It is impossible to count how much garbage we produce. The population is constantly growing, and the amount of waste is also increasing, while few people think about what happens to them in a landfill - how they affect people, soil, water, air.
This is one of the global environmental problems of our civilization. But our planet is not disposable, we must pass it on to our children and grandchildren. What will we leave behind?
One way to use waste is to create crafts. An important lesson can be conveyed to the child that any object can be used not only for its intended purpose, but also alternatively.
This will not allow him to get hung up on the main role of the things around him; he will gain invaluable experience in the formation of creative thinking and the development of imagination. As a result, where adults see garbage, a child will be able to find a source of inspiration and give household waste a new life.
Why is it useful to recycle trash?
- It causes environmental damage. Plastic and batteries, for example, take centuries to decompose.
- Recycling helps reduce the consumption of finite resources on Earth
- Crafts made from waste for children are very useful things; their invention contributes to the development of children's imagination and simply brings joy. Moreover, there is no need for financial expenses when all the necessary materials, as a rule, are available.
- All civilized countries strive to protect the environment and therefore introduce different methods of recycling waste.
How to make crafts from waste
First of all, you need to decide what material the craft will be made from. It should not be too complicated so that the child can completely make a craft from household waste with his own hands, which will allow him to develop his imagination to the maximum and enjoy the process.
Typically, in the manufacture of such products they use:
- Waste paper
- Cardboard sleeves
- Plastic
- Disposable glasses
- Tile
- Glass
- Polyethylene
Beach in a bottle
Next time you go to the beach, take it home with you in a plastic bottle.
This is probably one of the best ideas made from plastic bottle waste.
What kind of waste do you need:
- Large plastic bottle
- Water
- Blue food coloring
- Oil
- Stones
- Sinks
- Sand
- Glue
Instructions:
- Clean the plastic bottle until the labels and adhesive residue are gone.
- Fill the bottle with enough sand to cover one side if the bottle is tilted horizontally.
- Add some sea shells and rocks.
- Mix some water with blue dye until you get a color similar to ocean blue.
- Pour blue water into the sand bottle until it is about 2/3 full and pour oil into the remaining 1/3 of the bottle.
- Tape the lid of the bottle so that it cannot be opened and let it dry.
- Tilt the bottle to see the beach and ocean whenever you want.
Crafts from waste paper
Don’t rush to throw away the accumulated waste paper; you can use it to make many interesting things, for example, furniture for dolls.
- From matchboxes using glue, fabric and colored paper you can make a chest of drawers, a table and even a sofa.
- Crafts like this one made from waste are suitable for school.
- They are also suitable for storing beads or small accessories.
Products made from cardboard cores
Cardboard tubes make funny animal figures. On the Internet you can find many photos of similar crafts made from waste - octopuses, elephants, and other living creatures.
They are also used to make organizers that are suitable for storing office supplies.
Plastic products
By fastening two bottle bottoms together, you can make beautiful decorative apples, you can add leaves to them, and twigs can be made from drinking straws.
You can also make a beautiful decoration in the form of a crown from straws; you just need to make a cardboard base and glue the straws onto it.
Crochet
You can crochet a wonderful robot - the Android OS logo, familiar to users of smartphones and tablets. This toy can be used as a keychain, a container for small things (beads, buttons, etc.), because inside it has a plastic container from a kinder surprise.
For knitting you will need:
- light green or light green yarn;
- hook No. 2.5;
- plastic container from kinder surprise;
- glue and beads for eyes.
You can see how to make such a toy in the video tutorial:
Products made from plastic cups
If you still have disposable cups that you don’t plan to use anymore, then you can also make various interesting things out of them, this may be of interest to primary and secondary school students.
Fluffy paws are made from wire and tubes. The glasses are painted with gouache, and eyes are cut out of paper. The paws can be secured with plasticine.
Crafts made from waste and waste materials can be used not only at school - they can be used to decorate a nursery well.
Questions
Lyudmila Sergeevna, 36 (Novorossiysk): Any expensive toy is usually of interest to a child for only a short time. But games with garbage and seemingly unsuitable objects for play are their favorite. Why not use suitable waste for good. Create your own art with your child. By the way, our grandmother wove huge baskets from newspaper tubes.
Alena, 27 (Voronezh): Yes, some product options are not simple. You need to keep your hand from shaking and have more strength to cut the material. But this is no longer a banal drawing (however, drawing is also important for children), but a labor-intensive process. We went to “developmental” classes until we were three years old. For example, we made a fish from a disk. All this can become a memory. We keep our “garbage” crafts for years.
Maria, 33 years old (Pereslavl): In our kindergarten, we periodically hold competitions involving the creation of crafts. So we often use not just store-bought materials, but also so-called garbage. The child often gives the name of each composition. Natural material can also be used for these purposes: fallen leaves, broken branches, etc.
