I put a Save Our Trees, No Flyers Please sticker on my mailbox when we moved here three years ago, but I still get heaps of junk mail. It gets delivered by a team of mentally handicapped young adults, and I can’t bring myself to put them out of a job. Up until now it’s all ended up in the recycling bin, and I hope it actually gets recycled, but I have some suspicions that the recycling gets picked up and then dumped into the landfill like the rest of the garbage.
Now I’ve found a list of ten creative ways to use up all of that junk mail on a website that seems to be trying to sell some sort of product. I could make a collage! (like this picture) or furniture! or use it as mulch! I particularly liked one artist’s idea of impaling all of it on a long metal spike on her front step.
For the rest of the ideas, check out the site.
I’m not endorsing the site, just thought that homeschoolers + creative project + reusing paper = good for the planet.
I’m curious to know about your suspicions on the recycling going in the landfill. Do you have some clues to bolster these suspicions, or are you that pessimistic? (Please read my teasing tone there!
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The collage is really cool. I haven’t checked out the site, but I sure will when I’m back from a little trip we’re taking tomorrow.
Don’t forget about paper beads and making your own paper! Maybe these are you the site you linked to.
Isn’t it sickening how much junk comes in the mail? Then recycling is a bit of a conundrum because some recycling actually does more damage to the environment than tossing it in a landfill. The first two Rs – Reduce, Reuse – are key!
I think that’s the most irritating part, is when one has committed to reducing but the post office forces you not to.
But then there’s the loss of jobs… just goes to show there’s a positive and negative to everything, I guess. How to know, then, what is the right thing to do?!
I share your recycle suspicion. Long time ago I read about something to the effect that plenty of recycle garbage ended up being loaded onto big ships from which the mess was eventually dumped into the ocean. Mind you this was a few years back, in the beginning of the recylce era.
Oma
Oma’s comment reminds me of a book we read: Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion by Loree Griffin Burns. Maybe that’s how all the ocean junk got there (along with the ship containers of Nike sneakers and bath toys, etc. falling over board and all the garbage people leave on the shoreline.)