Twenty-five Things to Do With Old Jeans

Recycling fabric is a powerful green living and cost saving strategy. Denim is one of the coolest fabrics to do it with. It's sturdy, gains character with age and can be acquired very inexpensively at yard sales or in your own “old clothes” closet. *If you're like me, then you just hate to throw out those old jeans even when they can't be worn anymore. Here's a compilation of very cool things you can do with old jeans and denim scraps.

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Environment is Everything

In an effort to do my part in the world, at least in my local area, the following is a letter to the editor I wrote in response to Monday’s Times-Gazette article on Freecycle.

Environment is Everything

I am most appreciative for the opportunity to have been a part of the article about Freecycle. Thank you to Jarrod and TG for bringing this subject to the public’s attention.

According to the national website Freecycle began as a way to promote waste reduction in Tucson's downtown in an effort to help preserve desert landscape and prevent it from being taken over by landfills.

The mission statement of the Ashland county Freecycle organization is “…to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources, and eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community." The message Freecycle brings home to me is to think globally and act locally.

Freecycling is a win-win solution for everyone with access to a computer. I think that point was well covered in the recent article. As a longtime recycler and advocate for the environment, it’s my hope that many more will join and partake in this grassroots effort to reduce waste.

It is also my hope that more people will join the ongoing movement to live a simpler, more conscientious lifestyle that has for too long been lacking in America. I believe it is essential for us to wake up to the reality of our mass consumerism and it’s affect on the environment.

If we take a long, hard look at what is truly essential and compare that to how much waste we accumulate and produce as a result of our consumerism, we might be surprised. If we take a serious look at the affect our waste has on the land, the air, the oceans, the wildlife and how all these things suffer (and die) as a result of our need to consume in excess we might be appalled. It is time we wake up and smell the ozone.

We can all recycle, we can all choose wisely by supporting local and organic farmers, choosing products made from recycled goods, avoiding over packaged and “throw away” items and repairing rather than replacing. We all have the ability to think beyond ourselves, to practice and develop responsible habits. We all can reduce, reuse and recycle and in doing so alter the course of tomorrow.

Let us stop being the willing victims of capitalistic brainwashing and act responsibly by taking only what we need, using what we take and doing no further harm. Let’s choose to stop poisoning ourselves, our children and our planet with over processed, unnatural, genetically modified and chemically laden products. Let us think before purchasing goods that are designed only to benefit profit margins and which may be harmful or are likely to end up in a landfill.

It is my sincere hope that more and more of us choose to live in a state of global and environmental awareness by educating ourselves and taking responsibility as the stewards we are of this beautiful planet. It is after all our home, our only home. Let’s make it available to future generations and be remembered as the generation that did the right thing, not as the generation that could have.

There is a saying credited to the North American Cree. It goes, “Only when the last tree has died and the last river has been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money.”

Let us realize this before it becomes too late to act. The environment is our food, our water, our shelter, the air we breathe. It provides all that is necessary to sustain life...at least for now. Isn't it time we evolved into a more environmentally conscious, sustainable and responsible society?

Getting the message out-we made the front page!

Photo By Times-Gazette photo/Tom E. Puskar
Sallie and Ken Cooper pose with some of the things (computer monitor, canister set and breadmaker) they have obtained through Freecycling.

7-16-07

Times-Gazette.com

Another way to recycle / Avid recyclers enjoy trading items with others through Freecycling

11 hours ago

By JARRED OPATZ

T-G Special Projects Editor

Ken and Sallie Cooper got their computer monitor from a lady in Jeromesville, their bread machine from a Sullivan resident and their vintage canisters from someone in Mansfield.

They didn't have to pay for any of them.

The Rowsburg-area couple got the items through freecycling -- a grassroots, nonprofit movement of people who give and get stuff for free that really has grown since it began four years ago in Tucson, Ariz.

The Freecycle Network is made up of more than 4,000 individual groups across the globe with more than 3 million members, according The Freecycle Network Web site, www.freecycle.org.

Members contact each other through e-mail to get and give away things that otherwise might end up in the trash by joining local Freecycle groups. The Coopers belong to both the Ashland County and Mansfield groups, which have 724 and 1,269 members, respectively. It's free to sign up for a group, but there are guidelines to follow, such as not reselling items received from freecycling or not just joining to get things.

"There are some people who get into it just to get stuff, but I think most people are glad to trade things, get rid of stuff and not have to throw it away," Sallie said.

"It's a good thing, but, like with anything, you have some people who abuse the system," she added.

The Coopers have given away quite a bit of things through freecycling, too, such as organic tomato plants, clothing and canisters.

"I had some blue canisters he bought at an auction," Sallie said looking at her husband one day last week while talking about their experiences with freecycling to a reporter in their rural home. "They were really nice, but I had a pink kitchen and didn't use them.

"So, when I had a chance to get these," she added pointing to the canister set she now has in her kitchen she got through freecycling, "I freecycled the blue ones."

For the Coopers, freecycling has fit their lifestyle perfectly. They have been avid recyclers for many years and they like to live a simple, frugal lifestyle.

