Can you reuse aluminum foil? Of course, you can! Read on to learn how.

Have you ever pulled off a length of aluminum foil only to realize you didn’t need it, after all, and then wonder what the heck to do with it? Well, believe it or not, aluminum foil may be more useful than you would have thought. It’s more than just a handy cover for your cookies as you cart them to your reading club meeting. While aluminum foil may be a better choice than plastic wrap, it is also easier to clean and re-use than plastic wrap, and it is recyclable (as long as it’s clean) in some locations.

If you find yourself with aluminum foil that you didn’t actually use, or piece of cleaned and rinsed foil, don’t toss it. Instead, repurpose it around your home.

Here some ideas for ways you can reuse aluminum foil to expand its life span and usefulness. Sure, it might end up in a landfill eventually, but if you get two uses out it, that’s better than one. And in some cases, it may help you solve a problem and eliminate the need for any even worse product, like plastic wrap. Of course, the real key to eliminating the impact of single-use products is to reduce the use of them by using reusable options, like beeswax paper. But the reality is that sometimes you just need to use some aluminum foil. Make it count by repurposing it with these useful DIY ideas.

1. Sharpen Scissors – Bring a dull pair of scissors back to life by cutting through a sheet of foil.
2. Pot Scrubber – Balled up foil works just as well on grimy pots and pans and even works on cleaning up the outdoor grill. Just make sure only to use it on surfaces that are safe–that means no non-stick surfaces.
3. Arts and Crafts Medium – The ways in which you can use clean sheets of aluminum foil in your arts and craft projects are endless. All you need is your imagination.
4. Static Cling Eliminator – Throw a clean balled up bit of foil in with your clothes in the dryer to avoid static cling.
5. Painting Tool – Cover doorknobs with foil to protect them when painting. Also, you can use crumpled foil to create texture on your walls.
6. Pet Deterrent – Many cats and dogs don’t like to walk on foil and don’t like the crinkly sound of it. Hide some foil where you don’t want your pets to go, like around your plants.
7. Ironing Helper – Place sheets of foil under your ironing board cover to make ironing a breeze. It reflects the heat and speeds up ironing time.

Related on EcoSalon

13 Quirky Kitchen Hacks to Make Your Life Easier

Non-Toxic Tips for Cleaning Household Metal

15 Ingenious Repurposing Projects for Used Books

Image: Kitchen Foil on Counter via Shutterstock

The post 7 Unconventional Uses for Aluminum Foil Around the House appeared first on EcoSalon.

It’s time to be honest and admit that while composting is ecologically beneficial and reduces overall waste, it can also smell incredibly repulsive. I’m sure we can all agree that the last thing you need is a bag of slowly rotting seepage under your sink, filling your kitchen with the foul and redolent air of vegetal decay. Imagine the following scenario: you’ve successfully attracted an appealing member of the gender you prefer. They’re in your kitchen for some reason. You’re charming, they’re drinking; things are going well. Then: their face wrinkles. Their smooth and beautiful brow clouds over with concern.

“God, what is that smell?” your date asks tentatively, because s/he’s polite like that.

“Oh, that?” you reply airily. “Why, that’s just my bin full of dead and decaying bits of refuse. You know. Scraps of half-chewed, still-warm kale. Sickly, damp lumps of old coffee grounds. Withered, cracked peels from long-rotted fruits. I just keep those things in a pile, in my kitchen, which is in my house, where I live, like it’s no big deal.”

But it is a big deal. It’s the absolute worst. It starts with composting and it ends with an A&E Hoarders film crew. And if there were eco-conscious, sustainably-minded alternatives to composting, wouldn’t you want to know about them? Of course you would. You’re a human being, and you deserve better than sharing your house with a pile of rotting garbage.

10. Onion peels make a great Easter egg dye. Or just “egg dye” if you like dyeing eggs and it’s not Easter. Wrap a layer of onion skin around your eggs before boiling, and it’ll impart a deep golden or purple tint to the shell.

9. Citrus peels are good for a million things. Dry them up and grind them for a gentle face mask. Put them in liquor. Now your liquor tastes like oranges!

8. Potato skins. What are you composting these for? They’re delicious. Eat them. Don’t be stupid. In fact, make potato skins with them.

7. Give it to the chickens.

6. Banana peels. There’s nothing worse than dumping your compost out at the end of the week and staring at the black floppy corpse of Monday’s breakfast. If you just can’t give up the habit, at least you can use the peels to polish your silver, although I don’t think “owners of silver” and “compostors of banana peels” are two demographics with a lot of overlap.

5. Do any of your neighbors have a garden? Just dump your kitchen scraps out there. That’s free compost and they should thank you.

