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10 Creative Ways to Recycle CDs

By Holly Campbell

Every year around April, I receive at least 8 CDs in the mail. They are from companies that put their annual reports on compact discs to save on printing and shipping costs. Since I don’t keep them, I either give the CDs to the local library or I recycle and reuse them creatively.

If you have have countless old CD-Roms or DVDs you no longer want, please don’t just toss them away. You can recycle and reuse the disks for many fun projects. Here are 10 great ideas to get your creative juices flowing...

What Can I Do with Old CDs?

1. Use a CD, shiny side up, under small pillar or votive candles. It gives a pretty glitter at dinner parties and also keeps the wax from staining the tablecloth.

2. Tie an invisible thread onto the disks and hang them on trees or plants to keep pests away from your garden or yard. The CDs spin in the wind and the reflective rays bouncing off the disks scare away the birds and squirrels.

3. Make CD mobiles by pasting 2 disks together and hang them at different heights. Drill holes in the top and run a decorative chord through the hole.

When the wind blows them, they make beautiful rainbow refractions. You can also decorate the disks with glitter, glow paint or add a couple of small bells at the bottom for chime effect.

4. Re-use old DVDs as drink coasters. Draw fancy designs on them with a black permanent magic marker, and fill in with colored markers. Then cover the center hole with a piece of felt.

If you cannot draw, how about decorating the DVDs with gems, sequins and stickers to jazz them up a bit?

5. Reuse a bunch of old disks into futuristic-looking wall decorations. It is really easy, even young kids can help to make them. Simply use a double adhesive tape and stick the CD onto the bathroom wall.

The kids can cover the hole with pictures cut out from magazines or even their own photos. Place the disks on the entire wall or in a scattered fashion for shiny, rainbow throwing decorations.

6. Make unwanted CDs into reflectors. Use them as reflectors on your mailbox, back of haywagon, bicycles, or as driveway markers.

7. Turn old CDs into paper plate weights. Place a double stick tape on the disk and then attach it to the bottom of a paper plate.

This helps to solve the problem of paper plates being blown away at outdoor picnics. Just pull the CD off the paper plate before you toss the plate away.

8. Re-use CDs into garden row markers. Write the name of the vegetable you plant in your garden on the disk with a permanent marker, and tack it to a stick.

Then push the stick firmly into the ground to mark your garden rows so you know what you're planting. It also helps to scare away rabbits.

9. Make a cute Halloween pumpkin using a CD Rom. Thread yarn through the hole and tie. You may want to glue or tape it to the CD to keep in place.

Next, take an orange construction paper and trace around the CD on it. Cut out and glue it to the CD. Trace 2 circles if you want to make your CD double sided.

Cut out 3 triangles from a black paper, 2 to make the eyes and 1 for the nose. Cut a crescent shape for the mouth. Glue them on to the orange covered CD to make a “hi-tech” Halloween Jack o’ Lantern!

10. Use CD-ROM as a flower holder. If the stems of your flowers are too short or won't hold the flower up, place the disk over a glass of water and put the stems through the hole of the CD.

The shiny surface also acts like a mirror, beautifying your flowers.

The possibilities of recycling and reusing old CDs and unwanted DVDs are endless. Try some of our ideas or create your own! You never know where your creativity will take you so have tons of fun reusing those old disks!

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