Since most garden hoses are made of PVC, they are unrecyclable, but many people don’t know that and send their old garden hoses to the nearby recycling facility.
Doing so is damaging for a recycling plant as garden hoses cannot be recycled. On top of that, their structure can jam the sorting machines at a recycling center.
Therefore, your best bet to dispose of a garden is to repurpose it. If you cannot think of an ingenious way to reuse an old garden hose, you can throw it in the trash.
Garden Hoses and Recycling
A garden hose is essentially a long pipe that appears to be made of plastic, and in most cases, it is, which is why many users assume that it’s recyclable and ship it off for recycling.
However, recycling facilities do not process garden hoses as those items are categorized as tanglers.
In the world of waste management and recycling, objects are classified into different groups in order to ensure that only those articles make it to the processing machines that are treatable.
Due to this, there is a list of things that fall under the classification of contaminants or non-recyclables.
Aside from that, a category of unrecyclable items is tanglers. Tanglers are usually not accepted for recycling, as they can seize up recycling equipment, halting the process.
What Is A Tangler?
A tangler is a rope-like item that can wrap itself around the components of a recycling machine.
Chains, ropes, garden hoses, clothes, Christmas lights, and all such things that can loop around parts of treatment equipment are tanglers that must stay out of recycling facilities.
For this reason, recycling centers do not accept tanglers. However, unfortunately, some tanglers, such as an old garden hose, end up in recycling plants and mess up the entire operation.
This happens because the general public does not know about the damage a tangler can cause to a recycling plant.
As mentioned above, old garden hoses are the most frequently sent tanglers to recycling facilities as they are ostensibly made of plastic. While that is true, it doesn’t account for the structure of a garden hose that mucks up the treatment machinery.
A hosepipe is made of rubber-like plastic, which may seem safe for recycling. If that may be true, the fact remains that a hose itself is pliable, so it loops around any and all appendices protruding from a recycling machine.
Simply put, the bendy nature of a hosepipe makes it unfit for recycling as it wraps around parts of sorting equipment, slowing down the process.
That is not all; there is more damage that a tangler can cause in a recycling facility.
Tanglers Slow Down the Recycling Process
Once a tangler, such as a garden hose, gets into the recycling plant and jams the system, the entire treatment line comes to a standstill while workers remove the looped pipe.
For this reason, a lot of time is wasted fixing a problem that wouldn’t occur if people stopped sending garden hoses for recycling.
The time lost in retrieving a tangler from a treatment plant can otherwise be used for recycling.
Tanglers Damage Machinery
Even after a tangler has been removed, the damage it caused remains. That is because when the unruly item curls around machine components; it pressures and damages the binding of the entire system.
Long story short, tanglers are not only bad for recycling facilities because they halt treatment, but also because they harm the machinery.
Tanglers Put Operators at Risk
Once a sorting machine has been entwined by a tangler, operators have to work tirelessly to remove the looped pipe to get the process going again. In doing so, many times, workers get hurt and injure themselves.
In other words, a garden hose not only puts recycling machinery out of commission, but also the operators on duty.
Tanglers Make Machines Less Efficient
When a recycling machine is damaged, it becomes less efficient. As a result, it may process even the recyclable items poorly.
That is, it might not treat recyclables to its maximum capacity. Due to this, many recyclable materials are not processed properly.
With all that said, it’s safe to conclude that an old garden hose should never end up in the blue curbside bin. So, what do you do with the leaky, worn-out hose pipes lying in your yard?
Luckily, there are many creative ways to repurpose old garden hoses.
How to Reuse Old Garden Hoses?
As the summer heat keeps getting intense, the plants and grass in yards require more and more water to keep from wilting.
Due to this, hosepipes have become a critical garden tool these days, forcing people to buy new ones if the old ones have worn out.
This means that many garden hose users have old hosepipes to dispose of but don’t know how to do so with recycling out of the picture.
To help those individuals get rid of unusable garden hoses, here is a list of creative ways to repurpose the handy garden tool.
Make a Soaker Hose
If you have a bed of plantation to water daily or if you just want to keep the grass in your yard lush, you should use your old hosepipe to make a soaker hose.
Poke holes in your garden hose and lay it on your yard plane, letting the water run through the pipe and drench the nearby plants and greenery.
You can also bury the punctured hose pipe under the ground and soak the sand to strengthen growing plant roots.
A soaker hose is also excellent for keeping a row of bushes or shrubs sufficiently watered all day, every day during the early development stages.
Cover Bucket Handles
Carrying buckets can be hard on the holder’s palm as the handles dig painfully into the skin.
If you have experienced it yourself, you would know how difficult it is to lug a bucket around, especially one filled up to the brim.
To save yourself from the pain of skin indentation, you can cover the bucket handle with an old hosepipe.
Slit the hose lengthwise and push it over the metal grip, sliding the rubber tube over the rough metal rod.
Once the rubber has covered the handle completely, fix it in place with masking tape.
Cover Garden Tools
Axes, shovels, pitchforks, scythes, rakes, and other gardening tools can put pressure on a holder’s hand, especially when used to maintain a large swath of field.
To avoid damaging your skin, you can wrap the handles of all your garden tools with an old hosepipe.
Doing so will provide a decent enough cushion for your palms and make gardening much more comfortable for you.
Blade Protector
Blades in chainsaws or pruning saws can be quite unsettling to look at without a cover, especially when you have young kids running around the house.
If you wish to attain peace of mind and not freak out every time your little ones go out into the backyard, you should conceal all the blades with a hosepipe.
As explained above, cut a section of your garden hose and slide it onto the blade you want to wrap.
If the metal saw plate is too broad, like in a pruning saw, you can just cover the blade teeth and tape the rubber in place.
That way, you can rest easy knowing that the most dangerous bit of your gardening tools is concealed and will not harm anyone.
Door Stopper
A garden hose is excellent for controlling a door’s movement. All you need to do is squeeze the pipe flat and push it under the door. It will expand and stop the door in place.
Another way of using an old garden hose to regulate a door is by cutting the pipe lengthwise and jamming the rubber around the edge of the door. This way, you will wrap the side rail in a hose casing.
It’s a particularly useful trick if you want to keep the rail from chafing against the frame casing with too much impact.
Simply put, to soften the blow when a door shuts, encase the door’s side rail with an old hosepipe.
Swing Chains Encasing
Having swings at home offers an incredible pastime for kids. However, the chains holding a swing seat can hurt a young one’s delicate hands. To protect your kid’s palm, cover the chain with an old hosepipe.
Likewise, if there is any metal rod or holder that your child or anyone in the family has to hold often, such as a latch lever, you can wrap it in hosepipe rubber to provide a cushion.
Faucet Extension
Sometimes faucets can go haywire and start spewing water in all directions.
In that case, perhaps the quickest solution anyone can try is pressing a piece of a hosepipe onto the faulty tap to provide a channel for the water to pass through.
This way, the water from the faucet will not spray everywhere, and land in the sink.
Ending Note
While an old hosepipe may not be recycled, it can be repurposed, as discussed in this article.
Even if you don’t immediately use your worn-out garden hose, keep it in the garage or elsewhere in the house to utilize it later.
If no opportunity comes up when you can use a hosepipe, put it in the trash.
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