Reducing, reusing and recycling items in the garden helps to reduces landfill and can save you money. Composting is the easiest way to reduce your kitchen and garden waste. Using grey water again in the garden reduces the amount of water flowing to the sewers or a treatment plant.
There are a number of items that can be reused in a garden:
| Bath tubs and sinks | Worm farm or water feature |
| Blinds | Plant markers |
| Bricks | Pathways and garden bed edges |
| Cardboard | Mulch |
| Chopsticks | Mini stakes |
| Drift nets | Train climbing |
| Egg cartons | Seedling pots (or worm food) |
| Film containers | Storing seeds |
| Fridge | Worm farm or cellar |
| Glass bottles | Pathways and garden bed edges |
| Ice cream sticks | Seedling markers |
| Ironing board | Potting bench |
| Kid’s pools | Ponds |
| Net curtains | Protect trees from birds and bats |
| Newspaper | Mulch |
| Pantyhose | Tying plants |
| Plastic containers | Plant markers |
| Plastic drink bottles | Drip water trees |
| Polystyrene boxes | Plant containers – ideal for lettuce and other salad greens |
| Toilet paper rolls | Cut and fold over the bottom to make seedling pots |
| Yogurt containers | Seedling pots |
| Wood pallets | Compost bays, shed or tiny house |
If you are feeling creative, you could do try your hand at mosaics using old tiles and broken crockery, or making a sculpture or piece of artwork out of your trash.
How do you reduce, reuse and recycle in the garden?
20 March 2009 at 11:01 pm
What wonderful ways to recycle and reuse items. I have a ton of blinds and was about to throw them away. Now I know a use for them. Thanks for this post.
24 March 2009 at 10:04 am
Some great ideas thanks! I did some recycling in the garden myself yesterday – I grated styrofoam from a styrofoam box to use as an alternative to perlite or other lightner in my seed raising mix. Hope it works.
24 March 2009 at 11:25 pm
Should do. You can also use broken up styrofoam at the bottom of pots instead of rocks or broken pottery to allow the water to drain out. Makes the potter lighter if you ever need to move it.