by: Julianne Boulton
Although carefully sorting out and sending your used items for recycling is a good practice, you can’t recycle everything that way. Many of those items that can’t be recycled end up in land fill sites where they can remain for years depending on what they are made of. Luckily there are many different ways in which you can reuse your old items and reduce the amount of waste you create. The ideas given below will help you start thinking of opportunities to reuse items for new purposes.
There are lots of different items that can be reused for storage purposes. Old jars either glass or plastic can be used to store other food products such as salt, coffee and sweets. Instead of buying new jars of food items like coffee choose to buy refill packets which you can put into a finished older jar.
As everyone knows, old shoe boxes are ideal for storage of small items like jewelry or stationary items. Neatly sorting out different types of items into different boxes and labeling them creates an easy way to find something small when you need it and also makes storage neater. If you want to be a little more creative you can paste paper or cloth on the outside of each box to customize. This way no one will ever recognize what the box was before. You will also get an opportunity to show off your creative skills to your family and friends. You can even use them as gifts. Remember to use scrap pieces of paper or cloth from clothes that cannot be given to a second hand store if you can.
Composting is an ideal way to dispose of your food waste but instead you can re-grow some of your old vegetables. Roots of vegetables like onion, lettuce, cabbage and ginger will easily re-grow if you keep them half submerged in water. The water will need to be changed regularly so that vegetables don’t get slimy. This creates an almost never ending supply of food!
Plastic carrier bags can be reused for shopping or if anything has spilled on them you can use them for lining bins. Zipper bags used for food can be washed and used to store other things such as jewelry and cosmetics. They even make ideal travel cases that you can keep in your handbag. There are numerous ways that you can reuse old CDs or DVDs. Attaching some felt to the bottom of the CD will turn them into coasters. You can also use the light reflecting abilities to make sparkly hanging ornaments.
These are just a few ideas for reusing things that lie around the house and finding a new purpose for them. Next time you want to buy something new just look around your house and see if there is something old that you can use in a new way instead. Not only will it save you a shopping trip and some money, you will also end up with a very unique item.