Many Ways to Recycle Your Newspapers!
I guess I've had newspapers on my mind all day. First of all, I needed to renew my subscription. Secondly, I was reading a book on being self sufficient that mentioned using newspapers in your compost pile. Thirdly, I came home and started tearing some of my newspapers up. More on the 3rd one later in this post.
It made me think that there has to be so many ways to recycle newspaper other than just throwing them in your recycle bin. I've been doing some research and want to share my favorite ways.
Enjoy and I hope you learn some things and get inspired too!
Use Newspaper in place of cat litter.
When we had our cat declawed, we were told to use torn up newspaper in his litter box for 10 days (or buy the Yesterday’s News litter that they sell). I used the torn up newspapers. Once the 10 days was over though, we went back to the litter, both regular and scoopable.
A few months ago as a way to save money, I went back to tearing up the newspapers to use in place of litter. I remembered how well it worked when we had to use it before. I have plenty of newspapers laying around, that was for sure…..and I still do!
The newspapers soak up the urine very nicely and are a natural odor absorber as well. It’s super easy to clean the litter boxes too!
Wrap Tomatoes to Ripen Them
Summer before last the tomatoes really took off in our garden……but not until we were on top of frost. My husband got the advice from a farmer to wrap them individually in newspaper and put them in a box in a dark place. We did just that…wrapped each one individually, placed them in stacks of 3 in two boxes. we placed them in a dark room in the basement.
Each week we checked them, taking out the ones that had turned red and putting the green ones back in. Within 3 weeks all tomatoes had ripened and we were able to save over 6 lbs of tomatoes that we would have lost to frost otherwise!
Pack Breakables and Delicates
I’ve always used newspapers to wrap glassware and other breakables when packing them away.
I do recycle the wrapping from the previous year, and use new newspapers when I re-pack the items. An example is all the Christmas decorations that we just put away this week.
There is one things to make note of. When wrapping dishes for an extended time, they will pick up the newsprint and have to be washed well before using them to eat.
Clean Glass
This one has never made sense to me…how does newspaper clean glass without leaving newsprint? I still have no clue, but I do know it works! Over the years I have always used crumpled up newspaper to clean the glass on pictures hanging in my house.
When I worked at a motel as a housekeeper we used newspapers (and vinegar) to clean windows and mirrors.
Just use your normal glass cleaner with crumpled up newspaper. As I mentioned above you can use a mixture of half vinegar and half water. This is both natural and economical!
Kids Scoop Page
Our local newspapers offers a Kids Scoop page in each Monday’s newspaper.
This is a learning page. Even though it’s geared towards grade school children, I still had my teenager do them. They were put in her “away from home” school work folder. They give her a break from text books, are fun, and are educational. Although she is grown up and we no longer homeschool, the grandchildren love these pages. They are nice to keep in the folder in the van to help keep them busy on long rides or long waits in the van.
The Kids Scoop page sitting in front of me is about wants and needs. It starts off with a definition of both. It has pictures for the child to mark whether these items are a want or a need. Some of the pictures include socks, a comb, skateboard, television. One assignment on the page is to go through the newspapers and cut out pictures of things and then glue them in the wants, or the needs column.
Also included is a vocabulary builder, which is a different word each week. This week’s word is survive.
Puzzles are always part of the page including a word search, a word scramble, etc.
Weave Newspaper Strips Into Baskets
This is something I’ve not tried, but I am intrigued with the thought of giving it a try.
I want to try making the circular newspaper basket shown on this page:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Paper-Basket
There are some who sell baskets made with newspapers on etsy. Check out this page!
https://www.etsy.com/search/handmade?q=recycled+newspaper+baskets
Stay tuned next week as I will continue this post to part 2.
Images courtesy of pixabay.
