You Say "Packrat," I Say "Creative Recycler"

We have a great recycling program at our house. It's called: "Never Throwing Anything Away."

Well, it seems like that sometimes. But in fact, my son does help his dad bundle up papers and plastics and bottles and whatever clutter I've been able to scoop off the dining-room table, and periodically they travel together to our town's recycling center to dump the junk. Still, as befits the ingenuity of the special-needs family, we do have some creative re-purposing going on. For example:

• Empty food boxes gave my son good grocery play for years; we converted his closet into a mini-mart, and he stocked the shelves with all manner of things that would otherwise have ended up in the trash.
  
  
• Plastic shopping bags figured into my son's grocery store play, but now he's gone back to using them to gather up miscellaneous items and tote them about the house, often as part of some complicated pretend play with his uncle. Some nice weight-toting proprioceptive action there, too.
  
  
• Ripped clothes can also pack some proprioceptive punch. My son finds the muscle effort needed to rip fabric comforting, and I'd just as soon he do it on things that are already on their way to the rag pile or the trash. This seems to happen a particular lot in our house with socks and blue jeans, but any fabric item will do.
  
  
• Backpacks that would otherwise be scrapped with last-year's wardrobe do their duty in my son's room keeping small toys and game parts tidily in one place.
  
  
• Board games that are missing pieces don't go in the scrap heap when we buy new versions; they hang around to provide spare parts and extra play. Right now we're working well with about one-and-a-half sets of the game Trouble, great when my kids have more friends over than can use one four-player board.

But probably our biggest recycling success story has to do with the load of printed stationery my friend gave me when my kids were little, made obsolete when her office changed addresses. My kids grew up drawing on the back of those sheets, my niece and nephew, various small party guests over the years, and I think we still have more than a box of it. Saved from the trash to make treasures.

How do you re-use refuse in your house? Share your inspirations in the comments.

This post is my submission to the All About Parenting Blog Carnival on "Going Green."

Also new today: Site of the Day | Today's News and Views | Tip of the Day

_{Photo by Terri Mauro}