Recycling – the fun and useful way

When I say the word recycling, most people think of sorting cans, bottles and paper into separate contains and having it hauled off to be turned into something else by someone else. Well, that is definitely recycling, and is definitely something I love to hear people doing, but how about something a little more fun and useful. A couple a years ago I started recycling anything wooden for the scrap wood. It is amazing what people throw away that maybe can’t be used in it’s present form but contains a lot of beautiful wooden pieces that can be very useful. Obviously furniture is where I get most of my recycled wood products, but things such as pallets, doors and even wooden boxes are great sources of wood also. And you don’t just get wood, you also get lots of useable screws, bolts, brackets, hinges, knobs, wheels, casters, and all sorts of miscellaneous parts still in working order.

So you are saying, well that is great to recycle all that stuff, but where is the fun and usefulness? Let’s start with the fun. First of all, it is fun (at least for me) to pull all that stuff apart. Who doesn’t like to be a little destructive? You also get to see how things are constructed and put together and to me that is fun since this helps me have a better understanding of how the world works. Last, but not least, I get to build things out of all this free recycled material, and to me that is a blast, not to mention very useful. What can you build out of it? Well, just this weekend I broke down an old oak desk that my work was throwing out, and was able to build an earring holder for my wife out of just four small trim pieces, recycled screws, and a screen from a recycled window pane. Also over the weekend I also made a couple simple rain gauges out of 4 pieces of an old flower bed fence, a couple recycled glass food bottles, a few recycled screws and a little recycled wire. These are just two examples of projects that I have done and that could be completed using recycled wood.

So, next time you are about to throw something away, or put it in the recycle bin, think about what it is made up of, and if those parts can be turned into something useful. Then again, this is just life according to Troy.