Waste Less Wednesday: Paper

As much as our society is trying to get away from using paper, there is still plenty of it that comes into my house each week. Here are some ways I reuse it before putting it in the recycle bin:

Use for coloring: My child loves to color but not in coloring books. I save paper from work and let him color on the backside.

Messy projects: Craft projects are fun but can be messy. To protect my table, I put scrap paper on the table.

Filler for shipped packages: Every now and then I get in an eBay mood and sell a ton of items, but I usually run out of filler for my boxes before I'm done. Shredded paper makes a great filler. I find it works best if you stuff it in a newspaper wrapper to create little pillows.

Print on the back: If I'm printing something for my eyes only, I put used paper back in the printer and print on the unused side. We buy a lot less paper now that I've started doing this.

Lists: My husband says I'm the queen of lists so I use envelopes and paper from junk mail to write my lists on.

How do you reuse paper or what do you do to reduce the amount of paper in your life? Feel free to leave me a comment or send me an email.