Are you looking for a way to reuse your single-use packaging and household recycling? These recycled crafts and activities for kids are a great way to reuse recycling materials and learn about protecting our environment!
Identifying ways to reduce the number of single-use items (like plastic water bottles!), reuse empty packaging and materials, and recycle items that can be properly recycled are incredibly important practices to implement in order to conserve and protect our environment.
Learn to Reduce, Reuse & Recycle!
Ways to Reduce Waste
Some ways to reduce waste include avoiding single-use food and drink containers and utensils, using reusable grocery bags, buying items secondhand and donating used good, and shopping local farmers markets or buying in bulk to reduce packaging.
Ways to Reuse
Crafts and activities using materials that would otherwise be discarded are a great way to reuse. Reusing things is actually a better way to protect the environment because no energy is needed to recycle the materials.
You’ll find a ton of recycle projects for kids to create beautiful artwork, assist in gardening, and create functional projects for learning below!
Ways to Recycle
According to the EPA, plastic bottles are the most recycled plastic product in the United States as of 2018. When you recycle just 10 plastic bottles, you can save enough energy to power a laptop for more than 25 hours!
Learning how to sort recycling is important for recycling waste correctly.
Favorite Recycled Supplies
Some of our favorite recycled supplies for our recycled art projects include:
- plastic water bottles
- newspaper
- fabric scraps
- paper cups
- Shoeboxes
- Bottlecaps
- Lids
- cardboard boxes
- cereal boxes
- egg cartons
- paper tubes
- cans & jars
- scrap wood
- Magazines
- Takeout containers
You’ll also like: 12 Ways to Make More Eco-Friendly Kid Crafts from Barley & Birch
Recycled Crafts & Activities for Kids
Reuse household materials instead of sending them to the recycling bin or (even worse) to the trash!
Reuse Plastic Bottles and Caps
Reuse plastic bottles and caps to make these great recycled arts and crafts.
Find out how to make a recycled plastic water bottle sun catcher with some plastic water bottles and permanent markers!
Reuse plastic water bottles into sensory bottles! Find out the science behind sensory bottles and build your own!
Turn plastic netting into an eco-friendly dish scrubber! We love this unique repurposed activity!
Make a plastic-like substance with this Earth friendly science activity for kids.
Reuse plastic bottle tops with this great counting activity!
Turn a water bottle into a beautiful sunflower craft with this recycled art activity.
Reuse plastic lids to make an engaging sensory play activity for your baby!
How cute are these woodland animal planters made from recycled plastic bottles?!
Reuse milk jugs to create flowers for a beautiful flower leaf recycled art craft.
Reuse Paper Tubes
These activities are a great way to reuse toilet paper tubes as well as paper towel tubes.
Create a colorful turkey toddler craft and work on hand-eye coordination by placing feathers into holes in toilet paper tubes.
This recycled engineering activity is superb for reusing paper towel tubes, plastic straws, and ribbon spools!
Reuse toilet paper tubes to make Grogu (Baby Yoda) from The Mandalorian.
Reuse toilet paper tubes to create Toy Story inspired rocketships!
Reuse cardboard tubes to create these adorable little tube chicks!
Make a Stick Man out of recycled materials and read the book "Stick Man" by Julia Donaldson.
Use paper tubes and a recycled cardboard box to create a tube pattern matching game for toddlers and preschoolers.
Make a process art sculpture with paper tubes with this art + engineering activity!
Recycle toilet paper tubes into an epic ice castle!
Reuse toilet paper tubes to create a magnetic ball run with this great STEM activity!
Reuse toilet paper rolls to create a trinket display for toys.
Recycled Cardboard Crafts
Check out these great crafts and activities to reuse cardboard!
This castle STEAM challenge pairs art and engineering to challenge kids to make a working drawbridge out of a recycled box for a castle!
Learn how to make a string instrument with cardboard! This activity is a great way to pair engineering skills with art!
Fly to the moon with a cardboard space shuttle made from repurposed cardboard boxes!
Create a giant nail salon with a recycled cardboard box!
Make a play shop from a cardboard box with this recycled play activity!
Repurpose a cardboard box into a pirate ship!
Create a ball drop toy for babies from a repurposed box.
Reuse cereal boxes to make magnetic tile puzzles for toddlers and preschoolers!
Reuse a cardboard box to make an upper and lowercase letter matching game for preschoolers!
Recycled Paper Crafts
These recycled paper crafts and activities are a great way to reuse paper, milk cartons, and newspaper.
Use recycled newspaper to create this adorable koala craft!
This crafty owl is made with recycled newspaper! How cute!
Create a floating pirate ship with a recycled milk carton!
Create a nature exploration notebook with a repurposed paper bag to help keep your outdoor activities from blowing away.
Find out how to make paper and reuse those paper scraps before you send them to the garbage.
Build the Eiffel Tower out of recycled newspaper with this Engineering + Art recycled activity!
Learn how to make handmade gift bows and reduce your consumption of pre-made gift bows while also reusing paper!
Reuse Egg Cartons
Check out these ways to crafts with egg cartons and start reusing egg cartons today!
Recycle egg cartons to make flowers for this hands-on math activity!
Reuse egg cartons to make a cute helicopter craft!
Reuse an egg carton by turning it into a boat with this easy recycled summer activity!
Reuse Other Recycled Materials
Find even more recycled crafts and activities using broken crayons, corn husks, and fabric.
Repurpose crayons into beautiful sun catchers from crayon shavings!
Did you know you can take broken crayons and melt them into brand new crayons? Find out how to reuse broken crayons into these neat star shaped crayons.
Learn how to make a classic sock puppet and reuse some old or mismatched socks.
This unique activity uses corn husks to make dolls!
Reuse fabric scraps to make a beautiful fabric mache bowl.
Reuse tin cans to make pencil holders with this cute summer recycled craft activity.
Use fabric scraps or old clothes to sew an adorable bunny.
Find a bunch of recycled plant pot ideas and start reusing milk jugs, newspaper, egg cartons, and more today to grow your gardens!
This Earth Day coding recycling sorting activity teaches children how conditional statements work while learning how to sort recyclables!
Meet Toni, the Maker Mom behind Our Family Code
Hey there, I’m Toni! I’m a software engineer and Maker Mom that finds my joy in unleashing my children’s curiosity by exploring STEAM concepts with my fantastic five!
When I’m not chasing toddlers or raising tweens, you can find me tearing things up and putting them back together over here at Our Family Code.
I am the owner and content creator of multiple educational websites designed to increase access to STEAM & STEM education with a focus on teaching computer science and coding to kids of all ages!
You can also find out more about me by visiting ToniGardner.com!
