Recycled Crafts and the Environmental Police

Did you ever think that using recycled items in crafts could be a bad thing? It sounds like a good idea, after all, it is taking a used item and re-using it. What could be wrong with that? Nothing. Unless, of course, you try to recycle the recycled craft.

Parents, caregivers and teachers are collectors and recycling hoarders. They save paper towel rolls, empty tissue boxes, empty plastic bottles, empty cans, and even the covers to laundry detergent. Why? For craft time, of course.

It makes perfect sense to take these usable items and, with the imagination and willingness of children, and the know-how of adults, to make these recycled items into more than they were before.

A tissue box becomes a car, a spaceship, a train, or an elevator. A paper towel roll can be a telescope or a listening device. Young crafters add glue, tissue paper, string, beads, aluminum foil, beans, and any other household or recycled item to make the recycled crafts.

When making recycled crafts, the last thing on anyone's mind is, "How are we going to recycle this?"

Yet, that is exactly what the adults involved may need to be thinking, in certain communities. If you live in a community which requires you to use see-through garbage bags for curb-side pick of of recycled materials, you may have a problem recycling your recycled crafts.

Or, if you live in a town with a drive-up recycling center, the employees may be taking even a closer look a the recycled crafts in your recycling.

At some point in the crafting process, which the child was busy transforming a simple recyclable object into a wonderful invention or toy, he or she also inadvertently may have changed the recycling materials into actual trash.

Does this mean that parents, caregivers and teachers in certain communities have to decide between recycled crafts and actual recycling?

No. There are ways to still recycle the materials from the recycled craft, once the craft has fallen apart or the child has moved onto another craft. A craft made from recycled materials that has excessive glue may be destined for the trash pile. As for the rest of the recycled crafts, here are some tips on how to recylce them: