Monday, August 11, 2008

New purpose

Project Support Beauty in Nature is all about greener living and cleaner communities - one project at a time.

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One thing we've been trying to do lately is re-purpose plastic containers whether they're recyclable or not before discarding them. For example...

  • The tube that Airborne comes in is the perfect size for quarters - used to need them for laundry, still need them for water, occasionally bus fare or the stamp machine.
  • We dump bags of sugar into a large plastic ice cream container with a lid. It's easier to scoop it out for baking and keeps the bugs away.
  • Those Glad containers that lunch meat sometimes comes in are great for lunch-sized portions of leftovers, salads or yogurt. (I buy a big thing of plain yogurt and add fruit or whatever to it myself.)
  • Which reminds me. Yogurt containers are not my favorite thing for leftovers, since they're not transparent, so I either label the top or use them for other things. Recently, I used one to mix vinegar and water for cleaning. I didn't have time to finish the job, so I just stuck the lid on it and put it under the sink. That works, right?
  • A clear pesto container now keeps clothespins.

Using containers I brought home from the grocery store anyway keeps me from buying new things to serve those purposes (less cost, less waste) and keeps the containers out of the landfill for a little while longer.

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Photos by me.

4 comments:

  1. My kids play with used yogurt containers (the big ones) in the sandbox in and in the bathtub.

    Love the Airborne tube as a quarter holder. I always need quarters for parking.

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  2. That's a great suggestion! If you don't have kids, there might be a preschool or day care center near you that would like extra yogurt containers, etc.

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  3. I love that kind of re-using! My parents were so big on that, so we do that around here, too. What we don't reuse, we put in the recycling, of course. :-)

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