Today we are going to learn a bit about reusing (the second of the three R’s) in the context of a fun DIY project for pets. As you can see in the pictures, this pet bed (something seemingly silly, pointless, and artsy and crafty) can actually reduce a great deal of waste compared to purchasing a brand new pet bed.

The bed in the first picture was made from an old baby changing table. These baby changing tables are all over Craigslist, yard sales, thrift stores, and even just tossed out as “trash”. I just happened to score mine at a church I work at that was cleaning out furniture from their nursery room. From here, the bed can be repurposed many ways. Firstly, it can be repurposed as shown in the picture by simply adding some bedding in each layer to create a cozy nesting spot for each of your “furchildren.” If you only have one furchild and also have access to and are comfortable with using a saw, you can cut the changing table into sections to create a single little bed for your cat or small dog (as seen in the second picture.)

A tiny pillow bed might run $20+ and wooden beds can topple $200. I love my cats, but there is no way I’m spending that much on a pet bed. This bed cost me absolutely nothing and reduced a lot of carbon footprint and resource expenditure that comes with purchasing a brand new pet bed.

Not only did I save landfill space/carbon footprint from incinerating this baby changing table, I also reduced the following:

Gallons of water saved from:

Repurposed quilts (one large quilt for each bunk bed): 8,600 gallons of water.

7 boards of lumbar which (with each board requiring 5.4 gallons of water to the tree that produced it) 7×5.4 = 37.8 gallons of water

Total amount of water conserved:  8,600 gal + 37.8 gal = 8,637.8 gal

Now let’s assume that baby changing table was sent to an incinerator to be burnt. If every pound of wood incinerated yields 2.59 lbs of CO2, how much will CO2 would be produced if the entire 133 pound wooden changing table was burnt?

2.59 lbs C02 x 133 lbs wood = 344.47 lbs of C02
Total reduction in C02 “pawprint” = 344.47 lbs of C02

With the environmental benefits plus the monetary savings, making a DIY bed for your pet(s), would make a fantastic edition to any summer project list!