When we repurpose items, we promote sustainability and creativity in everyday life. For people who want to reduce, reuse, and recycle and don’t mind getting their hands dirty with DIY, here are a few ways to upcycle unwanted items around the house instead of throwing them away.
Glass jars
Washed glass jars are great for reusing to store spices, homemade preserves, or leftover food. We can also use them creatively to make vases, candle holders, or terrariums using other crafting supplies you may have around the house. So, give those glass jars of yours a second life!
Plastic bottles
Plastic bottles can be cut and repurposed for the garden as hanging baskets, watering cans, and planters for small herbs or succulents. They can even be converted into bird feeders to hang outside your window. There are also a ton of children’s craft projects that they can be useful for!
Newspaper
Instead of putting your old newspapers into the recycling bin, why not reuse them? Crumpled newspaper can be used to clean windows without leaving streaks, and the EPA tells us that shredded paper is also a carbon-rich material that can benefit your compost bin.
Old clothes
Old clothing can be cut into pieces and used for cleaning around the house or sewn into reusable bags for grocery shopping. They can even be twisted and tied into cool dog toys or cut up and sewn together into old-fashioned patchwork quilts. The possibilities are endless!
Old towels
Old towels make excellent bedding for pets, and they’ll find it so comfortable! You can also make new bathmats to keep the floor dry and slip-free or add your old towels to your cleaning supplies, using them as rags to clean the house and mop floors.
Coffee grounds
This might surprise you, but old coffee grounds have tons of repurposed uses! They’re a natural fertilizer for your garden soil and can be put into the refrigerator to neutralize any bad smells. They can even be recycled for beauty purposes, according to Healthline, who recommends using them to make exfoliating scrubs.
Wine corks
If you are a wine drinker, don’t throw away your corks! If you grind them up, they can be used as mulch for houseplants, helping to keep moisture in the soil. Alternatively, you could give the corks to your kids or grandkids, who will happily glue the corks together for a fun art project!
Old socks
Your old socks might be smelly now, but once they’re filled with rice and sewn shut, they can make fantastic microwaveable hand warmers for the colder months. If you don’t like the idea of reusing your socks like this, you should at least use them as rags for cleaning.
Toothbrushes
Old toothbrushes make ideal little scrubbing brushes for detailed cleaning tasks, like grout and around faucets. You can also use a toothbrush to clean and maintain jewelry or to scrub away stains on your clothes or upholstery. Just don’t get those two ideas mixed up!
Cereal boxes
Old cereal boxes are excellent for compartmentalizing clutter from around your house. For example, they could store old magazines, or you could fit them inside drawers to organize space for office supplies. Children also always need them for art projects, making masks, or building models.
Aluminum foil
Aluminum foil can be a great help around the house, even if it’s crumpled up. It will do an excellent job at scraping away grime from heavily soiled dishes and pots, and tarnished silverware can be cleaned using aluminum foil combined with baking soda and salt.
Tin cans
Old tin cans can be painted and decorated, as DIY Joy recommends, to be used as desk organizers for pens, pencils, and other supplies. They can also be used to store art and craft supplies or decorated in a rustic way and placed on a dining table to hold and display cutlery.
Shoe boxes
Old shoe boxes make wonderful under-bed storage; they are neat, lightweight, and stackable. You can repurpose them as gift boxes, decorating them attractively for Christmas or birthday gifts, or you can just give them to your kids, who will no doubt find a use for them in school projects.
Broken pottery
Pottery and ceramics can have beautiful colors and designs, so throwing away broken pieces sometimes feels like a shame. If it’s a favorite piece of pottery, why not use the broken shards to create mosaic art pieces? Ensure kids are supervised when doing this because those pieces might be sharp!
Old suitcases
If the wheels of your old suitcase no longer work, don’t let this declare them redundant! A broken old suitcase can be transformed into a cozy, stylish bed for a small dog or cat with some cushioning and blankets. That might sound weird, but trust us–your pets will love it!
Greeting cards
It always feels sad to throw away old greeting cards, so why not turn them into unique bookmarks? You can cut and laminate portions, tie ribbons through the tops or get creative with them in countless other ways. Old greeting cards are still great for scrapbooking if you’re not much of a reader.
Egg cartons
Finally, don’t throw away those old egg cartons! DIY Projects suggests you reuse them as fire starters because they’re highly flammable once filled with wood shavings and covered in wax. They are also great for gardening due to their biodegradability, so they can make for wonderful seed starters that you can put straight into the ground. Handy!
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