Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… And Repurpose?
Jan 30, 2013
We’ve all heard of the three R’s of environmental stewardship – reduce, reuse and recycle. But one company, repurposedMATERIALS, is set on adding a fourth R – "repurpose."
"Repurposing is creative re-use," says founder and owner Damon Carson. "It is NOT recycling that has gotten all the buzz since the 1970s. Remember, recycling requires huge amounts of energy to melt, grind, chip or shred a waste stream into a useable feedstock to be used as a raw material to manufacture something new. With repurposing, we deal with byproducts and waste that get a second life because they have value as-is."
Anyone can repurpose previously discarded materials, including farmers. repurposedMATERIALS has proposed the following five creative repurpose uses in the agriculture industry:
- Turn advertising billboards into hay or equipment tarps.
- Turn conveyor belting into stall mats or shop flooring.
- Turn rock-climbing rope into general-purpose rope.
- Turn 275-gallon totes into water and fluid storage containers.
- Turn steel barrels into burn barrels.
One man’s trash is another’s treasure, as the saying goes. For more repurposing ideas, visit www.repurposedmaterialsinc.com.
Old advertising billboards can become new hay tarps - just one of many items that can be repurposed for use on the farm.
