TrashFreeTales

What are CD cases made from?

This week has been quite slow around my house. The weather has been very rainy and that has allowed me to spend some time working on a craft that I started a few months ago but never finished. When I first started to explore reducing my plastic and waste, I began by researching how recycling worked. The numbers that you see at the bottom of containers, and what containers were easily recycled and what wasn’t. The one that had stuck with me was CDs. Especially the cases.

CD cases fall under the recycling number 6-PS-Polystyrene. This plastic is also known as Styrofoam. I will be honest when I say that surprised me. I grew up in the 80’s as a kid and the 90’s as a teen and Styrofoam was all over the place. My experience with it was mostly with the packaging from fast food places and with the packaging in the grocery stores, mostly in the meat department. It never occurred to me that Styrofoam could be clear and hard as in the case of CD cases.

By the time the 90’s had arrived most of the fast-food places had swapped out the Styrofoam food packaging to the paper/cardboard ones we have today. But CDs had taken over the music stores and cassette tapes were out. You could even sign up for CD clubs and have mass amounts of CDs sent to your home every single month. And people started CD collections. I had dated a guy whose stepdad was a CD collector. He had an entire wall in his living room that was nothing but wall to celling CDs that showcased this. If you really wanted to mess up your day all you had to do was place one of the CDs in the wrong spot as he even had them alphabetized. Then eventually iPod arrived and made all these collections pretty much obsolete.

Too Many CDs now

Now if you go into any secondhand store, you will find a tremendous number of CDs just collecting dust. I am sure there are a few people out there that are still collecting CDs for the nostalgia of their youth. But for the most part these CDs sit there until the store is overwhelmed and then sadly, they get tossed out. So, I pulled out my small little collection from my own youth and wondered what I could do with them.

What to do with all my old CDs and CD cases

The CD itself was fairly easy; I could just paint them.

But what could I do about the case? It took a little thinking but eventually I came up with the idea to turn them into pen/paintbrush holders. I had seen a YouTube Video-Recycle old CD cases with The Ribbon Device–

that showed a way to connect the cases in a way that didn’t require glueing them. Allowing them to be more secure. The first one I made I turned it into an entire diorama and everything in the diorama was made with items that would have been tossed in the garbage. My eldest son still has this and uses it in his workshop.

I have also thought about how to use aquarium silicon to make CD cases into plant holders for succulents. I will be trying my hand at those next. The reason for aquarium silicon is because it is nontoxic as it must be or the chemicals would kill the fish. Hopefully I will have the opportunity this week to go into town and pick some up and start designing the plant holders.

This Week I finished The CD case pen/paintbrush holder I have been working on for awhile

I started this CD case pen/paintbrush holder in the summer. But things got busy so I had set it aside for a while. I was finally able to finish it this week, and I think it turned out pretty nice. I plan on starting another one soon, only this time I want to make it appear like a library. So that may take a little thinking, and a whole lot of miniature books. I will try and remember to take photos from the actual start to the finish for the next project.

The part of the cases that has had me scratching my head is the inside part that holds the CD. The only idea I have been able to think of would be to turn it into a frame for painted CDs and then the artwork can be hung up on a wall. For now, I just have a box that I put the inside part of the case into until I can really work out the design.

If anyone has any other ideas on how to use the inside part of the case, please feel free to share them in the comments.

Just a little tip when crafting with CD cases

One tip for anyone who is interested in making their own CD pen holders, paint does not like to stick to the case. I have tried many different types of paint, and they all tend to easily scratch off. What I do after I get the box together is line everything with scrapbook paper and cardboard. I use contact cement to stick the lining as that stuff pretty much sticks to anything. From here I can add paint, glue, and any item that I am using such as the egg carton bricks and stones without worring that it will fall apart.

Wrapping up the week and Goals for the next few weeks

So, this has been how my week has been going. Just working on my newest pen/paintbrush holder and thinking of other ways I can use some of the CD cases I have in my house. Hopefully I will be able to pick up some aquarium silicon soon and make a few plant holders. I could start to work out the picture frame design for the inside part of the CD case. All these projects take time though, and I spend a vast majority of my time waiting for glue and paint to dry.

Thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings. I hope you all have an amazing week and I look forward to sharing more thoughts, tales, recipes and crafting ideas designed to reduce the impact of waste and plastic on the only home we have-Earth.