Ditto clothing that eventually morphs from 'show' to garden.

Construction 'scrap' that my sons bring me is used to 'pave' pathways [carpet scraps] to cover my worm pit, to making sides to my compost piles.

Well my yard is full of rocks and clay. The larger rocks become edging and the gravel becomes a drainage layer in the lower lying areas.

Leaves and grass clippings and kitchen scraps become compost that mixed with the clay becomes garden soil.

Yogurt cups become starter pots for plants.

Net bags from onion purchases become drying bags for herbs

Shear shirts become seed head covers to ensure polination from the parents of choice and then to help harvest seeds from plants that drop their seeds very quickly.

That's the most I've been able to manage so far. But when I hear of a good idea that will use something I am currently throwing away I definitely add it to my recycling routine.

cool ideas!

A friend once told me that her rule of thumb was "never throw anything away the first time".

She used newspaper to clean windows & mirrors & various other things & gave the plastic newspaper bags or sleeves to someone who braided them into doormats!

I'm a pet-sitter, and the other day I was transporting cold food from a pet-sitting job to my home, but had to run some errands in between. I just happened to see a really nice piece of thick cardboard in my client's recycling. I folded it up and used it to insulate my cold food, which kept nice and cold in the warm car while I ran my errands. Now I'm going to shred this nice piece of cardboard to feed to my worms! Once they've pooped it out it will feed my veggie garden. :-)

I even use some of my worms twice: once to eat my garbage, and then to feed my chickens! :-O

--Maureen

We have younger kids, so we buy most of our clothing used. I buy tupperware and old corningware at garage sales and use them when we take food to folks. thefrugalgirl.com has a lot of great ideas on this. I've noticed that since we've decided to be careful about adding to the dump, I'm hyper aware of overpackaging.

I rip old cotton sheets into wide strips to tie tomatoes, broad beans...anything that wants to take up more than its allotted horizontal space.
They go into the compost along with the plants at season's end.
Like others have mentioned, I'm also careful about getting natural fibres when buying clothes. I've made the mistake of putting things I *thought* were wool in the compost...trying to seperate nylon strings from semi-digested compost is not my idea of a fun weekend!

This forum makes me so happy! You guys are my peeps!

Nancy (also reuses everything possible, also limits addition to the landfill to non-decomposables only)

PS my big discovery of the last year or so is that I really don't need to wash my gardening pants. I just let them get dirtier and dirtier and the dirtier they get the happier I am.

Think of the positives here, Nancy someday soon those pants will stand-up by themselves and you'll be able to just jump-in to them.

Greg
Southern Nevada

My hair when I cut it to keep the deer out of my garden, waste cinnamon also helps. Work shoes are garden shoes.
I have to have steel toed shoes, I get nice dress shoe & wear them to break them in for 1 year. Then work in them for 1 or 2 years,then garden in them for 2 or 3 years, before composting the leather.The company I work for pays the first $100.00 on the shoes.

Clothing is a great garden treasure and can be reused in many other ways too!

Buy clothing made of all natural fibers, not synthetics or synthetic blends.

Once clothes are no longer in good enough shape to wear in public wear them in the garden.

Anything that is in good shape but doesn't fit right or just doesn't match your evolving sense of style should be given to a second hand store, homeless shelter, friend, relative (or sold on ebay or garage sale).

Items that are a synthetic fiber or synthetic blend usually aren't too good for reuse in the home or garden as they don't absorb water all that well or break down in compost. You can resuse some as grease rags in the garage or use old socks for polishing shoes and then discard in the trash after use. Mechanics will also take some of these rags, ask your local mechanic or golf course maintenance shop if they want your clean unwanted synthetic garments.

Garments made of natural fibers are your real treasure! The first thing I do is remove the seams and discard them. The seams are usually sown with polyester thread which will not break down. Once you have removed seams, buttons, zippers, plastic ironed on designs, etc:

Use cotton garments as cleaning or dusting rags. Once it gets too gross for this just drop it in the compost bin or bury it in the garden. It will break down and add to your soil.

Large cotton sheets and towels and the front and back panels of shirts can be used as a weed barrier in your vegetable garden. Just lay it on the ground where you don't want weeds and put mulch over the top. It will break down in a year or two, just when you want to rotate a new crop to the area and rearrange a bit.

Cotton, hemp, rayon and other plant fiber clothing can be torn into strips and used as litter in a chicken hutch. Once it gets gross just add it to the compost pile or bury it in the garden. I tend to bury most cloth just because I find manmade waste (paper, cloth) unpleasant to look at in a compost pile and rodents may decide to nest in it.

If you don't have chickens just place small scraps you can't find another use for right into the compost or till into the garden. They tend to hold a lot of water in the soil as they break down so this saves on watering thirsty plants too.

Bury any wool or cashmere in the garden. Animal hair releases a lot of nitrogen as it breaks down, but can smell when it's wet and can be slow to decompose in a compost bin. This makes it one of those perfect 'bury it and forget it' compost items.

Old sheets and towels can be cut to the size of paper towels and kept in a kitchen cabinet for use on spills just like paper towels. They actually absorb more than paper towels and are free and save trees. After using them you can either wash and reuse or just compost as you would a regular paper towel.

Use leather with caution. It is one of the most itensively chemically treated products we buy. You don't want residue from these chemicals in your soil (watch the movie "A Civil Action"). The best place for unwanted leather is the trash or recylcling if even available, not the compost.

Would recycling/reusing things that should not have been made in the first place be ecological? For example the reuseable shopping bags made of recycled plastic shopping bags, environmentally sound or not?

Ok...a word from the "anti-green" among us: My motivation is money. I compost because my flowers love it, and I spend NO money on food or fertilizer.
I cut brillo-type pads in half; does the same job and stretches my dollar.
I use those plastic shopping bags from the grocery for garbage. I'll use a reusable one when my supply is overflowing. I get a nickle back, then.
I use the mesh bags as scrubbies for cleaning.
I line my counter with newspaper before I start making pancakes, so clean up is a matter of scooping it all up and transporting it into the compost.
I admit it; I'm not motivated by ecology. In fact, as some become more extreme, I kick back harder. In fact, I want to make a line of reusable bags that say, I'm not green; I just want the nickle."

Ducks rotten tomatoes thrown at her head.

I don't use the re-cycled plastic "re-useable" shopping bags-
seems like a waste of money to pay $1 for a bag that flimsy.

I like to use sturdier ones from thrift stores & garage sales.

If I've forgotten to bring in my canvas bags, I often look around the store for empty cardboard boxes;
they go into the compost after they've been used once or twice or when I accumulate too many of them or when they fall apart.

I never go to the trouble of removing polyester thread, since it's such a tiny volume of material & such a pain in the patootie to remove, but I do cut off buttons & such.

You don't have to do it carefully, either;
slicing off a chunk of re-cycleable material to get rid of a button or zipper is better than getting frustrated & giving up the project altogether.

I too like to use newspaper for covering countertops & putting under icky things that need to be cleaned (shoes, barbeque grills, kitty litter boxes, etc), & then, as someone said, put them right into the garden.