Sustainably Yours: Break Out of Your Clamshell

A few nights ago, I broke down and bought a giant piece of triple chocolate cake to-go (for myself) because it looked so damn good. When I got home, I had one thing to feel guilty about — eating a giant piece of triple chocolate cake. When I was done, I had another reason to feel guilty — the empty plastic clamshell container (polystyrene #6) that I carried my delicious dessert home in.

Modern life provides us with a plethora of simple ways to contain and carry things, which is great. Would I really have wanted to eat the cake at the store, in front of everyone? But modern life also promotes convenience to a degree of ridiculousness. If you get take-out, buy berries, and occasionally indulge in a giant piece of cake for your own at-home pleasure, then you, too add a variety of odd-shaped clamshell plastic containers to your pile of recycling items. And, if some people opt not to recycle their plastic oddities, they’re dooming whatever kind of plastic they trashed to 700 years before it even starts to decompose.

So, this week’s tip is an idea to break us out of our clamshells when it comes to recycling. This week, I took my used clamshell container, washed it, and made it into a decorative bowl by covering it with cool-colored magazine pages that I literally just ripped out. I plan on using it at my desk to hold my business cards, but you could use it for anything small, anywhere. (I got the idea from a great book called Eco Craft, whose author suggests using clamshell containers to make a variety of drawer dividers… so take that into consideration as well.)

All this project of recycling/reusing/re-crafting requires is a plastic clamshell container, old magazines, white liquid glue, scissors, a mixing container and a stirring stick! Follow the steps below for an awesome, hand-made, authentic, reused plastic bowl!

Follow these steps:

1. Cut the clamshell in half, and cut the edges so they’re all even and uniform.

2. Rip out visually appealing pages of an old magazine, or rip pieces from a newspaper (about an inch wide, and about 5 inches long, depending on the size of the clamshell).

3. Mix 1 part glue to 3 parts water in an old container (I used an old yogurt container). Stir so the mixture is blended. It should look like whole milk when it’s ready.

4. Dip the strip of magazine or newspaper in the glue mixture and rub the excess liquid off by “squeegeeing” the strip between your fingers.

5. Place the strip along the bottom of the clamshell, smoothing it into place. Repeat steps 4 and 5 to cover the entire clamshell, making sure that you put at least three layers on it for sturdiness. When it’s done, let it dry over night. What you get is a seriously cool, authentic piece of art that you can use for just about anything!

Join me each Wednesday for new suggestions about how you might live a healthier, safer, kinder life, one that will be feasible, and one that’s as sustainably yours as it is mine.

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