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Eco This!

June 29, 2008 By 123 Comments



Menu Planning Resource Pack

You could win this eco slim portfolio (color may vary)! Contest ended!

If you love purses and most women do then you have to love the Ecoist! A sassy and sexy site for eco purses, clutches, portfolios, billfolds and more. The company was founded in 2004 with sustainability and fashion in mind. Ecoist recycles candy wrappers, food packages, billboards and all sorts of other recyclable “stuff” and makes the non-biodegradable material into fashionable accessories. All products utilize organic and earth friendly products during the manufacturing process. They’re one of those green companies that put their billfold where their mouth is! Love that!

Want to win a stylish recycled portfolio with a $138 value? I do but I can’t so you’ll have to win one for me. The contest starts today (June 29th) and ends July 5th. Congrats to Shelly for her “Boob Curtain” idea!

◊I will choose one comment that leaves the most creative recycling idea. Yes, just tell me something cool to recycle or a new way of recycling something and you could win. How easy is that?

◊Want two entries just leave a second comment telling me you’ve blogged about this or gave me a stumble, digg, kirtsy or emailed some friends about the contest. I give extra credit because I’m so nice! For more details see the G&CM official rules page.

Don’t be sad if you don’t win—okay, cry and let it all out, I understand. When you’re done shedding the tears be happy because this savvy earth lovin’ company is offering G&CM readers 10% off all purchases with the coupon code: Greenandclean, through the end of July!


Filed Under: Green Beauty, Green Giveaways, Green Goods and Reviews, Green Shopping, Green Style Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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  • Jennifer M

    My husband really hates to give up his t-shirts, even when they wear out. I cut the logo part off, and we use them as cloth napkins. The sleeves, backs, etc. I tear up for rags.

  • Ken Robinson

    Reuse, don’t abuse. Please accept my entry.

  • http://www.mystershopper.info Mike Weisberg

    i want to win

  • kari follett

    We use Sigg bottles, cloth grocery bags, grow our own herbs and veggies and of course recycle!

  • Monique Rizzo

    Reduce,Reuse and Recycle!

  • Amir

    Use the freecycle site. It’s great for the environment!

  • Jill Miller

    This is a weird one! I keep my drier lint in a plastic bag. In the spring, I’ll set the lint out on my deck in a large laundry basket on pretty days. Birds of all types will eventually find the stash, and take various bits to use in making their nests. It’s really fun to watch them “choose” their favorite pieces and fly away with them, and I know they help make the nests extra comfortable for the baby birds.

  • Beverly M

    i use freecycle

  • vicki andrew

    the freecycle site is a great way to recycle items you no longer have need of and to ask for things you need.

  • Sarah Z

    I try to do a number of things… use the recycle program through the trash company, yard sales, and use freecycle.

  • Miren Inake

    I re-use the CDs that nobody wants to scare the birds in my tomato plants or any plant you don’t want the birds to eat. I hang two or three of them from the wires that hold the plant and it works. They are like cheap scarecrows.

  • tia carter

    i hope i win

  • Pingback: contests 7-1-08 « no time mom

  • Stacy

    Milk jug tops for outdoor checkers, newspaper plastic bags to bring home waste to compost from work, newspaper under the mulch in your garden.
    Not recycling but when we take my son for a walk we pick up trash in our neighborhood.

  • Tara Hill

    Ok, one of my friends would LOVE this! SO, since I would give it to her, I’ll give you a tip she showed me. I tear my dryer sheets in half…it’s all you need to get the job done!

  • Emily

    Comments already posted offer great suggestions and were well worth reading. I especially liked using the dryer sheets to clean pans, and returning junk mail in their pre-paid envelopes (but I think I’ll just continue recyling it with my paper rather than taking the time to open and resend them). I save up my dog’s hair all fall and winter and then put it out for birds to use, but I hadn’t thought to do the same with my dryer lint (I’ve just been saving it up in a bag and wondering what I might do with it). For people who haven’t tried, it is great fun watching the birds take bits of fur and incorporate it into their nests!

    However, my favorite recyling story comes from a friend who while in the county jail for numerous traffic tickets taught the other inmates about chess. They were intrigued enough that they donated the salt and pepper packets from their lunches to be used as chess pieces. My friend made marks on them to differentiate the pieces and then they had a tournament to help pass the time.