4. Worm-eaten apples. You’re actually supposed to throw them away. Another bullet safely dodged.

3. Coffee grounds. Apparently you can use them to exfoliate your skin, so just rub it all over yourself in the shower. Problem solved.

2. Used tea leaves. It’s sad and strange the same race that has invented iambic pentameter and space shuttles has also produced you, bending over your sad little compost bin, scraping tepid, bloated tea leaves out of your mug and onto a pile of dead things. I’m assuming that’s what you’re doing with your tea leaves, of course, because if you’re drinking bagged tea then you are well beyond hope and you should go ahead and make whatever choices you like. You know what’s better than that? Make this cake with your leftover tea leaves (make sure to let them dry out a bit and chop them roughly before using). Or make this cake, I don’t care. It’s a good approach to life: every time you make a cup of tea, you have to bake a cake.

1. Just eat it. Whatever it is, it can’t be worse than composting. Quit whining; you’ll be fine. Your house smells better already.

The post 10 Bearable Alternatives to Indoor Composting appeared first on EcoSalon.

Trashion. If you’re green and fashionable, you’ve no doubt noticed it’s everywhere you look these days. And this “creative reuse” in fashion may have finally gone too far. It’s time to question, for the sake of eco fashion’s future viability, the plethora of “trash to treasure” initiatives touted as sustainable fashion genius.

It is time to do more with less, and this includes reducing our predilection for “trash to treasure” designs and stories that glorify less than marketable fashion.

The thing that concerns me as someone who also observes how trash is now utilized in eco-art and gallery installations is the message suggesting that we can increasingly find a tidy place for the trash in our lives. Creative reuse needs to move beyond the glorification of trashion and recycled art projects in order to address long term solutions for waste reduction and sustainable economic development. Our primary focus should be on managing this toxic bloom via critically important economic, environmental, and health initiatives.

For sure, timeless design has a transcendent and culturally revealing quality, particularly when it comes to the innovative reuse of materials and cast-off bits. Are we currently aiding or hindering the sustainable fashion movement if we do not make a distinction between designs that measure up as genuine fashion innovation and those that are clever, eye-catching creations that make “trashion” seem fashionable?

Junky Styling’s recycled men’s suit coats: an empowering approach

Creative reuse projects can be large or small. In the case of fashion, several bold designer initiatives have genuinely overhauled the industry’s patterns of waste and excess via the resourceful recycling of textile surplus and unsold stock. Standout labels like From Somewhere, Junky Styling, Goodone, and Reet Aus, to name a few, effectively take yesterday’s unwanted goods and artfully re-shape them into tomorrow’s covetable items. This design strategy is genuinely empowering for the fashion lover who is investing in environmentally sound and fashion-forward design.

From Somewhere‘s upcycling of Speedo’s LZR Racer designs

The recent collaboration of From Somewhere with Speedo to create a capsule collection upcycled from unsold and obsolete Speedo LZR Racer designs might seem like an odd pairing to some. However, an industrial fabric challenge like this clearly demonstrates how unwanted waste can be transformed into eco-luxe couture.

Recycling should and must be an engaging activity, particularly when it comes to labor-intensive DIY projects. Some of the most rewarding fashion moments are definitely those where something useless or outdated takes on new life with imaginative tinkering and whimsy. As Kate Black of Magnifeco recently shared with us:

“When it comes to recycling, we have obviously been doing it for years, in all cultures. Textiles that can no longer be used as garments are incorporated into household items like quilts and pillows and now it’s not just recycled textiles making the news in eco-fashion: candy wrapper handbags, pull-tab accessories are front and center, too.  When recycling or upcycling in fashion falls short, though, I generally find that it is from a taste perspective, not necessarily a design perspective.”

I wholeheartedly support projects that provide fair-trade jobs to artisans who create one-of-a-kind accessories and art-objects out of dumpster and landfill pickings, so I am certainly not attacking these folks for the honest craft and handwork that they do.

Ecoist ‘Botero’ handbag crafted out of candywrappers

I do think, however, that we should exercise caution regarding what is an increasing inclination to sanitize and incorporate trash into art, fashion, and design projects for our own aesthetic amusement. Let’s not forget that this everyday refuse should not exist in the first place, at least not in the volume that we are now grappling with. We need to ensure that we do not become de-sensitized to just how out of control our garbage epidemic is. It is one thing to source from surplus textile stock, recycle trash in the waste stream, and get one’s hands dirty with some gritty DIY projects, but not at the expense of garbage becoming a part of our ongoing design lexicon, much less the focus of our attention.

Via Trendhunter: A condom hat may be great for ginning up clicks, but it’s bad for eco fashion progress.

