If you are reading this in the print newspaper, youβll have something to recycle when you are through.
There are quite a few ways to recycle your newspaper other than that recycling bin.
Seedling pots
Are you a home gardener? You can use a newspaper page to make a biodegradable seedling pot.
Fold a full page in half or in thirds, depending on the width of the page. Wrap the folded strip around a soup can, leaving enough room at the bottom to fold the ends in to make the bottom of the pot. Secure with a small piece of tape and then fold the bottom in and tape it.
Use potting soil and plant seeds or a seeding in your paper pot, which you should then place in a cup or plastic pot before watering it. When the seedling has grown enough to plant outside, you can just put the whole paper pot in the ground.
Gift bags
Cut a large rectangle from a newspaper page. Use two pieces of newsprint layered together if you want more strength. If you want a finished bag about 5 inches tall, 5 inches wide and 3 inches deep, start with a sheet that is 16.5 inches by 8.5 inches.
Fold down about an inch on the top of the long edge and fold up about 2 inches along the bottom of the long edge. Crease them and then unfold them.
Overlap the short edges about half an inch and tape. Then flatten and crease that loop. Open the loop and flatten and crease again about 3 inches from the first crease so that you now have creases that measure 3 inches and 5 inches apart.
Fold the top edge down an inch along the crease you made at the beginning and tape or glue. Fold the bottom edges up using the crease you made as a guide and tape them, making them look like the end of a wrapped box. Turn the bag over.
Use hole punch to make holes near the top for a ribbon on each side.
You can use the section of the newspaper that best fits the personality of the recipient.
You can repurpose newspaper pages instead of recycling them.
A giant newspaper bow
Cut several strips of newspaper from the bottom to the top of a full newspaper page. You can make them in widths that vary from four to six inches. Fold the strips in half lengthwise and make cuts through the fold up to about half an inch from the other side and continue making these cuts every half inch for the length of the paper.
Roll the strip and secure around the uncut end and then fluff the βpetals.β Gather all of the rolled strips together to make a large bow, putting the smaller ones on the outside. Tape them together and then attach them to the package, preferably one wrapped in newspaper.
Beads
This is a little more time-consuming and complicated, but the results could be beautiful.
Tear newspaper pages into small pieces and make them into pulp by soaking in boiling water for an hour, stirring occasionally. Drain as much of the water off as possible without losing the paper pulp.
Add a glue that dries clear to the pulp and mix. Most liquid school glues work fine.
Gloves may help at this stage, but school glue washes off, so gloves arenβt required.
Roll the pulp into beads of varying size and place them on waxed paper. Let them dry for several days, rolling again every few hours the first day or so, to keep them from getting a flat spot where they are sitting on the waxed paper.
Once they are completely dry, drill a hole through each bead, then paint with craft paint and varnish. String into a necklace or bracelet.