  • http://thefallhouse.blogspot.com Kate

    I stumbled! Thanks for visiting my blog Sommer! I love getting comments, they make me smile. I am getting some great ideas from this post! There are a lot of creative minds out there. I will have to try the cds on my tomato plants, interesting…

  • Sue Eberhardt

    So easy . . . save your used coffee grounds for top dressing your garden. The garde soil loves the coffee grounds. Just keep them dry so they don’t get moldy.

  • jan koontz

    we all need to do our part

  • Alecia Gibson

    Recycle your old CDs by making these colorful fish!!
    Instructions:
    Using whatever color of paper you prefer, cut out the fish’s lips, fins, and tail. Glue the lips and fins to the side of the cd with the writing on it. Set aside one of the top fins.
    Cut a piece of yarn or fishing line 3 – 4 feet long. Tie a knot in one end. Run a line of glue from the hole in the center of the cd up to the top edge of the top fin that is glued onto the cd. Lay the yarn or fishing line on top of the glue so the knot is in the hole in the cd as shown in. Glue the extra top fin on top of the other top fin to cover the yarn. Spead glue all over the side of the cd that everything else is glued to. Set the other cd on top of the glue and match up all the edges. Make sure you have the side of the cd with any writing facing down into the glue.
    Glue the wiggly eyes on your fish as shown in. Glue one on each side of his head. If you don’t have wiggly eyes, you can also use a small white pom-pom and a black bead. This will give your fishes eyes a more ‘buggy’ look! The last thing you need now is a fin on the side of the fish! You will make these by using a 5 x 6 inch piece of construction paper. Accordian fold the paper. Using figure 7 for an example, you would fold the paper back and forth on the white lines. Once it is fold, hold the folds together and slip in through the hole in the center of the cd. Center the paper in the hole and unfold the ends a bit to fluff them out. Add a little glue to hole of the cd and the paper. You can now hang up your completed fish.

    http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/fishcrafts/l/blcdfish.htm

  • Michele

    The most ‘creative’ recycling thing I saw was for sale at a street market – plastic milk container turned into a vase and decorated with recycled materials. Bizarre.

  • trisha dowling

    we recycle our coffee grounds and use in the planters

  • http://kristiniac.blogspot.com Kristinia Clos

    I save everything.. from magazines to use for collages, to Christmas cards for scrapbooking, everything can be re-used for some sort of craft and then gifted to friends and family! I even re-use a water jug for water, I just keep re-filling the jug, same with OJ, and even fruit juice for my boys!
    I try to re-use as much plastic as I can, instead of having to buy more and more.

  • Robin Thornhill

    My husband and I are always figuring out ways to recycle and reuse in our house.

    One of my newest came from changing over to all natural mineral makeup. I love it! But I was worried about all the little plastic pots that were left empty at the end. Now I clean them out and when I make homemade lip balm, instead of buying tubes to put it in, I put it in the pots. Just like buying Burts Bee’s , but its saving money and the planet!

    My husband is a musician and we seem to end up with old guitars that are beyond repair. We couldnt stand the thought of just throwing them away. They have a lot of great memories, and they would just end up at the landfill! I started making lamps out of them for our music room. All his friends love them and were wondering where I “ordered” it. They are always surprised to hear its another of our recycling projects!

  • Richard Vegh

    Reusing old birdcages as planters, with plants inside and even trained vines outside, converts a bulky, unsightly hulk into a gorgeous, low-maintenance planter (just water/fertilize your overgrown birdcage planter as needed). The same idea applies to old grills, which can be left as-is or painted flashy colors, for a retro-looking stylish planter.

  • http://Hicks R Hicks

    I have a compost pile in the back yard. We toss everything into it including egg shells and coffee grounds

  • Jay French

    We get literally dozens of sets of return address labels from charities soliciting for donations. We get way more than we can use. If they have pictures (most do), we cut the pictures off in strips for my wife’s preschool class to use in their art projects. The kids love using the little stickers to decorate some of their projects, and we’ll have hundreds a year they can use.

  • alison

    We make sure we’re prepared BEFORE we leave the house. Each child has their own reusable water or juice container, and we have reusable containers for snacks, etc. This way, we don’t have to buy endless supplies of bottled water, juice and snacks while out. It saves money as well as reduces trash!

  • http://www.coroflot.com/majqa1966 Kathy Mullins

    I like to reuse note paper or printouts that I don’t need anymore. I also donate magazines to the local Veterans’ Hospital so that our veterans can have enjoyable reading material.

    What a great giveaway to promote recycling.

    Happy Fourth of July!!

  • krystie

    save old news papers and reuse them for gift wrapping. i started when i wrapped birthday presents for my boyfriend who loves comics. you can also shred them and use it for any animals you might have. house breaking a puppy, rabbit..

