• Over a sink, pour the pulp onto the screen and let the water drain out.
• Place a layer of dry newspaper over the pulp and gently press out the excess water.
• Turn the screen and newspaper over so the newspaper is at the bottom and set it on a table (don't forget to cover the table first!).
• Carefully lift the screen off the paper.
• Place another layer of newspaper onto the wet paper and gently press out more water. Turn it over and remove the layer of newspaper. Repeat this step a few times.
• Gently peel off the damp, recycled paper. Place it on a flat surface to dry overnight. You can also use a rolling pin to help flatten or press the paper. If you want, put the paper between two cloths (two kitchen tea towels work well) and gently iron on your iron's lowest setting until dry.

Other Things to Try:

• Try experimenting with different types and colors of paper.
• Vary the amount of water you use. Less water makes thicker paper.
• Put decorations, such as dried flowers or leaves, on your paper after you pour it onto the screen.

Do Your Part:
Try to buy only recycled paper products. Don't forget to recycle newspapers, magazines, and other paper products by putting them into the paper recycle bins!