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A friend of mine recently asked: “what do I do with my old (beautifully 70’s) bathroom suite?”

Since we share a joint hatred of landfill and also a belief that we can do anything (we recently rebuilt her entire house using polyfiller), I was inclined to join in the quest for an answer. So I set out on an intrepid expedition to explore the world of bathroom suite recycling. It took a while, which was strange as the world of bathroom suite recycling turned out to be rather small. So here is the map to that rather smallworld.

Don’t Move it, Improve it.

The supremely highest calling for your suite is to stay right where it is and serve you for many years to come. There are lots of paints (try and get a green one), sealants and finishes on the market to revamp your bathroom. Combine it with a redecoration for the entire room and you could find you’ve turned your beast into a beauty. You can even get them professionally re-sprayed and enabled if need be. A re-do is always more ecological than buying new. And it rhymes so it must be true.

However, if, like my friend, your tired suite doesn’t work in the room (as in it leaks so much that the person downstairs in the kitchen gets a shower when you do) then the time has come for it to find a new home or be reincarnated as something else.

Bath Seeking Room

Thanks to Nouveau-hippyness, there are now a plethora of options available to re-house most things. Of course there is ebay, craigslist or local classifieds such as gumtree, if you want to make a buck (you could always post for free). Then there’s freecycle when assurance of a good home is all you need. If you dare to venture into the real world, car-boot sales and yard-sales are fun (once you’ve manhandled your double-whirlpool onto a trailer). So, give it a whirl?!

Of course you could set the world to rights by donating your old tub to charity. Two birds, one stone, as it were. To donate to charity, you can always contact local charities and thrift stores, or see if your local Habitat for Humanity can make good use of your old suite.

Flowerpots and other things…

When exploring the world of bath-tub reincarnation there seams endless possibilities. Where will your imagination take you? It seems we are amongst friends too. Many people know people who’ve made good(?) use of an old tub. So here’s our top 10 home-spun creative solutions to bathroom recycling…

1) I sunk my old bath tub in the ground and filled it with earth to create a bog garden.
2) My dad sunk an old bath-tub into the ground and used it as a pond. With the plug in and sealed, obviously!
3) My Buddy made a herb garden out of his toilet and bathtub.
4) Bathtubs are used on our local allotments for water storage - filled by rain or a hose from the tap. Saves walking up and down the allotment with a watering can if yours is not near the tap.
5) A neighbour really has made a garden feature of the wc complete - without the lid it does make an attractive plant bowl - the cistern just makes it look amusing. It’s against a garden wall!
6) I used my metal bath to create an outdoor wood fired tub. It is amazingly relaxing to have a hot bath in the shade of a large tree or under the stars.
7) Farmers and horse friends always use old bath tubs to turn into water troughs for their animals. – they use them to bath the dog too!
8) We use an old tub to collect rainwater from our gutters – and then we water the garden with it.
9) We used ours to make a giant pot for a maple tree we loved but whose roots were wrecking the drains. The bath contained the roots, saved us money and protected the drains!
10) I love to dye fabric, so I use a friends old bath for my studio – and the stains don’t even matter!

Recycle Recycle Recycle…

If the above sounds a little too ‘The Good Life’ for you, or too much hard work, you may want to think again. In my search to have a suite recycled I discovered it is no mean feat to find somewhere that does such a thing. It is probably easier to turn it into a water feature. There are a few local solutions provided by the rare forward thinking council, so the thing to do is look into your own local situation and contact local government.

Most firms able to recycle plastic, metal, ceramic and fibreglass bathroom suites cannot collect small quantities. But they tend to be amenable types – so get in touch and see if you can drop it off at their plant instead.

A few helpful places to look at are:
http://www.ourearth.org/recycling.htm
http://earth911.org
http://www.ceramicrecycling.com/
http://www.ecocycle.org/charm/index.cfm
http://www.wasteonline.org.uk
http://www.recyclenow.com
http://www.toiletsalvage.com/

Happy bathing.



 

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