Can I Recycle Crayons?

What’s better than a refrigerator absolutely covered with pictures colored by our kids or grandkids?  The smell of crayons alone takes me back to being a kid.  It seems like every family goes through literally boxes of crayons and an equal amount of coloring books.  What should be done with crayons when they’re too small to color with?

Recycling involves many facets of reuse such as putting used items through conventional recycling processes to make new items, upcycling items to repurpose them, giving them to others to cycle them through new users, and creating new items on your own through several methods.

One way to recycle items is to take small pieces of used items such as soap, candles, and crayons and combine them to make larger, more manageable pieces.

When doing this for crayons, you can use empty tin cans to melt the old crayons. If you would like, you can either sort them by color or mix colors to make new ones. You can even make them swirled.

Some colors will melt faster than others. Taking the paper labels off is not necessary. The crayons will melt with them on and then the labels can be taken out of the melted wax.

Once melted, the wax can be poured into shaped molds, cooled, and popped out ready for use. The new crayons can be stored in a plastic resealable bag or container of your choice.

Whatever you choose to do with your old used crayons, maybe tuck a couple away with those old pictures to remind you of the little hands who used them.

For more information on recycling visit www.wasteawaygroup.com.