# recycling guitar strings



## Gary787 (Aug 27, 2011)

Do you recycle your strings and if so how? i have 3 acoustic guitars and change strings every 4 or 5 weeks. I started just holding on to them but the time has come to get rid of them. I dont think the blue box recycling people will take them. Any ideas?:smilie_flagge17:


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## bluzfish (Mar 12, 2011)

I used to give mine to my grandma for her autoharp and keep a couple of old sets for replacing the odd broken string. Since then, like Gary787, I've always wondered what I could do with them. I have a large collection.


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

Our local landfill separates steel so when we have enough steel, toxics, batteries, etc, we trip them down the highway to the landfill. Where they take them I don't know.

Peace, Mooh.


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## Stephen W. (Jun 7, 2006)

My wife made a couple of pieces of jewellery out of some of my old cast offs. Then, several years ago Mat Anderson played The Empire Theatre here in Belleville. His opening act was guy from B.C. who goes only by his first name, Wil. His girlfriend made fantastic jewellery from his strings and sold them along with his music. I think my wife felt hers was to amateurish so she hasn't attempted anything since.
I always thought that this would be a great project for a charity group to get into. Teach the handicapped or mentally challenged to make beautiful, useful items out of things like old guitar strings and then sell them with all the money going back to the charity.
Anyway, if you do a search for guitar string jewellery you'll find dozens of sites including one dedicated to breast cancer. Some of the stuff people make is utterly astounding.


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## Cedric (Oct 23, 2012)

*Recycling strings with Music Solidarity*

Our french association Music Solidarity recycles all music equipment (nickel strings, cymbals...) in order to raise funds via a scrap merchant, and finance solidarity actions in varied domains such as music, health or sustainable development...We recycles all steels used for making strings like Iron, Nickel, Bronze, Cobalt...
Everybody can participate in *Music Solidarity*’s recycling programme, just pass on your strings or cymbals...So far, we collect guitar/bass strings and cymbals in over fifty collection points (music shops, music schools, recording studios, etc...) in France and Europe, so that we can recycle the metals contained in those accessories (guitar strings are made up of 80% nickel plated steel), thus generates energy and natural resources savings.

*Why recycling :*It seems today indispensable to reduce the ecological footprint resulting from the exercise of our common passion: music. Separating guitar or bass strings for example from the household waste, is introducing this high-tech waste back into the same production cycle that created it, and by doing so this becomes a real "eco-musician-citizen" action. 







*How :*
By simply handing back your strings to one of our partners, you so have the insurance of an optimal recycling. We work hand in hand with a very reliable industrial partner, able to technically value at best various metals by electrolysis (water) or by heating them. These last ones will then be resold, reused in various products. Nothing is kept in Grenoble, our partner recuperates the used material immediately. 














*Recycle :*
It’s protecting non renewable natural resources, sometimes extracted; produced and shipped from the other side of the world, it’s saving energy, it’s decreasing gases and reducing global warming. Participating in Music Solidarity’s programme means fewer energies, less pollution, but it’s also being responsible and showing solidarity.
More information www.musicsolidarity.com
[email protected]



Stephen W. said:


> My wife made a couple of pieces of jewellery out of some of my old cast offs. Then, several years ago Mat Anderson played The Empire Theatre here in Belleville. His opening act was guy from B.C. who goes only by his first name, Wil. His girlfriend made fantastic jewellery from his strings and sold them along with his music. I think my wife felt hers was to amateurish so she hasn't attempted anything since.
> I always thought that this would be a great project for a charity group to get into. Teach the handicapped or mentally challenged to make beautiful, useful items out of things like old guitar strings and then sell them with all the money going back to the charity.
> Anyway, if you do a search for guitar string jewellery you'll find dozens of sites including one dedicated to breast cancer. Some of the stuff people make is utterly astounding.


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## FrankyNoTone (Feb 27, 2012)

Yep, my wife uses some for bead jewellery and they make good picture hanging wire. I keep them around for various craft/utility purposes.

Environmentally, it makes better sense to reuse things in their manufactured form since the energy/resources were already spent.


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## Spikezone (Feb 2, 2006)

I have for some reason always cut the ballends off my strings and recycled the rest. I tried stringing some up into a necklace once (thought it would be cool for a guitarist to have something like that), but they pulled the hair on my chest (painful and stupid). A couple of years ago on our yearly trip to Hornby Island (a hippy island paradise for sure), I took some thin crafter's hemp and a tin full of the coloured D'Addario ends I'd saved and made a bunch of macrame ankle bracelets for my three daughters and whoever else were there with us. They were a big hit. I actually wore mine (I guess I'm a bit of a hippy at heart myself) for a year before it fell apart. Maybe I'll do it again someday.
-Mikey


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## Spikezone (Feb 2, 2006)

Stephen W. said:


> His opening act was guy from B.C. who goes only by his first name, Wil. His girlfriend made fantastic jewellery from his strings and sold them along with his music.


Is Wil and insane guitar player or what? Amazing!
-Mikey


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

Last time I changed bass strings I thought of doing this--due to their size.

I know someone who collects scrap metal and then gives the money to charity--I'll see if he wants my bass strings--and guitar strings as well--it would be a tiny percent of his actual load--but if they take them--i would help.


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## rockinbluesfan (Mar 3, 2008)

I worked with a guy who took my old strings to Cuba with him - the locals there were very grateful!


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## Mooh (Mar 7, 2007)

rockinbluesfan said:


> I worked with a guy who took my old strings to Cuba with him - the locals there were very grateful!


Yeah, there was a guy around here who collected them, cleaned them, and made up sets for Cuba. As I understand it, it's virtually impossible to get USA made strings there and European strings are almost as hard to get. In any event it was the right thing to do. 

The ball ends...I save some for one of my kids who makes some jewellery.

Peace, Mooh.


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

rockinbluesfan said:


> I worked with a guy who took my old strings to Cuba with him - the locals there were very grateful!


I'd have to make sure I didn't cut them then...


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