How to Get More Mileage From Magazines

By eHow Home & Garden Editor

Rate: (5 Ratings)

Magazines are expensive and add to the waste stream, a.k.a. trash, in your community. For both reasons, it pays to check out the following tips for reusing and recycling magazines.

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Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

Clear-coat Spray Paints
Glues
Commercial-size Ice Cream Cartons
Recycled Magazines
Spray Paints

Step1

Coordinate your subscriptions or in-store purchases of magazines with a friend or relative so that you don't duplicate magazines. Then swap regularly.

Step2

Donate your magazines to places with waiting areas (physicians', veterinarians' and dentists' offices; hair salons; medical labs; hospitals) so others can read them.

Step3

Give your magazines to schools or Sunday schools so they can be used in libraries, classrooms and craft areas. Classwork assignments for primary-grade children, for instance, often consist of finding pictures of words that start with certain letters.

Step4

Recycle spineless magazines, such as news magazines, into tabletop Christmas trees. Fold the tops of the pages down to the center of the magazines (use more than one magazine, joined with glue at centers, for fuller trees), creating a 45-degree angle, and once all the pages are folded down, the tree shape emerges; spray-paint it green, metallic gold, or another color.

Step5

Turn the picture pages into envelopes by cutting flaps, folding and gluing lightly. Use a ready-made envelope as a guide.

Step6

Collage related colors from magazine photos onto a commercial-type ice cream carton for a clever, one-of-a-kind wastebasket. You can spray a clear sealer over it to increase durability.

Step7

Crumple pages from castoff magazines for cushiony packing material when shipping fragile items.

Step8

Use pages of flimsier magazines for papier-maché craft projects.

Tips & Warnings

Remove your address labels from magazines you donate. You don't want your name and address in public circulation, just your magazines.

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Comments

Anonymous said

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on 11/30/2005 You can also use used magazines to make paper beads. Do a search on how, instructions are pretty easy. Basically you cut strips from the magazine pages. Divide each strip into triangles lengthwise (so it looks like this |/\\/\\/\\/\\/\\| and then cut the triangles out. Roll the triangles starting at the wide end onto a stick, straw or pencil. Use glue as you go to keep it together. String a stack of them on a stick stuck into that green floral foam stuff until they dry. Coat with modge podge or clear nailpolish so the beads are sturdy and last.

Anonymous said

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on 11/29/2005 1.cut the bound edge off first( knife or bandsaw or tablesaw or ?) 2. shove pages in the shredder as needed----> use for A. packing material B. fire starter C. hamster bedding D. camping pillows ( put in stuff sacks and then use a little every day to start fire,burn ALL the stuffing B4 you leave) E. Insulation in projects ( storage shed) F.paper mache G.compost ( rots faster) ....find more uses and then come back to this site and post them and then send the page to all your e-mail contacts...see how creative you can get......confetti ??????........

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Subscribe to the online version of a magazine and eliminate paper waste altogether!

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 Buy a plain, old notebook and cover the outside with magazine clippings. Cover it with clear contact paper to protect your creation.

Anonymous said

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on 11/22/2005 If you're into scrapbooking or the like, you can find so many useful ad slogans! For example, I had a group after-picture from mud soccer, underneath, I placed the slogan "Who's afraid of a little dirty laundry?" (from some detergent ad). These are well-hidden gems!

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