Friday, September 21, 2018

3 Easy Upcycling Projects to Teach Your Child the Fun of Creative Reusing

With more and more household waste polluting the environment, upcycling needs to go hand in hand with recycling. It is essential for the upcoming generation to understand the importance of upcycling and waste reduction. Teach your child to enjoy upcycling through these easy craft projects.

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Self-watering Plastic Bottle Pots

Plastic bottles not only end up in landfills, but they also end up in our oceans as well. Starting a garden with plastic bottles instead of pots, your child will be adding more oxygen to the earth and reduce plastic waste.

Things you need:

     • Plastic bottle
     • Knife
     • Thread
     • Nail
     • Hammer
     • Soil
     Easy to grow plant

Steps to prep:

• Cut the bottle into two equal halves (cut latitudinally not longitudinally to separate the top of the bottle from the bottom of the bottle).
• Make holes in the cap of the bottle.
• Put a bunch of threads through the holes in the cap.
• Screw the cap back onto the bottle.
• Fill the bottom half of the bottle with water, a little past the halfway point.
• Invert the top half of the bottle with the cap tightly screwed in place.
• Fill the top half with soil and plant a small sapling.
• Place the inverted half of the bottle over the waterfilled half of the bottle.
• Ensure that the threads are well immersed in the water, else the water will not get soaked into the soil.

Envelop Notebook

Stores buy brown envelopes online, and the envelopes end up from your home to the landfill. You can upcycle the brown envelopes to make a small notebook.

Things you need:

     • Brown envelopes online stores pack things in
     • Thread
     • Paint
     • Hole Puncher

Steps to prep:

• Cut equal sized rectangles out of multiple brown envelopes.
• Stack the paper together
• Punch three holes on one of the longer sides
• Take the thread and bind the paper together to form a notebook.

Milk Jug Piggy Banks

Plastic milk jugs, just like soda bottles end up polluting land and sea. Your child can save the environment and money by turning a milk jug into a piggy bank.

Things you need:

     • Milk jug
     • Knife
     • Scissors
     • Paintbrush
     • Acrylic paint
     • Hot glue gun/super glue
     • Egg carton

Steps to prep:

• Turn the milk carton with the handle facing downwards.
• Cut a coin slot, on the side of the jug facing up.
• Cut four cups out of the egg carton.
• Attach the four cups to four downward corners of the carton, creating legs for the piggy bank. Use hot glue or super glue to make it stick well.
• Allow your child to paint the pig creatively. Draw on ears and eyes or attach cut out cardboard to make ears and eyes.
• Paint the screwed-on cap as the nose of the pig.
• Insert coin through the slot and take them out by opening the nose of the pig.

Your child can grow plants in the upcycled plastic pots, make notes of the plant growth in the upcycled notebook and save money for more plants in the upcycled piggy bank. Let your child come up with more upcycling projects to encourage the habit in them.
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