‘Trash to treasure’ is a dangerous term, and one that might soon need to be upgraded or upcycled within the sustainable fashion glossary. Our long term efforts should continue to be focused on cradle-to-cradle design initiatives, zero-waste garment production, acknowledgment of indigenous technologies and crafts that actually aid specific regions, and sustainable economic development that improves the lives of people everywhere so that they can move beyond having to rely on garbage as a means of livelihood.

Chris Jordan photography

The ready-made object is a surrealist phenomenon. Fashion is about personal expression and the ability to be transported to new layers and states of being. Let’s not allow ourselves to get swept up by “quirky” design projects that demonstrate how clever we can be with Coke tabs, Barbie doll heads, condoms, or heaps of televisions and computer monitors, all in the name of recycling – but in reality only keep our movement one step further from legitimate entree into mainstream fashion or, worse, from being taken seriously by leaders in the fashion world.

‘Household goods’… deceased Estate by Claire Healey and Shaun Cordelro

This is not meant as an attack on the resourceful re-purposing of waste materials for home, fashion, and personal use. Recycling is definitely a significant part of the sustainable fashion story, but recycling without an ability to edit is doing us no good.

There is a time and a place for trashion and art of this nature, but we have a responsibility to shift away from scenes that mimic the dying “portraits of global mass culture” (a la work of photographer Chris Jordan) as we look to a greener future.

Lead image courtesy of Goodone; Household goods images via The Sydney Morning Herald.

The post Condoms and Candy Wrappers: And We Wonder Why Anna Wintour Won’t Green Vogue appeared first on EcoSalon.

I have a large, shameful pile of junk in my basement that has been growing out of control for three years. I try not to look at it when I pass it, because when I do I inevitably feel that flush of guilt – “Why haven’t I recycled this stuff already?” But for many items, from packing peanuts to old scraps of carpet, it’s not as easy as putting it in a curbside bin. Sometimes it seems like an awful lot of effort just to find out whether something can be recycled at all, let alone how or where.

But don’t give in and toss those questionable items in the trash! You might be surprised at some of the things that can actually be recycled. Turn wine corks into flooring, trade in energy-sucking holiday lights for LED strands and transform your old sneakers into a tennis court – sometimes it’s as easy as simply dropping them in the mail.

Wine Corks

If you can’t bear to throw away wine corks and tuck them away in a drawer for some craft project that will never materialize, here’s a tip: send them to Yemm Hart Green Materials of Missouri. They’ve started an experimental wine cork recycling program that processes the old bottle stoppers into lovely environmentally friendly cork floor and wall tiles. Eventually, they hope to actually pay people for their corks, but for now, do it out of the kindness of your heart. Here are five other creative reuses for old wine corks.

Books, DVDs & CDs

Most people don’t toss their used books, DVDs and CDs in the trash, but buying new consumes unnecessary resources (and a lot of cash) – so why not trade your old ones for something that’s new-to-you? Swaptree.com is a cool website that allows you to essentially keep a constantly fresh, rotating selection of reading material, movies and music for zero dollars. Who doesn’t love free stuff? Just sign-up, list your unwanted stuff and choose the items you’d like to receive. Then, you simply complete the swap through the mail. Easy!

Shoes

They’ve been through a lot – from dog poop at the park to downpours on the trail. It wouldn’t exactly be charitable to donate your grimy, rough-looking trainers, but the landfill isn’t the answer either. Nike is happy to take your rubber-soled shoes – no matter who made them – and recycle them into new athletic surfaces like basketball courts and running tracks. Find your nearest drop-off location at the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe website.

Foam Packing Peanuts

Nobody with eco-minded tendencies likes receiving a package full of polystyrene packing peanuts. They’re made from petroleum, and aside from that, they’re just plain annoying and hard to get rid of. Instead of sending them back out to be somebody else’s problem, give them to people who actually want them: EPS recyclers. Polystyrene packing peanuts and molded foam cushioning can be either dropped off at a local location if you have one, or sent in the mail.

Carpet

Whether it was ripped out of a flooded room or just saw more than its fair share of pet stains and baby vomit, old carpet can be pretty gross. Unfortunately, getting rid of unwanted carpet isn’t always easy, but if you’re lucky, you might just have a carpet reclamation company in your area. Check out the map at CarpetRecovery – you could be able to give that shaggy rug new life as composite lumber, roofing shingles, railroad ties or automotive parts.

Holiday lights

You want the green cred – and lower utility bills – of LED holiday lights, but just can’t justify buying new ones yet. That’s cool, use what you have, but when those old strands give up the ghost, send them off to HolidayLEDs to be recycled and you’ll get more than just do-gooder satisfaction. They’ll gift you with a 15 percent off coupon for anything on their site, so you can get the twinkly LED lights of your dreams.

