Consumer Conundrum

The good news is that Mike and I cleaned out the space. All the old mini blinds and paint buckets are gone. [Well, at least they are somewhere else.]

In addition to the other things I ran across a dilemma. What you see pictured is a paint tray. I know, hard to tell, right? The only thing my family hates more than painting is cleaning up after painting. This tray tells the story of our color pallet. At least 4 colors deep and then a whole winter sitting in the rain and this is what a paint tray looks like.

So, I tossed it in the trash with this thought "these thing are about $3, my time is worth more than that. " So rather than clean it I would just get a new one.

Then I got to thinking about all of this pallet, reuse stuff. Isn't that always the problem. You can ALWAYS get some thing for less that fixing, cleaning or settling for what you have.

So which is it, my precious time or the planets precious resources?

This paint tray was now the symbol of our disposable society, so out of the trash it came!

It took about 45 minutes to scrape it to a usable state. It looks more like modern art that a paint tray but it is NOT in a land fill.

It turns out I am a pretty good picker-offer. If I drank beer I would be one of those label pickers, I suspect.

I guess that is the thing. It is fun to design stylish chairs out pallets or find creative ways to make planers out of trash. The real challenge is to reuse when it takes time and it is not fun.

I am no eco-nazi. I am glad that I am giving new life to old items while spreading this idea beyond the eco-chic and into the practical.

Paint Tray 1 / Land Fill 0

Oh! and from now on, I will clean the tray while the paint is wet, completely solving the problem in the first place.