In the pursuit of creativity, it’s essential to consider the impact of our artistic creations on the environment, and there are many ways to improve your ecological footprint. Riverside Beads and Crafts does their bit for the environment and this blog will share our top eco-warrior ways, and provide some inspiration for how you too can help the planet.
1. Waste Not Want Not
We try to re-use most packaging materials that we receive deliveries in. This includes bubble wrap, cardboard boxes and plastic bags.
2. Recycled World
Anything that can’t be reused then gets recycled, even down to our packets at lunch. Top Tip: if you bake foil crisp packets on a low heat in the oven they will shrink and harden. They make very cute brooches or necklace charms for kids. Check out this You Tube video on how to do it.
3. Printing
We try to minimise our in-house printing and only print essential items, like out-going invoices and letters.
4. Charity Starts at the Craft Class
When we have our make and takes or workshop classes quite often there are half finished samples left over. Instead of throwing these away we finish them off and sell them to raise money for charities like Sue Ryder. We do the same with any old stock or unused crafting supplies. This saves them going to landfill and to waste.
5. No Plastic is Fantastic
In a bid to lower our plastic use we’ve switched to bio-degradable bin bags for our wet waste (food, etc.). For dry waste we actually try to scoop that straight into the wheelie bins now. Why use a bin liner when you don’t need one?
6. At Your Convenience
The standard of recycled toilet roll these days is amazing. So that’s a no-brainer. It used to be like sandpaper but now it’s pretty darned good. I recommend Ecoleaf. You can find it by clicking here.
7. Ditch the Car
Being in a small market town means that we are lucky enough to be able to walk and cycle to work. That’s a big one for the environment. It’s saves us petrol, keeps us fit and reduces our emissions. We try to do this as much as we can and often we beat the cars!
8. Energy Savings
When we moved into the new shop we upgraded all the lighting to low energy LED lighting. This saves an enormous amount of electric. The outlay seems high when you’re paying higher amounts for a bulb but the saving is totally worth it. We also upgraded the old storage heaters to new energy efficient ones. It’s genuinely incredible how much energy is saved using these new devices.
9. Beautiful Bead and Button Box
This week in-store we are launching a new recycling promotion aimed at minimising crafting waste. We want you to drop off or post into us your left over buttons and Beads. They can be old or new, many or just a few. Vintage necklaces, beads you’ve never used, boxes of spare buttons. We will take all of your unwanted treasures. This saves things going to landfill.
There is a huge amount of plastic used in the crafting world, from the products to packaging. It is pretty prevalent, but if every person focus on recycling more then I believe that’s a good start to saving our precious planet. We really do have to lower our carbon footprint where possible and protect the environment for generations of beaders to come.