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Think before you bin it! From old clothes to plastic bags, some of that stuff you’re about to put in the bin can be turned into something new, filling a hole in your pocket rather than a rubbish tip. Read on for our top tips to stop you throwing money away.
Clothes
Getting a new outfit doesn’t have to mean a trip to the shops. Many universities organise clothes swaps where you can exchange your cast-offs for other people’s clothes. Or if you fancy yourself as something of a Vivienne Westwood, you can always try making new clothes from those ripped jeans and jumpers. With a few snips and a bit of work, stained old T-shirts can become shiny new vests, or old socks a funky wristband.
Plastic bags
If you’re going to put plastic bags in the bin, you might as well use them as binliners – saving money as well as the environment. And rather than chucking out old bread bags, why not use them to wrap your sandwiches or as freezer bags to store your food instead? The German school have created a great exampleof how to recycle old bycycle tubes
Ornaments
They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and what looks like rubbish now can be transformed into eye-catching decorations for your home. Old CDs can make great mobiles or wall displays for example, and if you’re feeling green-fingered but don’t have a garden then why not make a windowbox out of old crockery? And with a little lick of paint old glass jars can become a vase or candleholder – or even somewhere to store all those pennies you’ll now be saving!
Food
Cook up another culinary storm for free with those scrapings from your plate and old ingredients at the back of the cupboard. You don’t need to be a MasterChef contestant either, I am going to challenge you to find recipes for using your leftovers.
Freecycling
Just because you don’t want your stuff any more doesn’t mean that no-one else does. Sites like Freecycle and Freegle puts people who have stuff they don’t need in touch with people who can give it a good home, while Student Swapshophas been specifically set up for students to swap their unwanted goods for free. If you’d prefer the cash, you can always sell things on ebay or Gumtree, and there are plenty of online mobile phone recycling schemes offering money for your old handsets.