Getting Started: Reuse

Reuse is the part of the "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" mantra that I am most excited about right now. One day recently I was looking at all our recyclables and I thought, "There has got to be SOMETHING I can do with all this stuff!"

I posted the following picture on facebook and got some helpful and not so helpful advice (from my husband, ahm :)

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  Brandie Neal Pinterest!

  June 29 at 2:38pm · · 1 person
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  Kaia Aline Flowers Save them for when we make cleaning products

  June 29 at 2:46pm · · 1 person
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  Jeremy Pierce We can use them to remind us to buy more food.

  June 29 at 2:57pm · · 1 person
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  Vicki Welch Cunningham Recycle and get the inevitable done

  June 29 at 3:29pm ·
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  Amanda Pierce Thanks guys! We do recycle, which is why they aren't in the trash (our recycle bin is full right now). Even that seems like a waste sometimes with such interesting containers!

  June 29 at 3:31pm · · 1 person
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  Amanda Pierce Kaia, I will definintely save the bigger ones for that.

  June 29 at 3:31pm ·
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  Brandie Neal Hey, the order is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, so you are on the right track. :D

  June 29 at 3:56pm ·
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  Shannon Finley If you know any one who works with small children some of them can be used to make instruments and things!

  June 29 at 5:34pm ·
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  Kaia Aline Flowers we could probably use all of them
  
  
  

So many possibilities! Unfortunately I couldn't find uses for all the containers pictured above and most of them were recycled, but I did save a few. The containers below are waiting to be used for several things: water collection, eco-friendly cleaner storage, and gifts (shhh!)

Reuse is very closely related to reduce. The more items you reuse, the less new items you will have to buy! Consider a reusable water bottle that can replace hundreds of plastic bottles.

As I said, I'm just getting started with the whole reuse thing, so I don't have tons of advice to offer in this area. I would love to hear any ideas that you have!

Also, you may have noticed a mention of "pinterest" in the facebook comments. If you have not discovered pinterest.com you totally should! It is a great forum for the sharing of ideas and many people on there are interested in do it yourself projects. The few ideas I do have for the containers came from things I saw on pinterest. I look forward to sharing with you the projects I come up with. Until then...

Enjoy your tiptoe through the tulips!