16 Clever Ways to Repurpose Things You’d Normally Throw Away
When saving money also helps save the planet, it’s a win-win. The centuries-old saying, “waste not, want not,” has long advised us that if we don’t waste products we end up wanting for less. But now we know the less we waste, the less trash ends up in landfills after one use, or seeps into our oceans and soil.
Whether you think of it as saving money for yourself by repurposing or saving the planet by being more sustainable, here are 16 things you should never throw away after just one use.
To Entertain Your Kids (or Your Kids-at-Heart)
1. Toilet Paper Tubes
Rolls of toilet paper have paper tubes that, once decorated with crayons and stickers, can become kazoos or towers on a child’s version of a castle made from blocks or other pasteboard boxes.
Cut decorated tubes into smaller sections to create beads to string on a piece of yard or twine for a necklace. The Internet has many more suggestions for crafty kids of all ages.
2. Produce Boxes
Strawberries, blueberries and other produce come in plastic containers that have open slits on the sides. These can make great bath toys because water flows out of them like a sieve, which can create the perfect waterfall or rain forest.
3. Holiday Cards
If you have old Christmas cards packed away, punch a hole in the corner of each one and loop them together with a string or metal ring. Now you’ve made a book for little ones who love to look at photos, especially of other children.
Or, make them into flashcards for teaching letters of the alphabet by cutting the group photos into individual pics. Glue them onto index cards and write the corresponding letter for each name on the other side. The card showing “Nana” has an “N” on the other side, while the one showing cousin “Thomas” has a “T” on the other side.
4. Cardboard Boxes
Your Amazon delivery boxes can be stacked to create houses for Barbies or stuffed animals.
Here’s another option: Cut the bottoms out of boxes large enough to fit around your child. Help them decorate the boxes to look like a car, then use string or ribbon to create suspenders. Now you can hold speed-walking or running car races in the living room or backyard. or living room.
To Use Around the House
5. Netted Produce Bags
The netted bag that holds produce can be scrunched up to clean a really messy pot or two before you throw it away.
6. Broccoli Rubber Bands
Those thick rubber bands that come around bunches of broccoli are great “chip clips” to close bags of food or a hair-tie in a pinch.
7. Plastic Food Containers
The plastic tubs used for food like yogurt and hummus can make great storage containers. There’s really no need to ever pay for new plastic containers. By the time the lids are a little warped from the dishwasher, you can recycle them and start using the next round of empty food containers.
8. Old Towels and T-Shirts
Old towels and T-shirts with stains can’t be donated, so use them as dish towels or rags.
You can also cut them into strips and braid them to make a chew toy for your pooch.
9. Empty Shoe Boxes
If you have the time and energy to reorganize, use empty shoe boxes or smaller shipping boxes to create drawer organizers. The boxes’ height can be cut to fit drawers if needed.
10. Muffin Tins
One of the extra muffin tins that crowds your kitchen cabinet is perfect as an earring holder in your dresser drawer or for holding prized collections of shells, rocks and or stickers in your child’s room.
To Take Care of Your Yard
11. Wine Bottles
Fill a wine bottle with water, wildflowers and greenery to make a deck, patio or the front steps a little more inviting.
12. Two-Liter Bottle
An empty two-liter soda bottle can be converted into an easy, light watering can for indoor plants. Or cut off half of it and make it into a container garden for herbs on your kitchen windowsill.
13. Old Sheets
When raking up piles of leaves, pile them onto an old sheet, pull the four corners together and take to the trash or mulch pile. The sheet can be used over and over so you won’t need to buy lawn and leaf bags, trash bags or even a wheelbarrow.
To Take Care of Yourself
14. Water Bottles
Fill empty water bottles with sand or rocks for hand weights. Plus here are more ideas for making homemade weights and other DIY fitness gear.
15. Coffee Grounds
Used coffee grounds still have plenty of miles left in them. You can make a face or body scrub. If you rinse water through the used coffee grounds they can become fertilizer for flower beds.
16. Cucumbers
Cucumber slices — and used tea bags — soothe eyes that are strained from binge-watching “Succession.” Don’t stop there: We have even more inexpensive suggestions for a DIY spa day.
Contributor Katherine Snow Smith is a veteran newspaper reporter and editor who covers lifestyle topics, workplace issues and ways to make money for The Penny Hoarder. She is the author of “Rules for the Southern Rulebreaker: Missteps and Lessons Learned.”
