Reader Questions: Coffee Cans for Crafting and Recycling Old Shoes

 

One of the things that I love most about this site is the amazing community of readers that we have. I enjoy receiving your emails with questions, comments, and suggestions! Over the past couple of weeks, I have gotten a couple of great questions that I wanted to share here in case anyone else was wondering the same thing or has additional suggestions for these folks.

Question 1: I would like to know if you would know where I can get about 100-200 tin coffee cans for a project I'm doing.

Finding reclaimed craft supplies in bulk is always tricky, and I have to be honest: I was pretty stumped here! Chances are most coffee shops get their coffee in burlap sacks, but smaller places that brew less fancy coffee might use cans. Maybe trying gas stations etc is her best bet? The other options I came up with were placing a "wanted" ad on Freecycle or Craiglist's "Free" section.

What do you guys think? Any ideas on where this reader can get a huge amount of reclaimed coffee cans?

Question 2: What about fabrics too worn out to be worn or sewn, and old shoes? And when locations say textile recycling do they generally mean that stuff too?

I found a very helpful article on Apartment Therapy (AT) with some resources for fabric recycling. The main article is about an artist using reclaimed fabrics - the list begins about halfway down the page. A lot of places that talk about "recycling" old clothes really mean donating them, but the AT list has companies that actually recycle worn out fibers.

Recycling shoes can be tricky as well, and right now no shoe is 100% recyclable. Earth 911 shares a great resource for recycling old shoes - the Nike Reuse-a-Shoe program.

Have you guys run across any organizations that recycle worn out fabric or old shoes? Let's keep the list of resources for both going in the comments!

Image Credits: Creative Commons photos by Jeffrey Beall and Martin Lopatka