From garbage to garden or landfill to living room, it’s amazing what can be done with the usually cast-off! Although many of us now embrace recycling to some degree, landfills are still home to many discarded but useful items.
The free to visit Waste Not Want Not – Landfill to Living Room event (noon-five) at Ards Leisure Centre on Saturday 8 March, plans to challenge visitors to consider making their living rooms home to intercepted or reclaimed items. A dedicated swap shop invites members of the public to bring small pieces of furniture, bric-a-brac, curtains etc. to swap with others at the event. Electrical items, toys and larger furnishings such as beds and settees are for obvious logistical reasons not included. Sources for the swap can be auction pieces, car boot finds or simply something on skip row.
Organiser Gill McNeill said, “An example of the increasing market for previously discarded useful and necessary items, is the current demand for wooden pallets. To some they are either landfill or wood burner fodder once they have fulfilled their function. But in other countries this is seen as an expensive waste of resources when they can be turned into polished wooden floors, furniture and cabinets.”
“As well as keeping cost down and providing jobs, valuable hardwood previously buried or mulched is now perceived as a quality, value-added product with potential for profit. It’s not just wood but rubber, vinyl, glass, metal, and paper are fast exiting the waste stream and becoming resources on the commodities market for repurposed products.”
Well-known Northern Ireland recycling-based retailer, restore will also be at the event to explain how they are meeting the ongoing task of up-cycling and repurposing everything from bicycles to furniture.
The organisation’s PR and Events Officer, Cathy Megahey said: “We love to encourage people to get creative with second hand furniture. For as little as £1 plus some DIY input and a tin from our salvaged paint range, smaller pieces can be transformed into bespoke additions that would look good in any living space.”
“Our restore shops in Belfast, Antrim, Larne and Ards sell pieces of refurbished furniture from small coffee tables to dining room sets, wardrobes and suites with a range of prices to suit everyone. Call in and have a look at some of our items to get your creative juices flowing.”
As an added incentive, a free to enter competition to find the best repurposed or
up-cycled item saved from landfill will launch at the event. Visitors can enter the ‘Skip the Skip’ competition by emailing a a ‘before and after’ photograph of what has been saved from the skip to wnwn@takesplace.info – live from Sunday 9 March 2014.
Prizes for the best creations include a £250 IKEA prize voucher, a refurbished chair from restore and two composters from Ards Borough Council Waste Awareness. The competition closes on Friday 23 May 2014.
So if you want to help conserve forests, reduce waste, recycle valuable resources, and have a little fun in the process, it’s so simple – just reuse those curtains or that old piece of furniture!
A free make and take recycled craft is available for children and for adults, plenty of common sense advise from a number of exhibitors.
Waste Not Want Not – Landfill to Living Room is supported by Ards Borough Council, Ards Borough Council Waste Awareness, East Belfast Mission/restore and the Ards Chronicle.