How to recycle clay in your home pottery studio

One of the best things about creating pottery is the ability to recycle, or reclaim, your clay. As long as the clay has not been fired, it can be rehydrated and processed back into workable clay. This blog post will take you through the steps I follow to recycle the clay scraps in my home pottery studio.

There are a number of different ways you can process your recycled clay (or ‘reclaim’ as it is often called in the pottery world). However, all methods follow the same basic steps; collect, rehydrate, mix, let dry, and wedge.

COLLECT YOUR CLAY SCRAPS

You can recycle the clay scraps that appear at all stages of the making process. These include your throwing water that gets filled with clay, clay slop that comes off your hands while throwing, leather hard trimmings, and bone dry failed pots. I collect my clay scraps in two buckets. I have one small bucket that sits beside my wheel while I throw. This buckets gets all my throwing water, slop and trimmings. I also have a large reclaim bucket that I empty the smaller bucket into when it gets full. My bone dry failed pots get thrown straight into the large main bucket. When the large bucket is about three quarters full, I know it’s time to process my reclaim.

REHYDRATE

Clay needs to be fully rehydrated and in a liquid form before it can be dried back out into workable clay. Therefore you need to let all your dried out clay such as trimmings and bone dry pots fully rehydrate before you process your reclaim. You don’t want any hard lumps in the bucket. Get in there and squish any big chunks up with your hands, and add extra water if needed.

MIX IT UP

I like to mix my reclaim using a basic kitchen stand mixer. Another option is to use a paint mixer attachment on an electric drill, or go old school and get in there with your hands. The purpose of mixing up the clay before drying it out is to get rid of any lumps and make sure the clay is all the same consistency. This will help you later when you come to wedge out the dried clay.

DRY IT OUT

Once the clay is a lovely, smooth, pancake batter like consistency, you need to move it to a surface where it can dry. After much trial and error, here is the method I use to dry out my reclaim.

I use hardiebacker cement sheeting board. You should be able to purchase this from your local hardware store such as Bunnings. It is located in the trades section of the store, down with all the wood, and comes in various different sizes. I had to cut it up to fit it in my car and then into smaller pieces to fit in my studio. We purchased a knife made to cut cement board to do this. The benefits of hardiebacker board are that it is super light, easy to move around, and very absorbant. I didn’t want to mess around with plaster if I didn’t have to and I have found this to be a great alternative.

I place my pieces of hardiebacker board on two bricks to allow airflow underneath the wet clay, and place an old pillowcase on top of the board. I then pour my reclaim onto the pillowcase to a thickness of about 3-4cm. I then place another pillowcase on top of the reclaim. The purpose of the pillowcases are to help the clay dry evenly, make the clay easier to flip, and also protect it from any debris, as I dry my reclaim outside.

I leave the reclaim to dry for anywhere from a few days to a week or two. How fast the reclaim dries mostly depends on the weather. Just like your regular finished pieces, the reclaim will dry fastest in warm, dry weather. In the middle of a cold and wet winter it can take a very long time! During this drying time I like to flip the clay over one to two times. I do this by placing a new, dry piece of board on top of the top pillowcase and flipping the whole thing over. I then take the original, wet board and let this dry out before flipping again. I find this process helps the clay dry faster and more evenly.

Once the clay is no longer sticky to the touch, it is dry enough to roll up and wedge.

STEP 1: Bricks/wood scraps to allow air flow

STEP 2: Place hardibacker cement board on bricks/wood scraps

STEP 3: Cover hardibacker board with an old pillowcase

STEP 4: Spread reclaim over pillowcase

WEDGE IT UP

Your clay is now ready to be wedged up and used again!

I hope this post helped to clarify the process of recycling clay and inspired you to tackle that bucket of reclaim sitting in the corner of your studio! It is such a blessing to be able to recycle our scraps and failed pots. Happy potting!