What's your favorite "reusable"?

I reuse plastic water bottles.

I also reuse those tiny alcohol bottles, like mini scotch bottles, and put milk in them to take to work to put milk in my tea.

I reuse Chinese takeaway containers to store food, birthday candles and decorations, spices and things in.

I reuse glass candle containers and refill them with candle wax.

I use shoe boxes to store photos, papers and bits and bobs in.

I use attractive mugs where the handle has broken off to hold pens/pencils on my desk.

I use the desiccant packets that come in shoe boxes and handbags to prevent moisture/mould in my camera and lenses. I never throw them out.

I use old toothbrushes to clean difficult to reach places in the bathroom and to scrub the grout in the bathroom.

I reuse disposable cloths that have only been used for wiping over furniture and use them to clean the loo before throwing them out.

Plastic shopping bags are used to line bins.

Old sheets and some old clothes become cleaning rags.

Old clothes are used to fill the dogs’ beds.

I use the plastic packets sheet sets come in to store shoes when I travel too.

I also reuse bottles and toothbrushes for washing things. I reuse writing papers, any kind of papers as long as they have some spaces to write. I reuse notebooks and turn them into draft books, comic books, ect… I reuse boxes for very self-explanatory purposes. I reuse strings and ropes as toys.

I reuse yogurt containers -
– flower posts for starting seeds
– holding parts when disassembling something
– holding a little water at my work bench when soldering or grinding
– holding alcohol for cleaning small parts.

Very handy.

I reuse plastic bags from shopping and from hotels. The hotel ones are laundry bags. I bring them with me traveling and use them over again several times. Grocery bags I reuse as trash bags, but mostly for grocery shopping I use insulated shopping bags I purchased and I love them. Cut down on my plastic bag use by about 80%. I also don’t worry the frozen food will melt before I get home.

Walgreens gives me my meds in a small (not so small) plastic ziplock bag. I use them for travel. I put things that would be awful if they spilled into my luggage in there. Things like liquid soap or nail polish.

I would really like to reuse the medicine bottles I get from the drug store. Great ideas for that I am always interested in.

I use and reuse plastic forks and spoons for snack-eating (salads, mixed fruit, yogurt, etc.) but mainly for transferring cat food from cans to paper bowls.

My favourite is postage stamps when they haven’t been stamped over with ink and still look brand new. If you buy and sell a lot of stuff on ebay it comes in handy and saves money. Also plastic bags from groceries, we store them and re-use those as well.

@Earthbound_Misfit wins the prize. Never heard of the milk in tiny alcohol bottles, and that’s perfect.
You have to be careful (supposedly) about reusing water bottles, but I do it too. I have some heavy square ones that came with some nasty flavored water in them that I’ve been using nearly 10 years.
I’ve wondered if the desiccant packs that come in over-the-counter meds could be used in spice bottles??
Kudos on refilling the glass candle jars!

I’ve started saving the ‘duds’ from my printer, turning them over and re-using. I was have a time with printing something yesterday and I used the same papers 4–5 times over, knowing it was a test run, @Mimishu1995.

With lids, @LuckyGuy? I get grief for saving them. It’s habit…a lot of time that was the perfect size when I took my lunch, and I didn’t have to bring them home. I get grief for sour cream-etc. containers, too, but they’re the perfect size for gifting a taste. Put the cake on the upturned lid, put the bottom over, and perfect cake saver!

I had a great insulated bag that I’ve lost track ot, @JLeslie, and I’ve not been able to replace it.
People will bring boxes of jewelry to the auction, divided out into individual zip-lock bags. I started saving them and we give them back to the people buying jewelry so they can empty our display trays into them. I do the zip-in-your-luggage thing, too.
I save the medicine bottles until I eventually get frustrated and burn them, sorry to say.

I mainly only keep the individually wrapped plastic utensils, @Pachy. I save them for another time and use metal at home.

lol. We save those uncanceled stamps, too, @Furby. The PO isn’t as diligent as they once were. Also keep an eye out for “collector stamps.” Especially collections – several times we’ve been able to buy them for 50¢ on a dollar, then used Elvis for postage. They don’t expire if uncanceled.

Since the enormous snow drifts make it impossible for me to get to any field away from the house, I use double-bagged plastic grocery bags for cat litter removal, before I put it in a trash bag.

My friends with dogs also use the double plastic baggies for picking up dog poop.

Plastic knives make useful supports for seedlings started in small containers in the house.

My mother used the small packets of desiccant in her hearing aid storage boxes.

I saw the desiccant packets made specifically for hearing aids really cheap yesterday, @gailcalled. I wondered again if they were okay to use around food. The disposable salt shakers at the business tend to clump up in the summer and I thought to but them in a bin with those desiccants when not in use.
I’ll have to look into what material they are.

I use cloth towels instead of paper towels (although I still use paper towels for bacon grease and to wipe out my cast iron pans). I ordered towels with snaps on them so that they can hang on a regular paper towel holder.

I use cloth diapers on my baby.

I use reusable feminine hygiene products.

