Ipods!
Are you kidding me?
What I would have GIVEN for an ipod loaded with everything I wanted to listen to when I was thirteen. I'd have given just about anything... including all of my posters of Johnny Depp and River Phoenix and the Corey's...
*Sigh*
Of course, now when I run across a cassette tape or a VHS video, I am unsure of what the hell to do with it. I think I still have a VCR somewhere... but I know for a fact that there isn't a cassette player anywhere in my house. But I can't just toss Marky-Mark and The Funky Bunch in the trash can I? I mean, besides being a memento of my childhood and the first concert I ever went to, I have issues with throwing perfectly good (albeit perfectly useless) things away.
Some people who have less hoarding issues than I apparently do pull the tape out of their cassettes and VHS tapes and use it in the garden to freak the birds out. There is actually a metallic tape product which one can buy to hang from trees and confuse the pesky birds.
I guess it is a lot less work than building a scarecrow huh?
And since the tape itself is the only part of a cassette or video which isn't recyclable, it seems like a good alternate use which leaves the other parts of the tape ready for your recycling bin.
Over on My Recycled Bags (you remember them from the Plarn post a few days ago right?), she is doing what she does best and crocheting bags from the tape.
Just want to unload them?
I don't blame you... I have two or three boxes of VHS tapes just sitting in my shed, most of which have recorded tv shows on them.
You can freecyle them. Bound to me some people out there still rockin' the old school VCR.
Or you can send them off to be recycled. There was an article in Woman's Day about how.
"To keep them out of landfills, drop them in the mail to Alternative Community Training, a nonprofit Missouri company that provides jobs to people with disabilities.
Workers erase the tapes, reselling the ones that are in good shape and recycling the plastic parts of the rest. They’ve recycled more than 1 million tapes so far. Mail the tapes (at the cheaper USPS media mail rate) to:
ACT
2200 Burlington
Columbia, MO 65202"
Want to buy something made from recycled tapes? The options are endless... you can get coin purses and belt buckles and pretty much anything else that's crossed someone's mind...
Now if you have an ipod nano and dig rocking the retro look, you could get (or make?) yourself one of these little bad-asses.
You can also buy this tie which "is woven from 50% recorded audio cassette tape and 50% colored thread the fabric is actually audible if you run a tape head over it! (if you’d like a demo, please visit my youtube channel at alyceobvious"...
Do you know about something bad-ass and recycled? Shoot me an email, link's on the right.
Labels: being Earth Friendly, RBATOTD, recycling, shopping
