Earth Day blog hop

This is the second post on my blog today - yeah, I know, I don't blog for ages and ages and then there's two on one day! - so if you'd like to check out the post I have here for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge mini challenge #2, please scroll down to the next entry (here) :-)

But this is my contribution to the Earth Day bloghop organised by Danielle over at EcoScrapbook so WELCOME!

If you've arrived here from Zaira, you are on the right track but if you've landed here directly, you might want to pop back to Danielle's blog to start at the beginning. I happen to know that there *might* be a prize to be won along the way so be sure to visit us all!

I started off thinking about what Earth Day means to me and how I try to be kind to the Earth on a day to day basis.

Living here in Germany, we do a LOT of recycling which has become really important to me. It takes a bit of time to do and you need to think about it all the time when you are dealing with rubbish but it has become second nature to me.

This, for example, is just a snap of some of the recycling we do in our household:

We have two rubbish bins - one for normal rubbish and one for what we call "yellow" bag rubbish which is basically any product featuring the green point/or the recycling symbol.

Practically all the packaging that comes into our house goes in there. Then there's glass bottles which will go to the bottle bank, paper which will be thrown into the paper rubbish bin outside, corks that I return to the wine shop and batteries which can be dropped into battery recycling boxes in almost any shop or public building. There's also a big bag there full of plastic drinks bottles which are either one way or multi-way deposit bottles. Anything up to €0.25 per bottle which of course is an incentive to take them back to the shop. Most drinks are purchased in returnable bottles and crates whether it's glass or plastic and that was possibly the biggest thing to get used to - all those bottles hanging around and needing to be collected and taken back. But after a while anything becomes second nature.

We also have organic rubbish bins outside (garden or kitchen waste) and anything such as light bulbs or cables or electrical trash has to be returned to the city tip where we have to then pay to get rid of it! But if you throw it in the regular trash bins outside you might be fined if the collectors see it - again, it's all about the incentive, whether negative or positive!

We also have textile or clothing recycling, car batteries, metal and all sorts of other items. When you go to the city tip, you have to tell them what you have and they tell you which container you have to use and what you have to pay for the privilege. Rubbish is expensive over here but that helps you to realise the value (negative) of rubbish and how we must find a way to recycle as much as possible.

Different bins, different items.

I feel so virtuous when I go through the motions of separating out all these different items and feel like I'm helping the Earth just a little bit :-)

But how about from the scrapbooking side of things? Well, I'm learning. And I'm learning a LOT from Danielle. I had never really thought about it before "meeting" her even though I've always made sure that the waste I generate in my scrap room gets recycled as above. But since I have, I find myself thinking about it more and more.

Today I even found myself purchasing some eco-friendly tape - who knew? I love that these things are becoming more and more prominent and I thought of Danielle and how she would approve when I picked this up today!

And my wonderful friend Pam helps me to see my products in new and interesting ways, encouraging me in her challenges to me over at Whimsical Musings to use older products, to go greener and use my packaging in interesting ways. She is SO good at making that Prima packaging or the die-cut negatives look wonderful on the page - check out some of her cool layouts {here} or {here} for example.

And I'm going to leave you with two pages I created as part of one of her challenges for WM with the theme of "going green"

Almost everything on this layout is either packaging, repurposed products or non-scrapbooking items

And this layout features hearts cut out from a favourite pair of pj trousers that are worn out but that I loved too much to throw

It's good to take a moment to think about what we can do to support the Earth and green ideas. I'm looking forward to working my way through the hop to learn some new tips.

Your next stop on the hop is Jody (SpiegelMom Scraps!) and in case you need the full list of participants, here you go...

Danielle: EcoScrapbook 

Jules: Inspired Jules  

Renee: Charms Buttons & Bows 

Mariah: Its Fun2Scrap 

Stephanie: Scrapworthy Lives 

Natalie: Almost Never Clever 

S: Snaps & Snippets 

Zaira: Hacer Scrapbooks (in Spanish, translation tool available) 

Lisa: Recklinghausen Musings   <---- You are here

Jody: SpiegelMom Scraps!    <---- Go here next

It would be lovely to hear what you do for the Earth and how you bring green ideas into this craft of ours. Leave me a comment and let me know!