Today there was last year's calendar that needed to be thrown away. I couldn't. I took templates and made the pictures into envelopes. Tracing, cutting, folding, adhesive, blocking out an addressable area with white paint...
I suppose objectively they're not more *valuable* than any other kind of recycling. I don't think that their recipients will particularly value their being handmade--ugly calendar squares visible on the inside!--but that small physical act of reclamation is so comforting to me. Ah, I have Saved the Thing. The Thing, that would otherwise have been Trash.
The five year old has a pretty good grasp of the relative alienation of modern life, is what I may be saying here.