Since I've upped the level of crafting from recycled materials, my kids have really been enthusiastic about two things.  1)  We can recycle everyting! 2) Everything can be a project!  It's just what I was hoping for.  During Halloween, we had the Friendly Bats hanging from the lights in our kitchen from threads, and knowing that Halloween decorations had to go away, my daughter started thinking about her next project.  "If we hang something else from there, we'd be recycling the string!" she said.  Eyeing up a yogurt container like the one she used for the bats, she commented, "We could make reindeer--this will be the body, and we need a different container for the head, and we can attach strips of paper for the legs!"

Now, every scrap of paper, nearly every piece of trash is something that can be used for a project, according to my 5-year old.  And we've always done crafts, and we've been talking about recycling (and doing it) for quite a while.  But I think it was really the yogurt container bat project that sparked her appreciation for trash.

That's an example of the importance of introducing your kids to different materials.  You never know what project, however silly it might seem, will open their eyes.  You never know what will really get their creative juices flowing.

So go forth and make projects from trash.  Even if you don't end up with the next Robert Rauschenberg, maybe you'll end up with the greenest kid on the block.