With even less coercing, Rutabaga was talked into yet another creative holiday craft! With slight patience, we created beautiful fancy bows out of non-recyclable chip bags and you can too!
Terracycle is a national recycling system for previously non-recyclable or hard-to-recycle waste. Anyone can sign up for these programs, called the Brigades, and start sending Terracycle your waste. Since Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center is a zero waste facility, we do send Terracycle our non-recyclable items to lessen our impact on the environment even further. Presently, we are on the waiting list for the Chip Bag Brigade. As you can imagine, chip bags have been piling up at the center until we can send them off. In the meantime, we rinsed those bags out and put them to holiday use.
You can make them out of any color of chip bag or turn them inside out and use the silver part of the bag for a bow. You can make them in different sizes and styles. Most importantly you can make them with friends! I encourage you to give it a whirl, and if you don’t find time in the coming weeks, you could try again next year as I hope that bow making will become a small part of wreath making.
The instructions to the bows and other do it yourself projects are found on Terracycle’s website – http://www.terracycle.net/en/do-it-yourself-projects.html It looks like Terracycle’s latest DIY project is a drink pouch ornament! Tree décor here we come!
Cassi “Twister” Reimer
Fall Intern 2011