Re-purposing Your “Trash” for the Festy Life

While doing some Spring cleaning an idea occurred to me. While getting rid of some clutter in my place I realized some ways to re-purpose some of the “junk” into festival gear. If you keep festival season in your mind year round you can save yourself some money in the long run. Here’s some examples:

For starters, if you’re like my roommates and I take-out food is a regular occurrence. Every time I get take-out, even if I don’t ask them for it, they always throw in some plastic cutlery. Often the food is eaten at the house where we have our own silverware so then we are stuck with either throwing this stuff away or letting it pile up in a drawer, perhaps never to be thought of again. To curb my frustration with these take-out places forcing me to produce more waste, I realized that instead of throwing them away I could add them into my festival gear. They usually include napkins, salt, and pepper, which can all be used while grubbing out at the campsite without having to waste plastic and money by buying more disposable cutlery.

Another often looked over item is the plastic zipper bag that comes with a comforter set. This is usually a fairly sturdy thick plastic bag which comes in handy when you are packing your bedding for a festival. If you use an air mattress instead of a sleeping bag then you have to pack sheets and blankets. This bag will not only keep everything together and easy to pack up in the car, but it will also protect your bedding in the event of some rain. If you are heading off to the shows and it looks like rain is on its way, you can just toss all the sheets and blankets in this bag to protect them from the weather while you’re away.

Another surprising useful item is the shower curtain. If you use decorative vinyl shower curtains at your house you can see how they do not last forever. The loops break, the graphics crack, or you just see a new cute one you want. Whatever the case, after a new one comes along to replace it you are left with this big piece of trash. Perhaps instead of throwing it away you can use it to improve your campsite. Some ideas of what to do with it include: placing it under your cooler in the car to avoid wet seats, use it as sort of a “rug” in your shade tent to keep the grass down and bugs away, use it as a table cloth for your picnic table, spray paint it to make a flag to mark your site, or hang it up for some extra shade. They are not ultra durable so they may not replace tarps in every way, but the idea is to get at least one more use out of it before just tossing it in the trash.

You can keep festival life in mind while cleaning out your closet as well. There are lots of items which no longer suit your eveyday needs but may be put to good use at a festival. Perhaps instead of throwing out that worn out pair of tennis shoes they can become your muddy festival shoes. You were gonna throw them out anyway, so why not give them a last hurrah. If they get caked in mud you can just toss them then or add them to a shoe collage at the festival. Those Halloween costumes that you have no use for, throw them in your festy gear! You can wear them or donate them to some crazy partyer who wants to wear something funky. Old sheets which have become worn and uncomfortable could be tie-dyed and used as tapesties to create shade around you site.

Keep these things in mind throughout the year when you thin the heard around your place. I suggest investing in a large Tupperware container which you can compile all of your items and keep them in one place and out of your way until the next festival.

I hope you found this useful, and please feel free to tell us what re-purposed items you have discovered!