5 Creative and Eco-Friendly Ways to Recycle Your Vinyl Banners

Mesh Direct has an ongoing mission to continue to lead the way toward an environmentally positive future. We all know the importance of reducing our impact, reusing what we have and recycling as much as possible. One of the best ways to achieve this is by investing in a high-quality, durable banner that can stand the tests of time, especially with the increasingly unpredictable Australian weather.

However, we also know that not everything can last forever; sometimes, campaigns, branding and businesses change. When this happens, deciding what to do with your unwanted vinyl banners can be quite the hassle and even frustrating. That’s why in this month’s blog post, we’ve come up with a few creative recycling tips that will keep them out of landfill, in line with our mission to pave the way for a more sustainable industry.

Donate to Your Local Community Groups

Whether it’s a school, kindergarten, afterschool care, scouts group or local art collective: children plus food, paint, slime or gardening can equal quite the mess! Donating vinyl banners can be an excellent solution for supporting these communities in minimising tremendous mess and protecting their facilities like school grounds and classrooms.

Due to their durable coatings, vinyl banners can be cleaned really easily and are a great way of protecting indoor floors, footpaths, ovals or even carpets from messy activities. If you’re short on time and can’t reach out to your local community organisers directly, Freecycle.org is another great marketplace where you can list your banners for free collection to those who require a tarp solution for craft, storage or landscaping needs.

Connect with the Reverse Garbage Initiative

Another creative alternative if you’re struggling to find someone who is interested in taking preloved banners off your hands can be to connect and build a donation system with a waste reduction initiative where materials can be stored and put to use when needed.

Reverse Garbage is a veteran in this area. They are an environmentally-oriented organisation with a mission to save hard-to-recycle landfill materials and renew their value by making them available for reuse by families, students, artists and community groups. We even discovered that previous customers used vinyl and mesh banners from Reverse Garbage to make their outdoor bunting for decorative purposes!

It’s a great way to reduce your disposal costs and carbon footprint, avoiding the overhead costs of energy consumption and waste generation associated with plant recycling.

Create Unique and Functional Bags

Probably our most creative and artistic recommendation on this list led us down a surprising rabbit hole of exciting fashion and creativity! If you’re exceptionally crafty, up for an artistic challenge or know a sewing master, you can make wonderfully unique and waterproof bags from your old vinyl banners!

When it comes to repurposing this material, your only limit is your imagination, as vinyl banners can be quickly and functionally upcycled into a stylish urban tote bag with a bit of creativity, and the best part is that there are plenty of sewing patterns available for this kind of project online.

If you’re looking to make something even more bespoke, we also came across some more advanced projects like these streetwear-inspired messenger bags and this super functional adventure pack tutorial on Youtube! 

Start a Side Hustle on Online Marketplaces

Are billboard and vinyl banners a large part of your marketing strategy? There’s a good chance you might be accruing years worth of banners. Stockpiles of banner waste can happen to any business, particularly if you promote electoral campaigns or recurring public events like festivals or markets that change line-up and themes year on year.

Although these banners make fantastic marketing touchpoints that are not only often visually appealing but also valued by the community, you might actually begin to contribute significantly to some of the most problematic waste found in Australian landfill sites to date.

That’s where the humble side hustle comes in. There’s no better way to make your existing banners eco-friendly than to participate in the circular economy. Running a small side business or selling old stock under your business names can help make a little money back on these outdated marketing materials and show your clients and customers that you are an environmentally conscious business.

There are heaps of places you can start selling your banners! We recommend advertising your banners on marketplaces like Gumtree, eBay and Facebook Marketplace as PVC Tarps, Protectors and Scrap material. Help the environment, help others and help your back pocket!

Purchase an Eco-Friendly, Recyclable Banner

As one of Australia’s leading companies in the signage industry, Mesh Direct is proud to provide environmentally responsible bannering options for construction sites around Australia. Since 2019 we’ve introduced more eco-friendly banner options like EcoVinyl banners alongside our alternative carbon-neutral vinyl banners.

Our mission to be more eco-friendly doesn’t stop there, nor should yours!

Let us introduce you to our specialised recycling program, ensuring that once you’re done with and no longer wish to keep your banners, you can return them to us to be effectively recycled and repurposed into something brand new.

We knew that regardless of how eco-friendly we made our banners, there would still be the issue of them one day finding themselves in landfills due to how challenging they can be to recycle. We teamed up with TerraCycle to create an easy return and recycle service. Check out our recyclable signage program if you’d like to learn more about the process. However, it’s actually quite simple! All you have to do is mail it back to us; we then clean and prepare the signs for recycling and send them to our partners at Terracycle, where they are turned into things like grocery bags.

The benefits of participating in this program are two-fold, you not only have the peace of mind knowing your banners will be recycled and turned into something new like traffic cones, park benches and more, BUT we also reward our eco-friendly customers who recycle through us with a $100 credit on their next banner purchase. Now, that’s a creative way to save the planet and save money.