I love recycling things. My goal is to produce as little trash as possible while finding ways to reuse as much "trash" as possible. I participate in my city's curbside recycling program, but only after exhausting the uses for glass jars, steel cans, used copy paper, etc.

One of my favorite evening pastimes is crocheting rugs. I use old, worn, and stained clothes, sheets, curtains, and pretty much anything else made of cotton, cotton blend, or wool. These things would typically be thrown out at the point that they're passed on to me, but I'm able to make them into something "new" again by tearing them into strips, linking the strips, and crocheting them. Family and friends often pass along old clothes to me, so I never have a shortage of materials to work with. I've made around 12 rugs in the 5 years I've been crafting these, and I always have a few in progress, waiting for that last bag of worn-out clothes to come in.

What do you do to recycle in your home and at the bench? Sending scrap metals in for refinement is great, but do you have any other uses for those little bits and pieces that multiply on your jeweler's bench? Do you incorporate found objects into your work? What ways have you found to be "green" in your studio?
 

 ––Katie