Published on 15 April 2020

Now is a good time to think differently about your recycling

Here are some fun ways to reuse and reduce your recycling stockpile

With recycling collection in Wellington on hold due to COVID-19, many of us are stockpiling for the time when it can be collected again. If storage room is low in your home, this could pose a space issue that even your best Tetris skills can’t solve.

Now could be a great time to have a good look at your recycling and think about ways that you could reduce the amount that you create either now or in the future. Our friends at The Rubbish Trip have written an excellent guide on how you can reduce your recycling stockpile while in lockdown.

In the meantime, what to do with the recycling that you have already accumulated? Instead of looking at your stockpile as a mountain threatening to engulf your house, try looking at it as a treasure trove of materials to get creative with.

We’ve put together some ideas here to inspire you to think outside of the (cardboard) box. If you’re feeling artistic, make like an eco-fashion designer or sculptor and enter our recycling competition.

Keep in mind: don’t do things to recycling products that mean you will use them temporarily but mean they can then no longer be recycled and need to go into landfill when you’re finished with them eg cutting up or painting plastic bottles. If you’d like more guidance around this, get in touch at advice@sustaintrust.org.nz

Getting creative with glass - what you do with jars

Jars are incredibly useful to have on hand and there’s no end to the things that you can do with them.

Get busy in the kitchen and fill those jars with jam, chutney, or pickles. This is also a good way to preserve excess produce from your garden, or use up those foraged blackberries you’ve had in the freezer forever.
Here’s a great jam recipe from Love Food, Hate Waste
Make a terrarium
Use to store DIY toiletries/cleaning products
Organise and label your spices/dry goods

“You can remove sticky labels and residue on glass jars and bottles by first peeling off as much of the label as you can. Then mix together equal parts cooking oil (any kind) and baking soda and rub the paste over the jar. Leave the paste on for 10-20 minutes and then scrub off. ”

— Caroline's top tip

Wine not reuse glass bottles?

Larger bottles, like wine bottles, make great rolling pins!

Use as a vase and brighten up your bubble
Candleholders. Remember, safety first: don’t leave unattended
Infuse oil/vinegar with sprigs of herbs, garlic, chillies

Creative cardboard - useful hacks to keep cardboard out of the recycling.

Rip up and add to compost/wormfarm
Create new no-dig garden beds by laying down cardboard directly onto grass/weeds to suppress them. Layer compost and other materials on top.
Mulch around fruit trees
Build a fort made from boxes
Build an indoor obstacle course for small pets
Use cardboard tubes for planting seedlings (note toilet tubes are tapu)
Make rain sticks with longer cardboard tubes

Some ‘tearable’ paper / magazine ideas

Get creative with your newspaper and magazines and make paper mache and collages
Use all that scrap paper to practise your origami skills
Line your compost bucket with newspaper
Make Christmas decorations

Perfect solutions to reduce plastic pollution:

You can keep your plastic bottles and fill them with cleaning products at refill stations. This will also save you from having to buy and accumulate more plastic bottles! Commonsense Organics has refill stations and remains open during the lock down period.
Similarly, you can use your plastic containers to fill with dry goods at bulk stores, such as GoodFor. GoodFor is also open during the lock down period and has sanitising stations to enable you to keep using your own containers.