When you think about what it means to recycling scent, what do you think about? Maybe using leftover wax, or you may think of those big fragrance gadgets that you often see in public restrooms that puff bursts of fragrance into the air.
Maybe you may think about the refillable cartridges that you place in your little Glade or Air Wick electrical thingy. Well, that’s not at all uncommon because those are the most widely marketed methods of proposed scent recycling available.
I don’t really consider most of these ways of recycling at all. Here’s why:
- For an item to be recyclable, it has to actually convert something that would be wasted into a reusable product.
- According to the EPA, a recyclable item prevents pollution by minimizing a need to collect new raw materials.
- An article in the New York Times, stated that the environmental benefits of recycling come, mainly, from reducing the need to manufacture new products.
So having said all of that, let me explain a bit what I am talking about when I say recycling scent.
Background
When we decided to make a line of rustic candles, we thought it would look really rusticy to have wood pieces in our wax melts. So, we experimented with different things and ended up with cute little sliced rounds of birch branch because they had the look of tiny versions of the tree trunks that we were already using for so many of our products this fall.
But, then, we started thinking about how the wood pieces would be left in the tart warmer once the wax was melted. We thought about now nice they'd look in the wax, but also about how the wood would be leftover and scooped out of warmers after the scent was gone and then tossed.
What a waste of beautiful wood pieces!
After a bit of pondering, the thought occurred to me that maybe those little pieces of birch would be quite usable after the wax was all melted.
We wanted to reuse the birch to create a totally new product from it.
Testing
I tested the birch after adding it to the wax.
No go.
The scent from the birch wasn’t strong enough to even smell the scent. So, I thought about how porous wood is, and it hit me to put the birch in the oils and let them absorb the fragrance.
I did this and the results were fabulous! The porous birch held the scent very nicely, so that when we put them into the wax and removed them at the complete melting of the soy, the scent was still strong enough to put the wood into small burlap bags to create new scented items, such as a sachet or a car freshener.
We recycled, with this product, by preventing the tossing of plastic (no plastic containers) and reusing the birch in the burlap bags they come in.
Summary
So there you have it, the Everything Dawn way of recycling scent. The best thing is that you can continue to add scented oil to the wood rounds and reuse them over and over again, making them fit into all three categories mentioned by Wikipedia, the EPA, and the New York Times. (Oh yeah!)
Disclaimer
I would only say, as a disclaimer, to be very careful when using wax products in a drawer, with linens, clothing or anything fabric related. Since scented wax is made with oils, they could leave some sense of staining, which wouldn’t be good. However, using them in inconspicuous places in your home or office space will work very nicely. And, guys, they make amazing car fresheners when you hang them from the rear view mirror.
Well there’s the scoop on recycling scent.
If you like the idea of reusing leftover wax from your candles, check out our guide, 31 Ways to Reuse Your Leftover Wax.