Bras

Maybe you’ve grown out of purple polka dots (figuratively) or grown out of your old size (literally) but either way, don’t toss that bra. Most of us take a selection of clean undergarments for granted, but there are plenty of people in need. Bosom Buddy Recycling will take your old bras and give them to deserving women around the country including women’s shelters, transitional housing and breast cancer survivor support groups.

Prescription Medication

Our water has a drug problem, and as a result, we’re all taking in way more medication than we bargained for. Drinking water in many major metropolitan areas is contaminated with all kinds of pharmaceuticals – from antibiotics to antidepressants – and it’s not just a result of them passing through our bodies. Instead of flushing your prescription meds down the toilet, donate drugs that are still usable. Not every state has a recycling/redistribution program or allows patients to donate directly, but it’s worth a shot – check out the list at NCSL.

Images: dawgbite77, psyberartist, ianmunroe

The post 8 Things You Didn’t Know You Could Recycle appeared first on EcoSalon.

My memories of high school are not what you’d call nostalgic. In fact, you couldn’t bribe me with eco-gifts and organic treats to return and relive the nonsense of it all. Despite the oodles of teen angst, I did manage to graduate with a strong B average while spending most of my time playing sports or hanging out at my locker.

Which brings me to today’s cool, clever décor object of desire. The Basket Locker is made of four found and refurbished locker baskets, colorfully painted and placed in a solid, steel frame. It measures 14″ L x 26.5″ W x 26.5″ H and would be perfect for the playroom or a kid’s bedroom, or even a home office or studio.

Find it at Uncommon Goods for $550. I see a spot for it here, across from my vintage drafting table – both have steel frames and a rough, vintage feel.

The post The Look of Refurbished Lockers (Without the Hassles of High School) appeared first on EcoSalon.

Reduce, reuse, recycle”¦ and re-invent! Going green is often a creative process, and we green gals are always brainstorming new functions for an assortment of old items, from wine bottles to sarongs and everything in between. Well, how would you like to win a $500 gift certificate for your eco-friendly ingenuity? Just e-mail your ideas and accompanying photos to ideas@vivaterra.com by this coming Tuesday, September 1 to enter in the drawing for sponsor VivaTerra’s fabulous fall re-invention contest. Can’t choose just one? No problem! Though only one entry is allowed per person, there’s no limit to how many ideas you can include. So, take a look around your home with pen, paper and camera in hand and submit your entry today.

Image: VivaTerra

The post Psst! Enter the VivaTerra Re-Invention Contest and Win a $500 Gift Certificate appeared first on EcoSalon.

Just north of Mendocino on the Northern California coast is Glass Beach, one of the most unique beaches in the world.

This beach was once the Fort Bragg City Dump. Everything from spark plugs and engine blocks to china and glass was dumped here from 1949 until 1967, when it was finally decided that perhaps dumping garbage at the water’s edge wasn’t such a clever idea.

Three decades on, nature has reclaimed the beach. The constantly pounding surf has transformed the trash into treasure, resulting in the beach displaying shiny layers of polished broken glass in a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors. Yes, there still is the occasional rusty spark plug, but mostly it’s the glass sparkling in the sun that catches the eye.

Glass Beach, now part of MacKerricher State Park, makes for an interesting living science lesson, not only for its trashy history but also because of its ever changing tide pools that are home to crabs, mollusks and aquatic plants.

Image: the Gardeners Anonymous blog

The post Turning Trash into Treasure at Glass Beach appeared first on EcoSalon.

To alleviate stress, some people indulge in aromatherapy, others depend on their monthly massage, while you hit up the tennis courts and leave it to the wrath of your racket. Along with a peaceful state of mind, this effective method of release has left you a basket full of old tennis balls that you can’t bring yourself to throw away. Here are some clever ways to take them out of retirement and save them from life in a landfill.

Slice a tennis ball down the middle and push the concave side onto the top a stubborn jar. Just squeeze and twist to open it with ease.

Pour beer into the other half and set it out in your garden to trap slugs before they feast on your plants and flowers.

Are you sick of stiff clothing, linens and towels? Toss a tennis ball into the dryer to fluff your laundry. Plus, it helps eliminate static cling.

Cut a slit into a tennis ball, secure it onto the end of a broom stick and rub away scuffs on wood or linoleum floors.

Once your floors are gleaming, this homemade tool can also be used to get rid of all those cobwebs lurking in the corners of your ceiling. So long, Swiffer.

When your significant other turns his nose up at your request for a foot massage, put a tennis ball under each sole and do it yourself.

Who actually rinses off their sunscreen or lotion before taking a dip? Just throw some tennis balls in your swimming pool to soak up oils.

Image: Steve Punter

The post 7 Creative Uses for Old Tennis Balls appeared first on EcoSalon.