Broken tile organizer
If after renovation there are broken tiles lying around in your house, you can use them to make an organizer.
- First you need to cut it into small squares with a tile cutter.
- It is not necessary that they be absolutely the same in size; if they are slightly different, it will be even more beautiful.
- Then, you need to find a tin can and decorate it with these squares using hot glue, and then grout it.
- As a result, you will get a good-quality, weighty organizer that will serve as a stand for screwdrivers.
Applique robot
A very simple craft that even young children can easily make.
- You need to draw and then cut out the geometric shapes that will be necessary to create the image.
- These can be circles, rectangles, squares - whatever your child wants to draw.
- Then take a glue stick or PVA glue and glue the blanks onto the paper.
- You should get an original image of the robot.
- Draw in the background as desired and draw in the details of the image with a marker.
This exercise perfectly develops a child’s fine motor skills, as well as color perception, accuracy and imagination.
Broken glass mosaic
To create this craft, you need to take precautions, namely, wear safety glasses and a mask, and since the edges of the glass are sharp, you need to take them not with your bare hands, but with tweezers.
- Mosaic is made from colored glass. You will need a bottle, you need to remove the label from it, then wrap the bottle in a towel and, using a hammer, break it into small pieces, the smaller the better. Next, on A4 sheet you need to make a sketch with a pencil, then erase the pencil so that barely noticeable outlines remain.
- Then you need to trim off the excess paper and stick the sketch onto cardboard of the same size.
- It doesn’t matter what kind of cardboard it is, the main thing is that it is as even as possible.
- Next, using hot glue, you can begin gluing the mosaic elements, focusing on the contour. When everything is ready, you can cut strips of corrugated cardboard and stick them around the perimeter of the picture, as a frame.
- On top of the resulting structure you need to glue a sheet of thick, transparent plastic of a suitable size, or you can use glass from an unnecessary frame.
- Then, from the same cardboard with a cork backing glued on top, cut out a square frame 5 cm wide, decorate the cardboard sections inside the frame with narrow strips of felt of the most suitable shade, first glue only the inner walls of the frame, then glue the frame and the picture with the mosaic together.
- For reliability, coat all cardboard joints on the back side of the product with hot glue and after that glue the cardboard sides to the frame on all sides, also prepare the back wall of the frame of a suitable size from cardboard, glue it together with the frame and, at the last stage of work, decorate the cardboard sides strips of felt.
Now that the picture is ready, all that remains is to attach the hinges at the back for attaching to the wall.
Soft toy robot
A great gift for a child or for a children's craft competition.
Take fleece or felt and cut out square shapes:
- The first one is for the body - four and a half centimeters, three and a half centimeters - for sewing the robot's head, sew the legs from squares measuring two centimeters, one and a half centimeters - for the arms.
- Six squares are needed to make one body part.
- Each cut out element must be stitched so that a cubic-shaped part is obtained.
- Before you have stitched the part completely, fill it with cotton wool or padding polyester. Next, sew all the parts together to assemble the robot.
- You can make eyes by sewing on beads; you can also decorate the toy by sewing on a bow or embroidering eyelashes.
- If the toy is small, you can make it in the form of a magnet or keychain.
Flowers from plastic garbage bags
Decorating the world is easier than it might seem.
- To do this, you will need several multi-colored garbage bags.
- You need to fold them so that the bottom is on one side, then cut off the fold line.
- Then, to make the flowers more magnificent, you need to fold them in half, cut them in the middle and fold them like an accordion, wrapping them in the middle with thread.
- Next, you need to trim the edges with corners, using scissors, fold them in half and wrap them with thread at the base, then straighten all the petals, disconnecting all the layers of the bags from one another.
- As a result, you will get a bud that needs to be attached to the stem.
- For the stem you will need a balloon tube with fasteners, to which you need to attach the bud, inserting the petals into the holes of the fastener and tying them. Finally, you can wrap the stem with a green bag.
- All these products are just a small overview of what can be made from waste.
There are many videos and photos of crafts made from waste, with detailed instructions on how to make crafts from waste with your own hands. This doesn't just apply to children.
Many artists make various works from garbage and sometimes display them in art galleries.
There is nothing impossible for a person; even from garbage you can come up with an original interior decoration. The main thing is not to allow yourself to be lazy and develop your creative abilities as much as possible, then the result will bring joy and there will be no difficulties during the work.
New Year costume
If you have large boxes, you can use them to make an elegant outfit for your little one. In this case, immediately glue the box head to the box body. Cut a square hole in the head so your child can see through it.
Make a hole inside for the baby's head. And the robot’s arms and legs are made from flexible ventilation tubes, choosing the desired diameter.
