The Green Familia » Recycle Now

TGF Rated Review: Bag tube

erica — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 08:00:22 +0000

What is it?

The Bag Tube is designed to reduce the number of plastic bags used each year and encourage reuse of plastic bags by ensuring that you always have one available when you need it.

Who is testing it? Me.

Set Up You attach your Bag Tube to your key ring, and put one or two carrier bags into the tube. Then you have carrier bags to hand when you are next at the shops and you’re unlikely to forget them as they are attached to your keys.

In Use

This is a straightforward and simple product. It’s reasonably priced at £1.19 and 10% of the profits go into tree planting. It’s also suggested that dog owners tie one onto a dog lead, using the bags as a dog poop bags.

Any Negatives

The main negative for me would be having to use supermarket carriers as I much prefer to use my own reusable carriers as they are stronger and hold more. I found it quite hard to put in the second bag and certainly couldn’t have fitted anymore in. It’s reasonably bulky to use as a keyring.

Price and Availability Available from Wikaniko for £1.19.

Overall This is a reasonably priced and simple idea that will work well for some people depending on their shopping habits. I liked the dog poop idea too and that sounded as if it would work well, but I’m not a dog owner so I haven’t tried that out.

TGF Rating 3/5

Sue’s Rating is 4/5

TGF Rated Review: simplehuman slim plastic recycler

erica — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:58 +0000

What is it? It’s great to be able to recycle more and more things, but how do you separate and store them? Many homes struggle to find the space, including my own, so I was very happy to be sent 2 recyclers from simplehuman to test out.

Who is testing it? My family.

Set Up The instructions are clear and simple and there are only 2 steps, but even so I did struggle a bit with clipping the lids on. In the end I had to resort to getting my husband to do it.

The bins are sleek and compact enough to fit into spare corners and slots. They look good too – much better than having piles of newspapers cluttering up the place. They hold a reasonable amount of material because they have a 40 litre capacity. As they come with a set of 6 magnets, you can label your bin to match the contents: glass, paper, plastic, aluminum, recycle, and trash. By having more than one bin, you can have your own sorting system.

In Use They are really easy to use: there’s a pedal to lift the lid and it works very smoothly and softly. You can choose to lock the bins to discourage nosey pets and children. The bins are light and easy to carry or you can wheel them along so emptying them is easy.

Any Negatives I found the initial attachment of the lid difficult, but this should only need doing once. The slide lock was a little stiff, but I don’t think I’ll need to use it very often, even with a curious toddler, and it might well get easier to use, if you do use it more often.

Price and Availability Available in black or grey for £39.99 from simplehuman.

Overall The bins look fabulous in my kitchen and I’m really pleased with how easy they are to use.

Rating 4.5/5

Angelina Urth Bag

Brenda — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:00:05 +0000

Each day this week I am highlighting a great recycling gift to celebrate Recycle Now’s recycle week. Todays gift I think would be perfect for a girly teenager.

Made from recycled magazines, each bag features different magazine images, hence you get unique bags. It is waterproof and has a zipper closure.

Available from Cool Green Attitude for £66.

Recycle Week: Great Gift Ideas

Brenda — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:28:59 +0000

Last week saw me posting daily about my pledge for Recycle Week. This week I thought I would highlight some great gift ideas made from recycled products.

I have a set of theses Champagne Flutes and when I used them this weekend (am still feeling a bit groggy from all the entertaining this weekend!) they created a great stir with my guests with people wanting to know where to get them.

Made from recycled Spanish Glass these stylish looking flutes would make a great housewarming gift or wedding present. You can get them from Ecotopia now for only £4 each. The RRP is £5.99 each.

Do not forget you can sign up and make your pledge for recycle week at www.recyclenow.com

Recycle Now – Day five

Brenda — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:24:43 +0000

WOW! A whole week is nearly over again and we have been busy bees recycling all the clothes that I sorted out on Monday, now we have the last pile of clothes waiting in a bag for us to decide what we should do with them. We have had a couple of suggestions – thanks for the ideas that came in.

In the end I let my little eco-warrier decide as she has been having major fun this week and so we are heading off to a friends house tomorrow to a swishing party that she has organised for charity. We will all pay 3 euros on the door and then will swish the clothes that we are bringing for some others. My friend has organised for the leftover clothes to go to the womens refuge which is in the next village which is great so I will not be needing to bring them all back home!

I would like to thank the team at Recycle Now for all their work and support in promoting this great idea and letting us bloggers have freedom to be writing up our pledges. I hope you all have made a pledge for recycle week!

Recycle Now – Day four

Brenda — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:26:21 +0000

Day four of my recycle pledge to reuse or find a way to recycle our old/unwanted clothes for Recycle Now.

