Recycle, America!

Dedicated to encouraging people to recycle and to buy recycled products, America Recycles Day (ARD) is celebrated each year on November 15. In 1997, the Recycling Alliance of Texas created a statewide campaign to emphasize the economic benefits of reducing waste and recycling. A year later, the National Recycling Coalition sponsored the first America Recycles Day.

Now on ARD, millions of Americans attend school and community events to celebrate. In addition to encouraging people to collect recyclables, sponsors promote reducing and reusing materials. By reducing, reusing, and recycling, Americans can save energy, natural resources, and landfill space. In addition, the practices help reduce air and water pollution, and they can slow global warming.

Visit the National Recycling Coalition's Web site to learn more about recycling, take the Recycling Pledge, and find special ARD events that are taking place in your area. Also, be sure to see The Imagination Factory's Trash Matcher and The Flat Stanley Project, which are linked from our main page. Both were created in honor of America Recycles Day. And don't forget to visit our artists' professional showcase, The Green Gallery. There you can see and buy a variety of art and fine crafts created from scrap, or work made by reusing materials.

What's In This Issue

• America Recycles Day
• Creative Scrap Exchanges
• The Little Red Schoolhouse
• How to Start Your Own Scrap Exchange
• Colored Glue
• Leftovers: Enter Contest

Fall 2008

• Main Page
• Revised Lessons
• Newsletter Index
• Scout Badge Matcher
• Lesson Categories
• Trashmatcher

How to Start Your Own Scrap Exchange

Your local recycling center may be interested in helping you start a similar scrap exchange. Speak to the solid waste management district's director or recycling educator about setting up a “Little Red Schoolhouse” in your area. Storage sheds, such as the one used at our recycling center, can be purchased at lumber yards and building supply stores.

Teachers and others who work with limited budgets will appreciate having the free materials, and the solid waste facility will gain by helping people find new uses for items that may have taken up space in the landfill. Reusing items also helps save disposal costs, and it conserves natural resources and energy needed to manufacture new materials.

If you don't have the funds to build or buy a separate storage facility, it may be possible to set up a scrap exchange in a large room. Perhaps a local organization, business, or industry will dedicate an area for your use. Whether you set up the exchange in a solid waste management facility or someplace else, all that's needed for storing the materials are some strong, metal or wooden shelves.

In order to pay for the storage facility and shelving, consider writing a grant. While funds are not usually given to individuals, your grant can be submitted on behalf of your recycling center or arts council. State departments of environmental management may fund your local facility's request, and since you're providing free art supplies, talk to the person in charge of education at your local arts council. Local or state funds may be available for your project.

To help stock your facility, join FreeCycle and Throwplace, and post your needs online. Many people will be happy to find good homes for scrap materials and postconsumer waste, and don't forget local businesses such as printing companies and interior design studios. Once your scrap exchange is up and running, publicize what you're doing through the local school system, scouts, 4-H, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, and similar organizations.

To find your county's solid waste management district contact information, start with State Environmental Agencies in the United States. Many major corporations, such as Target and Home Depot, give grants specifically for art or environmental projects. Visit Fundsnet Services Online, a searchable database that provides links to various companies and institutions that provide grants.

The building is open three days a week during the recycling center's regular business hours. The Little Red Schoolhouse is brimming with free materials and possibilities. Items that are available vary from time to time, but the following are some scrap materials that are usually on hand. Also included are a few ideas of what can be made from them.

This - to this!*
Greeting cards-origami-style boxes, cut out motifs and decoupage, Christmas tree ornaments, new greeting cards
*Cardboard tubes-puppets, dinosaurs, tube sculptures, rain sticks, kaleidoscopes
*Adding machine rolls-cartoon strips and drawing, papermaking
*Books-book safes, presses, papermaking
*Coffee cans-containers, luminaries, musical instruments
*Oatmeal boxes-containers, drums, gift wrap containers
*Pringle cans-containers, kaleidoscopes, rain sticks
*Paper egg cartons-puppet heads or other papier mache applications, creature bodies, monster eyes, sculptures
*Wooden berry baskets-containers, Easter baskets, decoupage
*Polystyrene egg cartons-rain stick (insides), printmaking, creature bodies, plaster casting
*Cardboard-bookmaking, sculpture, printmaking, collage
*Magazines-collages, beads, decoupage, reference photos, origami, wrapping paper
*Telephone books-shredded scarecrow, origami, wrapping paper, painting/gluing surface
*Wallpaper sample books-collage, book arts, greeting cards, art paper, drawing boards
*Laundry scoops-containers, Christmas tree ornaments
*Yarn-stitchery, weaving, soda straw weaving, puppet hair
*Fabric scraps-puppet and doll clothes, covering for books and boxes, collages, quilts
*Small tape rolls-printmaking, sculpture, house building
*Net produce bags-tie dye, stenciling, printmaking
*Shoe boxes-dioramas and parade floats
*Baby food jars-storage and snowglobes
*Containers of all shapes and sizes-storage, papier mache and candlesticks
*Paper and envelopes of all kinds-drawing, painting, printmaking, collage
*Cardboard, paperboard sheets and paper sacks-general crafts and paper sculpture
*Visit the Bartholomew County Recycling Center and Solid Waste Management District online.

Rather than using an entire bottle of glue, color one that's ½ or ¾ full. You'll need to leave some space for the marker tips, and it will be easier to shake or stir if the bottle's not full.

Challenge yourself to make a contour drawing of a person's face or an object. In creating such a drawing, the pencil, or in this case, the glue, is applied in one, unbroken line.

Buy glue in large containers, such as quart bottles. When your smaller bottles run low, refill them with glue from the bigger container. Refilling smaller bottles, instead of buying new ones, will help save landfill space.

Elmer's is a well known brand of white glue. Join Elmer's Glue Crew to learn how you can help keep glue bottles out of landfills.