I reuse glass bottles (like that spaghetti sauce or coconut oil come in) for food storage. Since I use coconut oil instead of butter, I keep an empty coconut oil jar to microwave smaller amounts of solid oil for cooking/baking/measuring.

I give small boxes and plastic bottles of kitchen items for my toddler to use in his pretend kitchen.

I keep dried out markers to make watercolor paint.

I keep hotel and sample products in a drawer in my linen closet. We have a seemingly endless supply of travel products. I refill the bottles if they get used up. I never buy travel containers.

I got a little salt shaker for free that I keep in my office. I’ll refill it when it is empty.

I use wool dryer balls instead of dryer sheets. And they cut down on the time needed to dry a load of laundry… so I save on electricity too.

The only thing I really re-use are paper plates that I buy and then after use for non-messy snacks, sandwiches, etc. re-use them for cat food plates. Figure I am saving water and soap by not washing their ceramic bowls every day. Of course I save some plastic containers, bags, etc. but I am not a hoarder type. If I am not going to actually use something in a reasonable amount of time, like a few weeks I don’t save it.

Just more clutter and I hate clutter.
Nobody needs 800 plastic bags and thousands of bread twist ties and 400 paper bags. lol

My Favorite reusable is Cigar Boxes! I use them for hundreds of storage duties and make purses with them.
Coming in second, I am irresistibly drawn to interesting Tin boxes for reasons previously stated.
My wife beats me up from reusing a lot of the things I did as a Bachelor owing to the clutter and my habit of not labeling things in the refrigerator.

@Cupcake is clearly in the running for the ‘greenie’ prize.
We had a couple bring a dozen boxes or more of dishes to the auction. They washed the dishes, dried them, and then wrapped them in new paper towels. We saved them and used them for cleaning and drying our hands for weeks. lol.
The cloth baby/hygiene products are amazing in this day.
I keep all my glass bottle and jars, too. Soon to be obsolete.
Never heard that about dried out markers!
I have an old basket on a stand (sorta like a planter) that I fill with hotel soaps, etc. for guests in the bathroom.
What’s a wool dryer ball?

I save all my bags, @Coloma, and they all get reused.

I can’t get rid of a tin advertising box, @majorrich. Old metal Band-Aide boxes are the best. Mento’s are putting out the coolest little tins right now with breath mints in them.

@ibstubro I forgot I re-use plastic grocery bags for the cat littler scooping, I do save some things, just not everything. I have a friend that is a total hoarder, saves everything even if it never gets used, ever.
I am just practical about what I save, if it is not something I am going to have a relatively quick usage for I pitch it. I see no need to keep something around on a “maybe” I’ll use this in the next 20 years.

More like the next 20 days. haha

Here is a link with directions for making your own wool dryer balls. It also explains their benefits.

Great! @Cupcake. I might try the suggestion of unraveling a sweater and trying to make some wool dryer balls from that.

My suggestions are to wash on hot many, many times to get a good felting going on. Also, make the balls bigger than you think you would want. The large balls don’t get stuck in shirt sleeves, etc.

So, would about 3 soft-ball sized balls be good? I also wondered about a whiffle-ball core for less winding and less material? Good/bad idea IYO?

I think you want a bit of heft to throw around in the dryer… so I’m not sure about the whiffle ball idea. Although the experiment would be fun.

I have 7 that are wool roving… so a bit lighter than re-raveled sweater yarn… and are a bit smaller than a softball. But over time they will shed/shrink a bit or go missing… so I’m sticking with that for now. At one point, I had about 9 that were slightly smaller than a baseball that I made from clearance yarn (they were heavy)... but I’m down to only 2 or 3 now. They were just too small for my other household members to bother to pick out of the dry laundry. The big ones are pretty much just waiting in the bottom of the dryer.

I use cloth diapers on my baby.

Do you launder them, or have a service, @JeffreyBany?

The Folger Coffee cans are so nifty that craft sites suggest painting them and putting decals on. I don’t like the painted appearance, so I just use a sticker to record what’s in the can. There are two sizes. The big one will hold a one gallon Zip-Loc freezer bag containing just under five pounds of flour. Bear in mind that any grain must include a bay leaf in the bag and one in the can to kill bug eggs.

Remember that vinyl bags let a small amount of air through, so mice can smell the food. Freezer bags are thicker than storage bags for that reason, and they must be kept in a can made of metal or a plastic that will withstand the odors. Coffee cans are specifically made to seal in odors. Your five gallon plastic bucket is not that good.

Yeah, I’ve never had any luck painting plastic, @SmartAZ.

The coffee cans work well if you take up a collection, or sell things on the honor system, too. Opaque, and easy to make a slot in the lid.

I have seen the articles on wool dryer balls. They are fantastically expensive, and I don’t use dryer sheets so I see no advantage in them at any price. I am told that aluminum foil balls work as well for much less expense, but since I don’t feel a need for them I never tried them.

You can make the wool dryer balls, @SmartAZ. You just make yarn balls with 100% wool yarn. I was wondering about starting with a tennis or whiffle ball as the core, so there’b be less winding.

I use empty K-cups as flower pots for starting seeds. They even have a drainage hole in the bottom.