  • Babalu

    I freecycle. People come to my house and take my stuff so it doesn’t have to be tossed. I also get a thing or two from others.

  • Heather

    I try to buy re-used toys and clothing for my kids because the packaging on toys at the stores these days is RIDICULOUS and incredibly wasteful!! I also use pillowcase shaped cloth bags to ‘wrap’ gifts!

    I stumbled you for an extra entry!!

  • Ed Nemmers

    Coffee grounds in the garden

  • bob

    Don’t forget that dryer lint can easily be recycled in mulch and compost bins. Cotton reconstitutes easily.

  • Heather Curtis

    Aside from recycling all of our newspapers, aluminum cans and glass jars, we use any plastic grocery bags (we’re going to buy a reusable one soon!) we get from shopping, as a trash bin liner.

  • Pauline M

    I really enjoyed reading these posts, they gave me some great ideas. Being a room mother at my sons school, the class ends up with tons of crayons, partly used, partly broken which the kids don’t use anymore. I use some letter cookie cutters after I melt them and take them back to school for the kids to use, they love it!

    Another nice thing is those darn plastic bags you get from the grocery store. We have a local grocery store who pays the school for those used bags and recycles them. It gives everyone a way to recycle them and help your local school at the same time!

  • Alice

    we like to make birdfeeders out of bottles

  • Katie

    We do a lot of recycling and repurposing around here. One thing that comes to mind very easily (because I was just looking at the site) is using our old newspaper as packing material for things we sell on ebay.

  • Tiffanie W.

    We save up our plastic bags from shopping and donate them to the Salvation Army to use in their stores.

  • zoey smith

    Now a days every one sends their information on a disk. Rather than throwing away my old disks; I take a piece of leftover yarn (from craft projects) and tie the used disks on my trees, I have even recruited my friends to forgo throwing away old/damaged cds/dvds and giving then to me.

    All those cds/dvds scare away the birds who would ordinarily eat my apples and peaches. The fact that I can avoid the use of pesticides makes this practice even better!

  • kathleen

    It is gettig hard to come up with new ideas for reclyling. We had a strong wind last week and some of our clay pots fell off the wall and broke. I noticed that my husband broke the pots into even smaller pieces and mixed them into the potting soil. He says it help drainage but he didn’t know he was recycling.

  • Danelle

    We reuse old toothbrushes for small cleaning jobs around the house. We also have a great recycling program so we recycle everything we can.

  • Jaime

    A toothpaste box with the flaps cut off and cut into three cubes can be used to easily pick up dead bugs without wasting a paper towel. Just place the box over the bug and squeeze.

  • Samantha Pruitt

    use the back of printed papers that you don’t need anymore to save on printing paper, it saves a lot!

  • kristanmarieanderson@hotmail.com

    I think plastic shopping bags are the worst. I ask cashiers to load them as full as possible or I carry things without using tons of bags. If I am stuck and need to get plastic bags I use them to pick up the yard after my dog.

  • L McLendon

    How about this, I recently bought two thermos cups that will keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold. It came with
    a cardboard holder and instead of throwing it away, I am covering it with adhesive wrapping paper and using it as a really handy cup holder. It saved on waste and gave me a handy place to sit my drinks around the house more securely.

  • http://misaacmom.blogspot.com marybeth i.

    I am trying to find more ways to reuse items. I have been much better about recycliny – I have always recycled the standard stuff – cans, jars, bottles, etc. but I am not trying to recycle everything I can.

    I will definitely start using some of the ideas posted here!

    marybeth i.s last blog post..Updated Blog Directory – July 2008

  • Peggy Gorman

    We have been living GREEN for years , I was called Frugal. LOL I try to reuse everything,its easy. I wash out plastic food bags ,stopped using plastic shopping bags,all of our waste food goes into the ground,compost,mail envelopes becomes a starter for burning wood in the winter. I try to buy all of my items in glass ,and I don’t buy prepackaged foods,too much waste there.If we all try to buy paper or glass for packaging in the stores the larger companies will make the change instead of plastic.Count me in to win

  • Kristi Gilleland

    The containers that strawberries come in make great seed starting greenhouses. Just fill with seed starter and you’ve got a great planter. It keeps you from having to buy the seed starter greenhouses if you normally do. :)

  • Cindy Beckman

    We reuse everything we can from the butter dishes we purchase in the store, jars are re-used as seed starters, bottles reused to collect rain water. Everything has a use and we see that it is used to it’s maximum.

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