With Valentine’s Day come and gone, you may begin pondering just how many artificial ingredients are in those little candy hearts. Amongst the flowers and teddy bears, it’s impossible not to notice all the red and pink candy displays at the market.
It’s also impossible that all that packaging doesn’t end up in the garbage.
Here are some ideas on how you can cut down on waste and find creative gifts made from what is normally thrown away.
The National Retail Federation figured that Americans spent close to $17 billion on Valentine’s gifts in 2007. I can only imagine what other, more worthwhile things that money could have been spent on, but let’s not dwell. The spending spree will have happened again, but there are ways to reuse all the heart shaped crap that our industrialized society produces.
Ecoist.com hosts a variety of great items from coin purses to roomy handbags made of recycled candy wrappers. Shop for your accessories made from candy wrappers.
There is also a candy wrapper bracelet from Bibelot that is Fair Trade, handmade by a non-profit in Mexico AND a tree is planted for every bracelet sold.
I was blown away when I realized all the creative things you can purchase at TerraCycle, not the least of which is a bag made from recycled Oreo wrappers. Donations from purchases are made to local charities.
On a related note, it gets trickier when you search for a way to recycle those energy bar wrappers. It’s the two-layer packaging with a metallized coating that gives products their longer shelf life. This unfortunately also renders the packaging unrecyclable. TerraCycle, however, makes the best of the situation and also makes a backpack from Clif Bar wrappers.
Great Green Goods has a completely recycled candy wrapper placemat, napkin, and napkin ring set that was created in partnership with The Spiral Foundation, a non-profit organization that funds humanitarian aid projects in Nepal and Vietnam.
Candy wrapper (as well as plastic bottle and some other stuff) bricks have also been government-approved for use in public housing! Argentina’s Experimental Center for Economical Housing (Centro Experimental de la Vivienda Económica - CEVE) developed a brick and built test houses comprised primarily of candy wrappers. The resulting bricks are lighter and cost half as much as conventional bricks, but are comparable in terms of water and fire resistance, with good heat and sound insulation properties. The CEVE project hires unemployed 18-24 year-olds to make the bricks, and participants can use the bricks to build their own mini-houses. Imagine, candy wrappers as building materials!
The only unfortunate thing, of course, is that you can't actually recycle the candy wrappers you have accumulated already, unless you come up with your own art project...
But you can choose to buy candy that comes in more recycling-friendly packaging, such as aluminum foil or paper. Also, buy larger pieces rather than a bag full of individually wrapped pieces.
Choosing some of the above items is a great way to impress your date and show that even the wrappers can be pretty sweet!
Make your own candy hearts with the Candy Heart Generator.