Recycle Week: Our Favourite Recycled Products
As it’s coming to the end of Recycle Week, we’ve been thinking about whether the products we use every day are recycled. According to National Geographic, a MASSIVE 91% of the world’s plastic isn’t recycled!
Given that plastic takes hundreds of years to break down, virtually all the plastic that’s ever been produced is still on Earth. Isn’t that crazy? Think of every milk jug, every plastic bottle, every plastic bag, all of the plastic utensils and toys that we use each day! As much as 79% of this plastic ends up in landfills, with much ending up in oceans.
We wanted to give a shout out to a few of our favourite recycled products whose developers are thinking BIG about how they can help our planet by reusing materials that aren’t recyclable:
Gumshoe
Chewing gum is not recyclable and is made from rubber. In Amsterdam, chewing gum waste costs the city millions of pounds to clean up each year. The company Gumdrop uses this gum to make the soles of their trainers, called the Gumshoe! The project uses around 2.2 pounds (1 kg) of gum for every four pairs of shoes. What an amazing way to reuse chewing gum!
Clothes made from plastic bottles
Ecoalf is a clothing company that makes clothes from recycled material. They use recycled plastic bottles, tyres, nylon, cotton and wool to make their products. Not only that, but 10% of all sales goes towards ocean clean- up programmes too! Check out their clothes here.
Glass jewellery
Kalahari is a brand that uses recycled glass bottles and ostrich eggs to make necklaces, bracelets and other jewellery in amazing colours!
Eco-furniture
22 million pieces of furniture are discarded each year in the UK, and the majority of this furniture is sent directly to landfill! 1.6 million tonnes of bulky waste equating to a total of 670,000 tonnes of furniture and 310,000 tonnes of textiles waste is thrown away by householders in the UK annually! THAT IS HUGE! There are so many eco-furniture companies that reuse your furniture and recycle them including NBB Recycled Furniture who use 100% recycled plastic in their outdoor furniture.
Bricks and building materials
Easybrick makes bricks from recycled plastic. Each brick is made from 330 recycled fizzy drinks bottle tops. In Argentina about 12 million bottle tops are thrown away everyday, that’s enough to produce a HUGE 36,360 bricks! Such a sustainable and simple idea – we love it.
Jenga Ocean
Jenga has a special edition of the popular game, called Jenga Ocean. Jenga Ocean sets are exclusively made of recycled fishing nets, which account for 10 percent of the plastic polluting our oceans. This brilliant game features designs of ocean creatures that are threatened species, and all the packaging is also recycled or recyclable. With this edition, the company not only highlights the impact that plastic pollution has on the environment, but the role that fishing companies play in that, too!
While you’re here, check out our other blog about International Plastic Free Day. Let’s talk to our little ones and make sure they know how important recycling and reusing is for our planet.
Stay FANTASTIC!
Lots of love, Banjo HQ x
