Waste Free Holidays Event!

The holidays were made for togetherness and giving. This does not necessarily require purchase of new stuff. In fact, the more you avoid new purchases the more likely you are to engage in the season’s joyful togetherness. As a child, Kelly Bell, of the Lane County Master Recycler Program, recalls creating homemade gift wrap using paint, paper grocery sacks and stamps made from a potato (cut a potato in half and carve a shape on the flat side). As an adult Bell usually leaves the paper sacks whole and decorates them for use as gift bags in the same way.

This year Bell found a pattern and instructions online for making beautiful flowers from old calendars and other used paper.

"I am using the paper flowers as gift bows to decorate packages," Bell said. "It’s very enjoyable and satisfying to make something so easy, yet beautiful, out of objects that no longer serve their original purpose."

So called scrap crafts are fun and inventive and they don’t require any shopping!

"We have snowflakes made from 6-pack rings, a delightful wreath made from old greeting cards, and a garland of stars made from non recyclable plastic packaging," Bell said.

Lane County’s Less Is Best website has instructions for fun holiday activities to do with family or friends, such as gift boxes made from last year’s greeting cards and snowflake decorations, using recycled materials. Go to: www.lanecounty.org/lessisbest. A quick online search will yield many more ideas.

"The blogger who posted the paper flower pattern I am now using stated that she originally found the idea in a library book years ago," Bell said.

If you visit the Eugene Public Library this season be sure to check out a display in the children’s literature section devoted to holiday recycled crafts ideas. The volunteers at The Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts (MECCA) can help you with ideas and instructions as well.

Teachers of any grade that would like to lead a craft project in a classroom-type setting can obtain scrap materials for free at MECCA. MECCA maintains an entire room devoted to free materials for teachers.

Many lovely gifts can be remade, repurposed or reassigned. For example: If your garden is quite prolific and you need to thin out the vegetation, why not repot extra plants to give as gifts to others with less of a green thumb?

Bell combined the extra vegetation with scrap fabric to create herb bombs for her son’s room.

"I hid the mint, lavender and rosemary bombs among the dirty laundry," she said. "I even embroidered the name of the herb on each little pillow."

Bell’s son got the mint hint and Bell, the mom, got to enter a better smelling environment. Win-win!

Each year at this time Master Recyclers invite community members to celebrate the season of giving by reducing, reusing and recycling waste that is typically generated at the holidays. The Waste Free Holidays Campaign will highlight one theme per week through the first week of January. Go to: www.lanecounty.org/lessisbest to view all eight Waste Free Holiday themes plus tips and resources you can use to help create a waste free and truly enjoyable season. More will be added as the season progresses so check back often for inspiration and announcements of waste free events in our area.

Amber Fossen

lane county:

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