unconsumption:

I like these eco-pails from unconsumption. If you’re a serious DIY-er I can think of about 50 uses for them at home off the top of my head from cleaning and painting to project with the kids. They’re sturdy and eco-minded in construction.  Nice.  

Eco-Pail. It’s an environmentally-friendly twist on the five-gallon buckets you’ve seen everything from paint to joint compound being lugged around in. Because they’ve replaced the standard metal wire handle with a Plastic Eco-Handle produced from recycled materials, the entire thing can be tossed into a recycling grinder, no separation required. (And yes, the handle is just as strong.)

BWAY Corp.’s Eco-Pail and Other Recyclable Industrial Packaging - Core77

This un-consumptive or up-cycled way to use holiday catalogs (or frankly any used catalog or magazine) is a nice example of how to give ordinary, even annoying and sometimes unwanted, items a second life. (See the details below from 

Ideally, we would all stop receiving unwanted catalogs and convert all of our magazine and newspaper subscriptions to online options, but until then there are good ways to re-use them.  

Beyond this holiday garland they suggest stacking up your unwanted pubs and doing a mass shredding which you then save to use in packages (instead of buying packaging) throughout the year. 

This is not a final solution mind you. We have to reduce what we buy, use, and have in order to end over-consumption and what I’ve dubbed ‘living beyond our footprint’ but that takes time. And anywhere we can give products a second use is a start. 

I’d love to hear your ideas for creative ways to give things a second, third, even fourth life. The more lives a product has the less damaging it is.  

From 1800Recycling.com

In keeping with the theme of recycled holiday trim, and for the festively ambitious, give your folding skills a try with this origami star garland made from holiday mailers.

(via 1800recycling.com)

How-to DIY details/tutorial here.