Repurposing & Upcycling Stuff

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(Edited)


Sometime last year, the local government almost bought a private property close to our other house purposely to use it as the town's landfill. Thankfully, the residents knew the cons so they unanimously opposed it during the public consultation and our little village has been spared from becoming a dumping site. But yes, it dawned on me that the current dumpsite might be nearing its limit, hence, they are scouting for a new one.

Waste disposal and management is one of the concerns nowadays, not only in cities or populated areas but also in the countryside. It's hard to imagine how things will be years from now.

The good thing is that some people are becoming aware of the future impact that repurposing, reusing, or upcycling stuff is becoming a common practice in most places. I say so because we see them in our streets and highways. Car tires are being reused as planters, plant beds, footpaths, or stairways. People are learning to make things useful in more ways than what they were originally meant for.


And that is awesome because, in a way, it helps minimize waste. I'm proud to say the same is being done in our household. It's been so for ages. When we were growing up, my parents used to repurpose plastic containers as storage for things. They didn't have to redesign, repaint, or decorate them, they just cleaned and reused them as they were.

That's the case for me too since I am lazy and lack creativity, but at least I upcycle things, instead of just discarding them, adding to the waste concerns in town. Let me share how we are helping by the little things we do at home.

One of the consumables we regularly buy comes in plastic containers or bottles. In these last few months, we must have purchased more than twenty bottled drinking water (mostly in 10 liters). Our tap water is no longer safe for consumption so we resorted to buying. That also means we are accumulating plastic bottles.

In addition to bottled water, other household products we use (fabric conditioners, detergents, cleaning stuff, and others) are in plastic, some foods are canned, others are packed in plastic boxes, and what else. In short, most things we buy are packaged in plastic or cans. The good thing is that we are responsible enough to do something about them and NOT just dump them wherever and whenever.

How? By reusing them as follows

👉 Planters or plant hangers

We reuse them to grow plants, flowers, ornamentals, seedlings, climbers and what have you. Almost nothing is discarded because we try to utilize them in the yard, no matter their size. Well, even ice cream boxes are repurposed to grow indoor plants.


👉 Storage

Looking at the photo below, one may think, why would a chocolate mix be kept together with the dog treats? You may have guessed, the can is reused as storage for my pup's feeds.



And yeah, even the ice cream pint is being used as storage for coins. We just washed and dried it then bam!


We can only wish big companies would do their part and use more environmentally-friendly packaging for their products. It may take ages before that happens but it doesn't mean we should not do our part. The above might not amount to anything significant, but it helps.

So how about you, are you upcycling or reusing stuff in your household? I hope to read them in the comments :)

This, by the way, is my approach to today's topic Reuse, Reduce, Recycle on the MayInLeo initiative.

All photos are my own. 14052024/21:00ph

Posted Using InLeo Alpha

hive-188409 repurposing mayinleo reusing upcycling plasticwaste inleo planters householdwaste pob
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34 comments
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First of all my dearest friend I'm glad the village has been spared.. this is something of an issue I always have with government trying to have absolute power.... They make decisions that can go against the citizens and I don't think that's a good thing

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At least they did public consultation first and didn't just push through.

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Here's some !LUV for you

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Ours was the 10-gallon water container was used for the storage of cat food. 😁

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Nice! We used some too for dog food but since my puppy doesn't want to eat beef pro (we bought 1 sack haha), we gave them all away :)

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I am trying to reuse more and more, most of the time I will use the big oil plastic packaging as my plant pot.
so happy that your government is already encouraging the people to do it, here the government already encourage but not many would like to follow, sadly.
!PIZZA !LUV

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That's good to hear. Yes, here, plastic bags are banned in shopping centers and markets, but some people are still stubborn.

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The same thing is happening here, the government banned the use of a single-use plastic, but still we kept getting flood each year due to the people throwing out trash into the river. sad, but still happening.
!PIZZA

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Yeah, it's really sad. Some people may not realize the impact of what they are doing.

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Waste disposal is something that really needs to be worked on. If you see the way people dispose waste around here, you’d marvel. They throw it anyhow and that’s why Lagos is still very dirty
I hope the government does something about it

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Such happens in some places too and it does make me wonder why people do it.

!LADY

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Here also they minimised the use of plastic bags. People who do their shopping mostly bring their own shopping bags for their convenient.

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Yes, same here. Although some establishments are still using plastic bags, others mostly eco bags.

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Quite so much to learn from your post today I must confess

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Reusing of plastic bottles and cans is something that has always been done in my household.
Although it's not a trait we are known for country wise😭😂😂😂

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That's great to hear. Hope more people will do the same thing :)

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Plastic is not a friendly object for nature and throwing plastic is not good. I think we need to reuse plastic items as much as we can rather than throw them in the environment. You have done well by reusing it and in my family, my mother almost does a similar thing.
!PIZZA

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Recycling and upcycling is something we all can do. With us having little control over what goes on in this world why not do what you can to help save this planet?

You must have breathed a sigh of relief as the idea of putting a dump site near your home was squashed.

Like yourself, all it takes is some imagination and so much of what we throw away can have an alternative use.

I don't even want to get started with packaging. Just yesterday we bought a new crock pot and the packaging had my head spinning. By the time we unraveled all of the packaging, we had three boxes and a shit load of styrofoam. That stuff should be outlawed.

Great post!

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That's true, there is still something we can do, even in our own little ways. The dump site had us worried to be honest and thankful that it was opposed by the community.

I hear you about packaging with styrofoam. I agree that those stuff should be banned. There must be other alternatives to securely package the products/items. It makes me wonder why government agencies for the environment aren't taking steps to regulate those things.

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You would think an issue like packaging in a more environmentally friendly way would be a cinch, but when it comes to commonsense, government agencies lack even a smidgen of it.

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