I have always loved the mix of ingenuity and practicality found in things created from other things. I am talking about art, clothes, jewellery, household objects, furniture - you name it; anything designed using unexpected salvaged or recycled materials.

Reclaiming style : using salvaged materials to create an elegant home is a great new addition to our library collection. It features the work of Retrouvius, a design and architectural salvage business, and demonstrates the potential in designing with salvage in the home. The photographs are beautiful, inspiring, and have given me a serious case of "I could do that!".

If you are interested in this topic and want to explore more we have a wealth of books full of examples and projects for practically everyone. The Design District blog even featured another salvage design book Recycled Home recently. Check their post out out here. Terms to get you started include: creative reuse (or misuse if you have a penchant for mischief), salvage, upcycling, refuse as art, trashion, refashion, and found objects.

The following are a few of my favorites followed by two websites:

1000 ideas for creative reuse is the perfect introduction to this topic as it covers so many different styles and approaches. Also available as an e-book.

Unscrewed : salvage and reuse motors, gears, switches, and more from your old electronics is for the mechanically gifted interested in geekcraft. Also available as an e-book.

Building with secondhand stuff : how to re-claim, re-vamp, re-purpose & re-use salvaged & leftover building materials an overview of types of salvaged materials including how to work with them. Also available as an e-book.

Cut-up couture : [edgy upcycled garments to sew] for fashion lovers.

Playing with books : the art of upcycling, deconstructing, & reimagining the book a complete guide to altered books including materials, techniques, projects, and a gallery of examples.

Superuse is a website showcasing contributions from artists, designers, architects, and those interested in the topic of reuse. I encourage you to check it out. You can view projects from around the world and filter them by type. This is how I recently came across a great initiative from the Canadian Wood Pallet and Container Association called repallet. They provide the blue-prints and background info (where to find them, which to use) and the rest is up to you!

We love hearing from you so please contact us with your creative reuse project or recommended reuse resource.

-Chelsea

With the holidays over and the New Year begun, many of us are looking to clean house, which at this time of year means getting rid of Christmas trees and wrapping paper and clearing out the old electronics—televisions, computers, gaming consoles, phones—that were replaced with new ones. Here's how to handle your old stuff in a greener way:

Wrapping paper and cards

Any wrapping paper, cards and bubble wrap can be put into your Blue Cart to be recycled.

Old Christmas Trees

If you had a real Christmas tree, remember to remove all decorations and tinsel and don't wrap the tree in plastic before recycling. Then you have two options to take part in the City of Calgary Christmas Tree Recycling Program:

For pick-up

Have your tree out beside your City of Calgary Black Cart by 7:00 a.m., Tuesday, January 8, 2013 and your tree will be picked up within three weeks.

For drop-off

If you've missed the pick-up in your community, you can drop your trees off at one of the eight temporary Christmas tree drop-off locations until January 27, 2013:

• Fire Hall #15 - 6358 35 Avenue NW
• Prairie Winds Park - 223 Castleridge Blvd NE
• Bottomlands Park - St. George's Drive and 7 Avenue NE
• Marda Loop Communities Association - 3130 16 Street SW
• Parks Compound - 10312 Sacremento Drive SW
• Spyhill Landfill - 69 Street and 112 Avenue NW
• East Calgary Landfill - 17 Avenue and 68 Street SE
• Shepard Landfill - 114 Avenue and 68 Street SE

Note that Christmas trees cannot be put into your Blue Cart (even if they're cut into pieces).

Christmas trees that are part of the recycling program (40,000 last year) are saved from the landfills and turned into mulch (that you can go pick up for free to use in your own garden!)

Used Electronics

If you have electronics that are in good working condition, you may be able to donate them (contact the Electronics Recycling Association) or sell them (or give them away) on Kijiji. Otherwise, certain electronics can be dropped off, at no cost, at any of the City of Calgary's electronics recycling locations.

Examples of the types of electronics that are accepted for recycling include:

• TVs (all sizes)
• Laptops
• Desktop computers
• Printers
• Computer monitors (some restrictions apply)

I was really excited to find out that our neighbourhood would be one of the first to get the new green bin this year, since we eagerly awaited the beloved blue recycling bin for a long time.

The city's website tells us that "each home in the pilot will receive a green cart, paper yard waste bags, kitchen pail and compostable liners. Households will also receive an information package with the carts including a collection schedule...The green carts will be collected every week like blue carts."

This sounded great until I realised...hey, wait a minute, I'm already composting! All our leaves and food wastes go into one of two of the black composters we bought from the city a decade ago. It takes about a year to harvest the compost with minimal maintenance and we use the end product to build our garden soil. I still plan to continue using the composters, so what about the green bin...?

Most Calgarians don't compost and, according to the city, organics account for 60% of the landfill. Wouldn't it be nice to see over 50% less waste in the future, and the water and nutrients reused instead of trapped in anaerobic conditions where they don't break down? I reckon our neighbours can "borrow" our green bin for their yard waste, diverting even more out of the landfill.

For more information about the green bins, go to Calgary.ca/greencart

Each year, Calgary Public Library employees round up their white elephants and hold a silent auction whose proceeds are donated to charity. In fact, there’s more to bid on than just white elephants. There are Christmas crafts, hand-knit scarves, baked goods, electronics, and a variety of other items. This year, we collectively raised and donated over $3000 to Calgary's Inn from the Cold.

In a similar vein, the staff in Central Library’s Business, Sciences and Social Sciences department holds an annual white elephant lottery. Staff purchase tickets and place them in envelopes assigned to each elephant. The more tickets you buy, the better your chances of winning the item – but it’s still a draw, so things are tense! As a department, we raised $200 and donated that to Inn from the Cold, too.

Prior to the lottery, as I rooted through my home, searching for perfectly good but unused items, I found myself thinking Who’s going to want my set of only 3, slightly inelegant wineglasses? But sure enough, someone did. And as I lugged my own not-quite-new treasure home, I thought Who would ever part with a totally wicked turtle lamp (with glowing shell!)?

If you don’t use it, need it or love it, then give someone else the chance. White elephant sales are a festive and fun way to support a cause or charity of your choice. They’re also an opportunity to reuse and reduce, and to avoid the chaos of holiday-season shopping malls.

Hope you had a great Christmas holiday!

On October 16th, I’ll be attending an event called Take Off Your Clothes, which is a giant clothing swap for women. Here’s the idea: before the event, people take stylish but unwanted items to drop-off locations, and exchange them for coupons. They’ll use those coupons to “purchase” new items in a swappers market.

And here’s why I like the concept:

The experience of swapping reminds us that there are alternatives ways of consuming, and that purchasing new items may not always be necessary.

The clothing left over at the end of the swap will be sent to charity stores, to have its lifetime extended a little further.

Local designers use the swap as an opportunity to showcase their creations - and thriving local economies keep cities vibrant and interesting.

Visit the facebook event page!