"We're big recyclers," Ken said. "I would rather recycle something than send it to the dump."

Freecycling has given the Coopers another "recycling" option with the benefit of getting things they usually need and not having to throw away things they don't need and can't take to the Recycling Center.

"We don't throw away things unless there's no alternative," Sallie said. "In the process," she added looking at stereo speakers and a few of the other things she has decorated her house with through freecycling with a big smile. "I really like my stereo speakers. They would have taken up a lot of room in a landfill."

If there's something the Coopers want, they can post an offer on the group's Web site or goes to members' e-mails.

"If you're the first one to respond, you're mostly the one to get it," Sallie said. "Most people will respond to the first person who responds to their ad."

Freestyle discourages sharing private information with the group, such as phone numbers and addresses.

"A lot of times when you're dealing with someone you don't even exchange phone numbers," Sallie said. "You just contact through e-mail, and a lot of times it's just on a first-name basis."

"A lot of times you don't even meet the people," Ken said. "If you're not going to be here and someone is coming to pick something up, you just leave it on the porch or where ever."

What makes it fun is some of the unique things you can find with freecycling or unique ways people use some of the things you give them, the Coopers agreed.

"When we moved to our home (about a year ago) we had a barn full of stuff we gave away through Freecycle," Sallie said. "We had a lot of huge wooden spools we got rid of. One couple from Jeromesville had the most unique reason for getting some of them. They had goats and said they were going to make pyramids for the goats to climb because goats love to climb."

Muscovy ducks have been the most unique things the Coopers have gotten through Freecycle.

"We had talked about getting ducks," Sallie said. "We really liked Muscovy ducks. I had read a lot about them. They are really unique ducks.

"Then, a lady in the Polk area had an ad for Muscovy ducks, and I thought, 'What are the odds?' " Sallie added.

The Coopers have four Muscovy ducks, which they said are quiet ducks who don't quack. They eat the eggs they get from the three females.

A basket of yarn from a Nankin woman is another interesting item they have received through freecycling, Sallie said.

As much as they enjoy the things they receive and get rid of through Freecycle, the Coopers said they mostly do it because they believe in the movement to reduce waste and ease the burden on landfills.

"We have grown up as a nation of mass consumers and a throw-away society," Sallie said. "We have to stop that.

"This seems like a small thing," Sallie added about freecycling. "But when there are so many people doing small things, it makes a difference. I think this makes a difference."

Jarred Opatz can be reached at 419-281-0581, ext. 256, or by e-mail at jopatz@times-gazette.com, regarding this story and other story ideas.

living frugally, well & treading lightly

I’m a firm believer in recycling as much as possible. As such, I’ve actually become personally opposed to buying anything new unless necessity demands it of me. Ok, with the exception of food and other essential products (toilet paper for example, but even then I purchase recycled paper products) and underpants.

Each month if possible, Coop and I make a trip out to scour the shelves of our closest Big Lots and the nearby thrift store for deals. Our venture out yesterday netted a few great finds. For instance Muir Glen organic spaghetti sauce for $2 a jar and their tomato soup for $1 a can, (once I have ripe tomatoes these items will no longer be purchased) imported Queen olives and Alaskan salmon for just $2 each and Imagine brand crab bisque for $1.50.

At the thrift store I found a few items that seemed like they’d been waiting for me…6 yards of pink gingham for $6, perfect for my kitchen, a much longed for Italian pasta bowl for $2.50, a good bread pan for .50, a pair of curtains and a like new “hippie” skirt for my daughter for only $2 each.

For the most part we live and eat extremely well for folks on a limited income. We do not miss the days of running out to shop for the sake of shopping and to buy things we thought we needed but in reality didn’t. Our primary purchasing is for food. I have bought one new (and really unnecessary) piece of clothing for myself in the past year, (aside from underpants, lol). I have returned to mending clothes, saving and replacing buttons, and patching the worn places in blue jeans. I recycle old, worn out clothing as much as possible by turning it into useful items and gifts such as mug mats, comfort pads, eye pillows and (someday) quilts. Worn bath towels are cut and sewn into wash cloths and dish cloths or become work rags and dust cloths. Everything old is new again! I realize this lifestyle doesn’t seem attractive to everyone, but I enjoy living innovatively within my means and making the best of life and what I have. And I find peace in knowing that I am treading lightly on Mother Earth by not being a part of mass consumerism.

Yes, I am the person who saves the cottage cheese containers and bread bags to store leftovers in as opposed to purchasing disposable bags and containers. I am the person who refuses to buy a crap in the box cake mix because I can nearly as easily mix up a homemade cake with fresh wholesome ingredients. And yes, I am the person who recycles gift wrap and saves bits of leftover yarn to use as ribbon or work into granny afghans.

At heart I guess I am part economist and part survivalist, with the know how to make do the best I can with what I have. I guess you’d say I’m still an old hippie, too, trying my best to live close to the earth, being pretty much anti-establishment in my views and not caring much what anyone thinks. Life is too short to live any way but authentically.