As time goes by, it becomes paramount to seek ways to protect our environment. Hence the need to go for Eco-friendly products or engage in Eco-friendly activities to save the planet.
Lanyards are one of those items that you may have one too many of. Attending a series of conferences and events leaves you with a ton including the one you may have from your office.
In this article, we will show you the different ways you can recycle your old lanyards.
The 3Rs
When it comes to saving our environment and recycling old products like the lanyard, it rests on 3 concepts known as the 3Rs– Reduce, recycle, and reuse.
First of all, excess lanyards can be reduced or cut short before even thinking of how to recycle them. If you are planning an event, you can consider partnering with the supplier to provide only what you need for the number of persons. You can have them around to provide them and easily take with them any excess on their part.
Reusing your old lanyard is a wonderful way to promote Eco-friendliness. You can even as an event manager if you can come to the event with your favorite lanyard. That way you’ve helped them reduce production by one.
Recycling is the major area of concentration. You can recycle your old lanyards to promote Eco-friendliness.
How You Can Recycle Your Old Lanyards
While lanyards can not be fully recycled, you can make use of the various parts like hooks, buckles, and the material itself. So you can remove the different parts and recycle them differently.
Here are the different ways your old lanyards can be put to good use;
- Making pet leashes: The material used for lanyards is highly strong and durable, this can be used as a substitute for a strong rope to hold even the most raucous pet. Your old lanyards can be brought together and raised to make strong rope. Three or more lanyards can be jointly braided to any length and used for custom collars. You can even use the lanyards to make repairs to leashes that hold both medium and small-sized dogs.
- Handbags and tote bags: An amazing way to be innovative with recycling your old lanyards is by using them to repair your handbags and tote bags. Lanyards are made with strong synthetic materials that are stronger than the ones you find on those bags. Has your cloth tote handle gone bad? You should consider replacing them with a lanyard. You can even leave it in the metal parts and have a key holder on your bag.
- Using as key holders: How can you possibly have so many lanyards stashed around your home and still complain about losing your keys or planning to buy a key holder? This is a lesser-known function of lanyards that is often neglected. Using lanyards to hold your keys makes it extremely hard to lose. You can even get creative with this by organising the keys for different purposes with different colors of lanyards. This way you will know where to find any key.
- Can be used as straps for cyclists or bikers: The durability and sweat-resistant attributes of lanyards make them a good fit to be used by bikers or cyclists to replace old straps or to hold other equipment. They can also use them as leg or arm straps for various activities. Instead of discarding the lanyards in a way that upsets the environment in the long run, it is better to use them innovatively.
- Bookmarks: Yes! You heard that right. Oh sorry! You ‘saw’ that right. Lanyards can be used as tools for bookmarking especially if you cut out the metal bits. They can help make your atlases and other referencing books hard to lose. Furthermore, you can use lanyards to keep pages you may want to come back to later.
- Donation to charity: Yes, if you have so much around you or just want to do away with them, you should consider donating them to charity organizations. These organisations can recycle them or reuse them for their events, hence reducing the number they have to create.
- Purchasing eco-friendly lanyards: This tops them all. Getting Eco-friendly lanyards, to begin with, makes all the difference. You can make yours with recycled PET materials or bamboo lanyards which are biodegradable. The cost of getting these green lanyards varies slightly but is proven to be cheaper in the long run. However, while getting this, consider buying from trusted lanyard makers so as not to be cheated into buying a normal lanyard in place of buying a green lanyard.
Wrapping Up
The aim is to promote a sustainable environment, so whatever we can do to ensure that we contribute our quota towards an enabling environment should be encouraged. Lanyard’s many uses are enough reason to not have it merely occupying space. Recycling makes them even more desirable.