Children’s Librarians were green before green was cool. Raise your hand if you have a bag of felt scraps somewhere in your library. How about a box full of leftover craft supplies? Anyone have a basket of small boxes hiding under their desk? I just know I’ll find a craft for those someday. How about a stash of jar lids? I use them to hold glue, which is applied with the very un-fancy Q-tips I get at the dollar store (just opened a catalog and see “Craft Swabs” for sale, that’s what I’ll call them from now on). Cheaper, better, and less wasteful than glue sticks housed in plastic: I can even toss the cardboard and cotton sticks into the compost. Toilet paper tubes? There are whole books written on how to use those things. All these bits and pieces come in useful, eventually. Felt scraps? Yes, I need that tiny piece of white for an eye on this bear I am making for storytime. Or maybe they could become the stuffing for a feltie at a teen program. Bits of tissue paper? Small pieces of ribbon? Yes, I can use those for Valentine’s Day collages.
We have a craft that we do every year called Art in a Bag. You take all that leftover stuff that you just couldn’t throw out, and divide it up into brown paper bags, staple them shut, and hand out one to each participant. Easy, easy, easy, and so environmentally friendly. Not only are we children’s librarians saving the environment, we are modeling recycling for our young patrons and their parents. Instead of going into the garbage, empty toilet paper tubes are now a pair of binoculars, or a telescope. Those paper plates leftover from the family picnic become snake mobiles. So, please do not feel ashamed of your stash of stuff, embrace it. Just make sure you have room for it all and use it up by the end of the year. (Summer Reading IS just around the corner.) Feel free to share your own examples of green librarianship in the comments!