Monday, July 6, 2015

Scavenger Tip #2

I HATE throwing stuff out to eventually go into a landfill. My city recycles so I do put all my recyclables into the recycle container. Lately though I learned on a documentary that a lot of the US recyclables go to other countries to be sorted and processed. Waste of energy much? Regardless, the hard plastic caps are not recyclable so those go in the regular trash.

I save lots of unusual things for crafting but I don't have a current need for plastic bottle caps. I got to thinking is there a crafting market for bottle caps on ebay? Of course there is! Why did I waste the two seconds wondering :) Here are sold listings. It's not going to make me rich but it will make me feel good to send this resource on to someone else who will probably use it to craft. One year our art museum collected plastic lids and bottle caps and did a children's art project with them. It turned out really cool.  Do you have any other ideas for the caps and lids?

picture from an ebay listing
Here are a couple of ideas from Pinterest in case you want to reuse your caps instead of selling them :)



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13 comments:

  1. Happy GirlJuly 6, 2015 at 7:31 PM

    Who would have thought?

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    1. NancyJuly 6, 2015 at 7:58 PM

      I guess you can sell just about anything on ebay.

      Delete
  2. annabel52July 6, 2015 at 8:08 PM

    My SweetiePie was amazed that I could sell recycled lotion bottles on ebay. I got about $1 each which was enough to buy 2 bottles of lotion so I could recycle the bottles and keep the cycle going. Not going to get rich but it makes me feel better that I am doing something.
    I remember a big stink several years ago when the local newspaper found out that the truck picking up the recycled garbage was taking it to the landfill and just dumping. They said it was not "cost effective" to recycle, but they didn't bother to tell their customers. They were made to clean up their act or the city would not renew their contract.

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    1. NancyJuly 6, 2015 at 8:14 PM

      Love that you sell your lotion bottles!

      That's horrible that the recycling company was doing that. That was what my Grandmother always thought happened to the recyclables. I thought she was just being ornery.

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  3. LorraineJuly 7, 2015 at 6:08 AM

    I've seen really cool art done with colored bottle caps. If you check the photos on the Keep America Beautiful FB page you can see a few more examples.
    https://www.facebook.com/KeepAmericaBeautiful?_rdr=p

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    1. NancyJuly 7, 2015 at 6:51 AM

      Thanks for the link Lorraine. They had some cool stuff. Neat site.

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    2. LorraineJuly 7, 2015 at 12:04 PM

      Just saw this today on Tumblr!

      http://unconsumption.tumblr.com/post/123469044923/junkculture-artist-waves-a-monumental-structure

      Delete
    3. NancyJuly 9, 2015 at 7:22 AM

      Wow. That is beautiful.

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  4. Kari @ She ThriftsJuly 7, 2015 at 12:30 PM

    I'm also a big time recycler. I have a Priority Mail shoe box on the bottom shelf in my pantry, and I've been filling it up with bottle caps for months. I wish I would have written down when I started saving them, because I don't even have a good guess as to how long it has taken me to fill it. I am probably within a week or so of having it completely full, and then I'm going to list them! :-)

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    1. NancyJuly 9, 2015 at 7:23 AM

      Kari that's so cool. I wish I'd thought to start saving them sooner. I'm going to date my collection now so I can see how long it takes me to get enough to list. So far I just have a little pile sitting next to my sink.

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  5. VanessaJuly 8, 2015 at 7:20 PM

    Agreeed! My friends and I will go nuts trying to find recycling centers for VHS tapes...old electronics..etc, the stuff recycling centers won't take. Glad you're sharing this info :)

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  6. Margaret @ Live Like No One ElseJuly 29, 2015 at 4:31 AM

    I didn't know the hard caps are not recycleable. I still throw them into the recycling bin. I had no idea. It would take me years to collect the caps as the only thing we use that has the caps is really milk. We don't do bottled water much..only when we go picnicking or hiking.

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