What should you do with broken or damaged arrows?

Q

"What should you do with broken or damaged arrows?"

 

A

Well, there are a number of options you can use them for.

#1. You can repair them and use them again as arrows.

Possibly even keep using the same arrows for years and years if you get good at repairing them.

You could potentially even take a broken aluminum arrow that has a wider shaft, cut the shaft into smaller pieces, and use them to make footed shaft arrows out of your carbon fibre arrows, thus making them more durable (and more accurate at short distances).

#2. You can throw them out / recycle them.

I personally find this to be very wasteful, even though you are recycling them. They would have to be completely useless in my opinion to do this.

Also it should be noted that because carbon fibre arrows are made from carbon fibre, well, they're not really recyclable... So you should probably try to find a different use for them. Aluminum and wooden arrows however are certainly recyclable.

#3. Gardening! 

I know multiple people who use their old broken arrows for gardening. Why gardening?

Because a wide variety of plants often need a pole for them to climb on. Peas for example, as well various other varieties of plants. Broken arrows can also be used for labels so you know which plant is which (sometimes it gets confusing when they look similar), and there are other creative options for how to use your broken arrows in your garden.

#4. Crafting!

Some people are just really creative and can use long straight hollow rods for a variety of things. You can glue the arrows together to make sculptures, items for your home, decorations (xmas, halloween?), and other things.

#5. Reuse them for something else!

This is borderline crafting, but not necessarily. You might only need to trim the broken arrow shafts to a desired length and then you can use it for a variety of things.

Eg. While gardening is one example of reusing the arrows, you could also potentially use them for fishing by making a fishing pole out of broken arrows. It wouldn't be a very fancy fishing pole, but all you really need is a pole, fishing line, a hook and bait for it to catch a fish. (A little luck helps too.)

Winter is arguably the best time of year to be doing any kind of crafting project, but with spring coming gardening will soon be an option too!