If you’ve watched Today’s Homeowner over the years, you know that I’ve been a longtime advocate of green living and eco-friendly practices, especially recycling. I practice what I preach both at home and here in our office, where we sort out our paper, plastic bottles, and aluminum cans for weekly pickup.

I also encourage recycling construction waste as much as possible in my remodeling company, since it’s not only better for the environment but saves money on materials.

It may come as a surprise to learn that there’s something even better than recycling, but there is and it’s called reuse. Reusing existing materials eliminates the labor and energy needed to recycle them into new products.

You may not realize it, but you probably practice reuse already. Anytime you buy something from a garage sale or refinish a piece of furniture rather than throwing it out, you’re reusing it. Other more unusual reuse projects you might not have thought of include turning an old door into a desk and making a shoe caddy from 5-gallon plastic buckets.

With that in mind, check out this project below submitted by one of our viewers for a great way to reuse leftover scraps of PVC pipe by turning them into a fence!

You can find more information on the many uses for plastic at www.plasticsmakeitpossible.com.

I like to keep things out of the landfill, so we took various sizes of PVC pipe that were being thrown out and cut them into different sizes to make this unique fence. The tallest piece is about 3 feet high and the smallest one foot. The fence took a little time and imagination, but very little money.

The pieces were joined together with rustproof screws on the inside of the pipe. Rebar and a small amount of concrete were used in the center and end pipes to hold them in place, with small drainage holes drilled through the pipe just above the level of the concrete.

The back of the fence is flat, and the front has a sculptured look by the different size pipes. It can be painted or left white. I’ve had many people ask who manufactured our homemade fence!

Mary Potts
Del Norte, Colorado

Tags: , fence, PVC, PVC pipe