So far we have managed to have a mega sort out, much to the disgust of some members of my family! We then recycled the really old clothes that could not be given away into dusters and rag cloths to use when cleaning the house. Then my daughter and I yesterday spent some time trying to make clothes for her dolls/teddies, which was fun but not sure how successful I was, but hey you can’t be good at everything…

Number two son has a day off today from school so we got the pile of clothes that had to be delivered to the local childrens home and headed off there this morning. We got to meet a couple of the kids that live there when we dropped off the black sack of clothes and were told that they would be greatly appreciated. I was kinda proud of the kids as not only did we take the clothes, but they had also donated some of their old toys to the home.

Tomorrow is the last official day of this pledge and I am wondering what I can do with the last pile of clothes lying here. If you have any suggestions, let me know and I will pick one to use.

Right off we go, if you still have not made a pledge, it is not too late, go to www.recyclenow.com and do it NOW!!!

Recycle Now – Day three

Brenda — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:38:05 +0000

Those that know me, will know I am the hostess with the mostess!! I love to cook and entertain for our friends and family in our home. I can also clean as well as the best can, iron not so bad, but other womanly chores like sewing, knitting etc are not really my forte. So deciding that we would recycle some of my daughters old clothes into mini me outfits for her dolls and teddies is a big deal for me…secretly I have been dreading it, whilst my eco-warrior daughter has been in her element planning it all out for us!So we sat down with the pile of clothes she had chosen, the models, some scissors, thread, needles (I do have a sewing box! just never use it!) and a mini sewing machine that her nan had bought for her to use one birthday.

Getting the machine set up was difficult enough! Then we got the clothes laid out and chose each doll/teddy an outfit, took the measurements, highlighted these in a felt tip pen, then got the scissors out and cut out the pattern we had made. Then my eco warrior sat herself down at the sewing machine and had a go. Unfortunately I think missy is as able in this department as her sad old ma as the attempts were not brilliant, but at least she had a go.

I then had a go by hand on the second outfit, hemming it with needle and thread, keeping the stitches level in size until running out of thread as I had under measured!! But we eventually got it done not brilliantly and you could see it had an amateur look to it but hey we had achieved!!!

After that I needed to take a break, thank god a friend had arrived and had brought with her some yummy Green & Black chocolates…mmm just what the doctor ordered, anyway I digress, so with two down and several more to do, I managed to escape and let my cleaner take over, she is a whizz and does all my alterations and in no time her and missy had finished off the others and now the dolls/teddies have a brand new collection of clothes for summer and not a penny was spent!.

For more ideas on creating mini me clothes for the dolls/teddies, check out Doll clothes patterns.

The other two fantastic bloggers taking part in Recycle Now´s bloggers challenge are The Rubbish Diet and Be More Eco.

Check out day two post here if you missed it yesterday.

Recycle Now – Day two

Brenda — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:00:36 +0000

Well, I think I have just about survived the clear out!! Hubby was annoyed I had thrown away a couple of his “favourite” sleeping shirts, just because they had holes in it!! I mean this is the man who has nearly 18 tees for sleeping in!! I hastened to remind him you can only wear one at a time. Anyway number one son said since I had depleted his wardrobe, I owed him some new clothes…even though the clothes I cleared out, were all screwed up in a ball and miles too small. Number two son had a moan that I had thrown out all his odd socks, apparently he likes to wear odd socks! Number three daughter was only concerned that the clothes were being recycled in the proper way, she is the only one to embrace this pledge, she is my eco-warrier.

So today my daughter and I sorted out the clothes that were in a tatty way and had a pow wow over what we were going to do with them. Below are two of the ideas:

The odd holey socks we decided to make into hand puppets that my daughter and her friends could play with in future. So we darned the holes and created faces with her arts and crafts kit. This is a great activity for kids, they love it.

We then got the raggy clothes and cut them into squares to use as cleaning rags, so that we do not have to buy any for a long time.

Tomorrow we are going to have a go at making some clothes for my daughters teddies and dolls from her clothes.

If you missed my day one recycle now post, you can have a look now.

Other great bloggers taking part in this challenge are:

A Modern Mother and My Zero Waste, great blogs to read if you have not yet come across them.

For more info on how to make a sock puppet check out Danny and Kim´s tutorial.

Recycle Now – Day One of my unique pledge

Brenda — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:46:51 +0000

Well I have been telling you all lately that I have signed up to www.recyclenow.com to be one of their guest bloggers for a week.

What this means is that I have created a pledge…to recycle all old and unwanted clothes from my family. That includes, the hubby,myself and my three children.

Today I have had a ball, not sure what the kids or the hubby will think, when they get home from work/school…but I have had a summer clean out! What this means is that I have gone through each wardrobe and pulled out all the clothes…no mean job I may tell you, have been at it since 8am this morning!!!!

All clothes that were deemed too small or unwearable have all been folded into different piles to be reused or disposed of later this week.

Tomorrows post will concentrate on the pile of clothes that are ragged or torn.

If you fancy joining me in on making a difference, you too can make a pledge at www.recyclenow.com remember and let me know if you do and I will feature you on a post this week. People already pledged include the following:

Linda from www.sonesuk.com she has pledged to recycle bottles and cans while out and about.

Joanne from www.charliemoos.co.uk she has pledged to reuse her carrier bags.