by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Reusing and re-purposing household items can very easily become a habit and, as far as I am concerned, it is a good habit. However, once you have started this habit you will soon be questioning everything before you throw it away. Although there are times that you may only will find one purpose for reuse, it still helps to reduce waste.
For some items such as plastic containers of various kinds, as well as others, it easy to find second uses for, but there are other for which it is not that easy and below are some some items that you might not have thought about reusing, but which you can reuse nevertheless.
I have been talking about this not just about household items and I shall do talk about it again, and I am sure there will be opportunities when, at some later stage, we shall revisit this again.
VINYL TABLECLOTH: And old vinyl tablecloth can be used on the entryway floor. Position it felt side up during snowy or rainy days to keep your floors clean. The felt side catches the mud, dirt and water, and the vinyl side keeps your floors dry. Makes a good tarp to drag leaves in the fall, too. So, even if it is a little worn on the top side do not throw but think of reusing it.
WINE CORKS: Remove the glass from an old frame and glue on as many wine corks – you can use for this the real cork ones as well as the plastic corks – onto the backing to make a cork bulletin board.
Some people suggest to cut the corks in half before glueing them to the backing but I suggest that you do not do that. Ordinary corks often flake and the plastic ones are, in fact, very difficult to cut.
Glue the corks onto the backing in sets of two alternating from horizontal to vertical and back. When finished hang up and use for messages.
CHAMPAGNE CORKS: Make into coat racks. Wine corks, especially of the plastic kind, can also be turned into pegs and coat racks, but Champagne corks look and work much better.
SMALL PLASTIC CONTAINERS: Can be used to hold your twist-ties, rubber bands or baking soda for cleaning, and I am sure you can find a few other things that you can store in there as well. I certainly could.
COOKING WATER: Instead of tossing it down the drain, use it in the garden.
CANDY CONTAINERS: Use M&M tubes, Altoid tins and Tic Tac containers to hold quarters for parking meters, tolls, lunch money, emergency phone calls or the laundry machine. Use them to hold a few adhesive bandages for your purse or glove compartment, or have a handy place to store your saved seeds from your garden. They can hold toothpicks, sugar substitutes when traveling and salt and pepper or spices when camping. Altoid tins have also been know to be turned into small survival kits for the outdoors but avoid the mistakes of following the instructions of those that want to put an entire logistics corps into it.
PRODUCE MESH BAGS: Reuse mesh bags from oranges in the bathroom. Hang it and use to store tub toys to dry, if you happen to have kids and still indulge in the water waste of bathing as opposed to showering.
Also most useful in which to store soaps, proper soaps, I mean, prior to use, out of their wrappers. This hardens them (store bought soap I am talking about here) and makes them last longer. Scrunched up they can be used as scrubbers, too, for pots, in the same way as you would those nylon scourers.
And there are a huge variety of other things that could be listed here but it could also take for every to write it and read it then. Let me just send you on your way with the thought of “think before you throw” and let that apply to everything and anything.
© 2011
