How to Effectively Recycle and Old Electric Blanket
My queen size woollen fitted electric blanket 'died' and rather than place in the bin I thought how it could be recycled. Here's what I came up with...
1. cut off the mesh skirt that fitted it to the mattress. remove the stretchy plastic covered wire through the placket. This became renewable elastic for the 6 ocky straps. The original elastic had perished but I had kept the hooks.
2. cut the nylon mesh into various sizes to be used as veggie bags when shopping instead of plastic. I threaded tape through the packet of some of them so they could be closed but not strictly necessary.(made 10 bags)
3. Here's the tedious part that took a couple of hours while watching TV. Make slits along the edges of the woollen part and pull out the electric cabling. This was cut into suitable lengths and used as plant ties (for tomatoes, trees, etc.)
4. The wool was cut into 30 x 30 squares, with a cross cut in the centre, to be used as weed mats. Especially useful to get tubes off to a good start without competition from weeds. Dig a hole where you intend to plant. Place the mat on the soil and plant though the hole made by the cross. You get around 20 mats from a queen size blanket.The mats are degradable and nontoxic as the blanket had been washed several times.
The only item that went into the rubbish bin was the plastic electric connection that was cut from the blanket!
Contributed by Carol Woolcock
1. cut off the mesh skirt that fitted it to the mattress. remove the stretchy plastic covered wire through the placket. This became renewable elastic for the 6 ocky straps. The original elastic had perished but I had kept the hooks.
2. cut the nylon mesh into various sizes to be used as veggie bags when shopping instead of plastic. I threaded tape through the packet of some of them so they could be closed but not strictly necessary.(made 10 bags)
3. Here's the tedious part that took a couple of hours while watching TV. Make slits along the edges of the woollen part and pull out the electric cabling. This was cut into suitable lengths and used as plant ties (for tomatoes, trees, etc.)
4. The wool was cut into 30 x 30 squares, with a cross cut in the centre, to be used as weed mats. Especially useful to get tubes off to a good start without competition from weeds. Dig a hole where you intend to plant. Place the mat on the soil and plant though the hole made by the cross. You get around 20 mats from a queen size blanket.The mats are degradable and nontoxic as the blanket had been washed several times.
The only item that went into the rubbish bin was the plastic electric connection that was cut from the blanket!
Contributed by Carol Woolcock