Homemade Ways to Help the Environment

Reusing materials is a great way to reduce resource and energy consumption and they can often be turned into something pretty or useful too. It can be simple, easy and inexpensive to turn leftover fabric, paper, containers and food into things you can use again and again and many things such as decorations and bird feeders can be made with and used by children. Scrap paper and food containers are always available, and things like buttons, ribbon and wrapping paper are small and easy to save when you come across them. Below are ten ideas for using leftover and scrap materials around the home:

Make a draught excluder – this will block draughts coming through gaps under doors, making rooms warmer and saving on heating bills. You need a piece of fabric slightly longer than the width of the door and wide enough to block the gap when folded over and filled, and something to stuff the draught excluder with. You could use a piece of leftover curtain or cushion material if you want the draught excluder to match them, or sew scraps of material together in a patchwork, or even use an old pair of trousers. The filler material can also be reused from somewhere, for example you could use old newspaper, polystyrene from an old bean bag, old (uncooked!) rice you don’t want to eat, or scraps of old clothes. Making the draught excluder is very simple – fold the fabric in half and sew up both sides and one end, then stuff it with the filler and sew up the other end. If you want to be able to remove the outer cover to wash it, put the filler inside an old pair of tights and wrap the fabric around it before sewing it up and use buttons or poppers to fasten one end. If you want to make the draught excluder into a snake, add a couple of spare buttons for eyes and a piece of leftover ribbon for a tongue.
Turn pine cones and conkers into Christmas tree decorations. If you have pine trees near you, collect the cones from the ground, or use conkers left over from the autumn, and tie them to a piece of ribbon (save pretty ones from things like chocolate boxes and candles). If you have to go out of your way to get cones or conkers, turn the trip into a walk or a bike ride. You could also use paint, sequins and glitter (maybe leftovers from craft sets that aren’t substantial enough to use for anything else) to decorate them. As well as the obvious reduction in manufacturing materials used in decorations you’d buy instead, this also uses up things like scraps of ribbon that might otherwise go into landfill.
Use leftover food to make bird feed – if you don’t have anywhere to compost food waste, or don’t want to put things like fat in your composter due to the risk of attracting vermin, you could use it in homemade bird feed. Leftover and stale bread is easy to put out somewhere for birds, and the RSBP has advice on bird food [1] and a recipe for “bird cake” using peanuts, raisins, cheese and suet or lard [2]
Make bird feeders from empty yoghurt pots and bottles, or pine cones. The RSBP also has instructions on how to make a bird feeder from an old bottle or yoghurt pot (essentially, cut some holes in the bottom for drainage, cut a hole in the side for the birds to feed through, and put some wire or string through the top so you can hang it up) [3]. You could also hang up a pine cone and put birdseed inside it for something more decorative (a good idea is to put smooth peanut butter inside the cone before the birdseed [4], which should help stop it blowing away).
Make your own mothballs instead of buying them. Commercially made mothballs use up resources and can contain chemicals which are unpleasant or even dangerous if used incorrectly. Lavender is an effective natural moth repellent and easy to obtain – a small bottle of lavender essential oil will last a long time or you could grow your own. Mothballs can be made from small scraps of material sewn or tied up at each end. If you tie (rather than sew) one or both ends, they are easy to refill with fresh lavender, and thin pieces of ribbon such as those which are used in clothes to hold them on hangers are perfect for this. If you don’t have any lavender to fill the mothballs with, put some lavender oil on some more fabric scraps or cotton wool and bulk them out with this, and refresh them with a more few drops of oil every now and then. If you don’t like the scent of lavender, other natural alternative include rosemary, mint, cloves, thyme, cedar and cinnamon [5,6].
Reuse your eggshells! If you have chickens, or know someone that does, use eggshells to provide them with calcium. Chickens need two types of grit, one to help them digest their food properly, and another to provide them with enough calcium to produce strong eggshells. Commercially bought calcium-providing grit can be replaced or supplemented with baked crushed eggshells (you could use the oven when it’s been switched off straight after cooking, to save energy). You could also try putting a complete circle of broken eggshells around plants to keep away slugs and snails, instead of using slug pellets.
When you’re growing seedlings or small plants, you could grow them in eggboxes or cardboard tubes such as those inside toilet rolls or kitchen roll instead of plastic trays and pots. This is a good way of reusing the tubes and they can be planted straight out into the ground as they are biodegradable. Cut and fold the ends of the tubes in on themselves if you want to make a sealed base.
Use scraps of leftover paper to make paper chain decorations. These could be used for children’s parties or at Christmas. Wallpaper leftovers or samples, bits of old wrapping paper, colourful envelopes or even plain envelopes that you or children decorate can be used. They need to be cut into strips of whatever width you choose (about 1.5 inches/3-4 cm is quite good). Make the first strip into a loop and stick the ends together, then make all the other strips into loops too, threading them through the loop you made before. This uses up old paper and anything you would have put into your recycling box anyway can of course be put in there when the chain is worn out as a decoration.
Hamster toys can be made out of cardboard tubes, coconut shells and leaves and branches, reusing resources and saving you having to buy expensive toys from pet shops. You could make simple toys or more complex ones, such as a maze using bits of old cardboard and a shoebox. The Hamster Club has ideas and instructions for making these and other homemade hamster toys [7].
Glass jars and bottles can be decorated and used as organisers, containers, flower vases and candle holders. You could paint them (if you don’t have the right paint to put directly onto the glass, you could paint onto paper or fabric and stick that to the glass) or stick on things like tissue paper, shells, buttons, ribbons and glitter. Candle holders can be filled with coloured water or pretty stones. Jar lids can be used to make personalised fridge magnets – get a magnet that is at least as deep as the lid, so that it can stick to the fridge, then just stick this to the back of the lid and a picture or photo on the front.
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