I'm curious. Does any one else recycle bits they have lying around the house and yard? I have old bits of baling twine hanging on the arch leading into the garden that I reuse for tying plants onto stakes. My mothers old plastic tubing and canvas 3 tier laundry system is now reused.The plastic tubing for marking out where things are to go or are planted/ sown so I dont lose them I've misplaced the canvas bag bits but they were supposed to be used to carry weeds to the compost. The old barge boards of the house are going to be used as planting boards- we stand on these instead of straight on the soil so we dont compact the soil so much. So what do you recycle, reuse,redesign and then reuse?
The side boards that used to be on the kids bunk beds to stop them falling out are now the roosts for my chooks. All my plastic bottles (juice, milk, vinegar etc) either are used to hold worm wee and weed tea, or are cut up to make scoops or chook water containers or planting pots. Every shred of paper gets shredded and used in the nesting box or the compost. Every cardboard box gets used for sheet mulching or goes in the compost. The bags the chook grain comes in and the potting mix get used for gathering poo, or to keep weeds in until they go in the water for weed tea. I never fill a rubbish bin...
We have a dumping area where friends and neighbours bring anything they've got (old baths, wood, tiles, bottles, windows, stone..) and we use the stuff for building our house or for the garden. bottles for building and for insulation Windows for greenhouses, cold frames and veranda Beautiful old bits of wood for around door and window frames Stone for facing and corners An old door for the veranda A new road made from all the rubble - no more mud - yeah !! Sorry this post is so long, I got carried away ! :think:
Great idea about the neighbours and friends. Did you give them guidelines about what they can and can't leave, or do they ask first each time?
We give general guidelines and they know we don't want plastic or polystyrene but our builder and gardener friends just turn up in a hurry with a trailer full of rubbish and rubble (from a renovation job or something) that they've not had time to sift through. They dump it on the "road" and we take what we need from it. What's left makes the base for the road. Even an old bucket with a hole in it has its uses. We made this little rocket stove in half an hour from bits we found and I use it to cook preserves and heat our water. I get quite excited when a trailer turns up - some of the stuff people throw away is amazing and I often find roots and bulbs which have become lovely plants.
Lovely post HWH. thanks for sharing. Not long ago i saw a lovely tv show about a brazilian architect who has spent years building his house out of recycled things from all over the neighbourhood. Now he's building a whole block of units which he will sell or let rent to locals or something. It was all very inkeeping and socially wonderful. Actually i am not sure if he was an architect but something like it anyway. I wish i'd kept a note of where i saw it now. The house was an artwork. I should build my place along similar lines. I want to build a lot of sculputres in my garden down the track, I guess i could make them from recycled things. But so far mainly i recyle milk bottles - labels for my plants. All the materials i am using in the garden are things that have been lying around here unused for years and years. My father collects junk. Its great in that its saving me a heap of money. The carpet for my pond came from the skip of a carpet shop. I noticed when i was working in my pond that it smelt quite a bit of cat's pee but i expect i won't be able to smell that soon.
There are loads of exciting thing on the 'net for inspiration - it's wonderful to see people just having a go ! I use milk bottle labels too and toilet rolls for my seedlings. I had a look at your blog - that stash of stuff in the shed looks interesting. I bet you're glad your dad's a hoarder now ! ;-)
Yes i am. Sort of. I have found a new level of appreciation for him of late. You seem to be a VERY organised person hwh. I've stopped using toilet paper, so no rolls to worry about. Six months in india cures you of toilet paper. And interestingly Indians think western toilet habits are icky.
Haha... Sunburn, Kimbos going to fall inlove with you when he reads you have stopped using TP. HWH, I love what you have done especially the rock facing on the walls and those corner stones!!!.and the greenhouse I want one ( thats on our list for this year). Nah your post is too short, dont stop.
HWH do you run courses on how to do stuff? I can only make things when it involves cable ties and duct tape. I'm so impressed....
Thank you eco4560 ! Yes we run one or two courses a year but only with a few people at a time so that their stay can be tailored to what they want to learn. Sometimes people just want to experience living off grid or learn how to fit water heating solar panels, others are interested in gardening or animal husbandry. We try to fit in as much as we can while still keeping the farm work ticking over. Most of the teaching I do is simply showing people what we do using the internet - with loads of photos and as much information as I have time to add. That way people can just dip in and out and take what they want to learn. Sorry, I didn't mean to hijack this thread, please keep the ideas coming folks ! :nod:
i think it doesn't matter if a thread is hijacked with interesting stuff. eco have you noticed hwh's blog? speaking of recycling i just remembered another one that we've done here, though i can't take any of the credit for it except that i delight in it almost daily. My father and brother in law have built an excellent solar hot water system that's cost about $200. The costs were for a second plate of thick sheet glass and black tar paint. All the other matierals were recycled and these include an old hot water system, insulation materials for the box to house the hot water system and wood to construct the housing. Oh DAd may have bought some plumbing bits. During summer it creates hot water even its overcast but during winter when teh days are shorter it can be a bit disappointing if its a rainy day. Luckily however, its unusual for us to have rain in the winter but this has been an unusual year. And luckily again, with the rainy winter season, it hasn't been as cold as usual anyway. My point is, that whatever your climate, this cheap solar hot water system could be a good viable alternative hot water system if you've got another one already in place. We don't but it doesn't matter much here as we live in the tropics. If you live in a cooler climate, this at the least should cut your hot water heating bills and save on power. Unfortunately we didn't connect the hot water up to our kitchen sink but we could have done that as well. The thing was really quite easy to build. My brother in law researched the whole thing on the internet. I don't have the link but i am sure having now heard the idea if someone wanted to try making one, it would be too hard to find the source of the information.
I am now. Pity you are so far away... I was dreaming of popping in for a few days and having some lessons.
[/ATTACH View attachment 897 Some recycled stuff in the veggie garden at the last house I was in - gate is inner spring from a half mattress, rusted steel ladder holding up plum tree bough, keyhole gardens from old red bricks, ex-nightclub balustrade from scrap metal yard defines an outdoor room
Just getting motivated on using some "single-use" pallets to build a chookpen. I'm always checking out the skips on building sites - it borders on criminal, the amount of waste in the building industry! Gotta be a bit cluey, though - some of the crap they use in new houses is pretty toxic
I got a fabulous manhole cover of marine ply once from a large buidling site in Sydney. I wanted it for an art work. It was beautiful. I then entered it in an art competition and won $2000 and first prize in my section of 2D not painting or drawing. I was extremely chuffed. Don't worry i made no pretence of having made it myself. It was just a beautiful object and I still have it.
HWH - what a great idea this thread was. And I love what you've got going with the nieghbours ( I only get mine to "recycle" their kitchen scraps into my chicken run). It must make your house doubly enjoyable to build and live in. What's the link to your blog?
It was Mischief who started the thread, I'm just a contributor. Ebunny, do you mean "where" instead of "what" ? The "where" is easier to answer ;-) the link is at the bottom of this page. Just click on the word BLOG which is in a different colour to the rest of the text.