What do you re-use or re-purpose?

[RogueGypsy]

I'm sure many of you saw my 'OCD troll post' on Plan9, so are aware of my tendency toward what some might call hording. Of course I don't see it that way. Whether I'm a horder or not, I wouldn't see it that way. What I see is a room full of unfulfilled potential. Granted, the room isn't normally such a mess, but still contains a great deal of what some may see as useless junk.

Here's how I see it: Recycling is Bull Shit, it costs more and uses more energy than just producing new products from raw materials. So the whole spiel about "Saving the Environment" is crap. Yes, it keeps stuff out of a landfill, but it does so at greater cost to the environment, through the use of energy consumed, than simply burying it. Re-use on the other hand is economically and environmentally friendly way of delaying the disposal of products in a land fill. Hopefully delaying the disposal long enough for some one to come up with a better way to recycle these products. Contrary to the 'Tree Hugger' feel of the last paragraph, that's just a small part of why I save the things I do. The primary reason is found in the first paragraph -unfulfilled potential- being the key phrase.

Some examples of what I re-use and how:

I use empty plastic Folgers coffee cans along with desiccant packs from pill bottles (or any thing else) to store metal parts, nails, bolts, screws....etc. The plastic doesn't rust, obviously, and the desiccant keeps moisture off of the metal parts. The lids also fit much better than those on metal cans.
I use metal coffee cans for solvents, penetrants and cleaners. If something needs to be submerged, it's a real waste to use the volume of product necessary just once. With the coffee cans I can use it, put a lid on it and re-use it again later.
PVC and misc. small parts -often found in the plastic coffee cans- save me hours and $$ in trips to the hardware store to get that 'one' part that's missing in a project.
Boxes, the uses are endless. Primarily they serve time as storage to organize coffee cans full of stuff (not obvious in the picture, but true none-the-less), gift wrapping and cat toys. I don't know why Cat's dig boxes, but they do. Boxes see more cat time than any $100 cat tree I've ever seen.
Not seen in the photo is my collection of Tequila bottles. No I don't display them as a badge of honor like you might see in a college dorm room. But one late, drunken night after building a colossal 'Beeramid' a flash of inspiration over came me. How cool would it be to build a fountain out of many different styles of Tequila bottles?! Tequila seems to be the only liquor that gets creative with it's bottles more often than not. It's a work in the planning and collecting stages.
Basically I don't keep anything that doesn't already have a purpose, plan or known use. My limiting factor is time for all the projects or spare cash to get them kick started.

So what do you re-use or re-purpose that would otherwise go in the trash?


.


.

[Tirian]

Bicycles:

I enjoy saving them from headed to the dump, doing the simple fixes which are usually all that is required, and giving them to folks who can use them.

Some I chop apart, and weld into weird wacky and custom bikes.

[Grasshopper Green]

Boxes, but they have to be sturdy and in good shape. I use them to organize things, to wrap unboxed gifts, and to store things in. I also keep pill bottles or other smallish containers (Altoid tins, etc) because I do beadwork and they're good for separating. Other than that, nothing.

I am very much an anti-packrat. I frequently give old clothes, books, toys, etc. to charity. I don't recycle except for aluminum; I save cans and take them in for cash. I throw everything else away as there is no recycling bin at our condo complex.

[ZombieSquirrel]

Plastic shopping bags become small trash bags
I reuse sandwich bags if they don't become dirty or ruined.
Butter tubs or similar are used later as containers for lunch or leftovers

[genuinegirly]

Plastic grocery bags. I meticulously fold unbroken grocery store plastic bags into small squares and bind stacks of them with rubber bands. I used to wad them and keep them in compressed bags, but I found that the resulting wrinkles bothered me, and stuck-together bags were infuriating. I reuse the bags for everything from distributing garden produce to lining waste paper baskets.
String & Rope. You never know when it will come in handy.
Wood shavings After my parents had someone come through and pull out their junipers, their stump grinders left behind some sweet-smelling wood shavings. I have small critters for pets. It makes good bedding and helps out in the garden.
Aluminum foil Not around the house, but in the lab. We'll autoclave it after one use, then use it again. We had one guy who would collect even the ripped and otherwise unusable foil, which he would compress with a vice or something and make into some pretty sturdy, lightweight balls for his kids to play with.
Shirt pins Seems like my husband's new shirts always come with at least 20 pins. The nicer the shirt, the better the pins. I usually save them in a pin cushion to use for sewing.
Jars and plastic food containers I don't buy food-sized rubbermaid or tupperware - instead I reuse jars and other containers. Jar tops often lose their seals after a few uses, but they're still handy for a while. The red stains on the seals of pasta sauce can be removed by soaking them in a little bleach. Plastic yogurt cups and others that lose their lids make great manipulatives for our rabbit - she loves the small edges and tosses them around her cage.
O-rings ok, honestly I've only intentionally saved these when they were part of some hardware that flew on the shuttle.

We live in a college town so we periodically find usable discarded stuff on the side of the road: floor lamp, coffee maker, toaster...

[ASU2003]

I hope you didn't swipe any o-rings off the shuttle, it needs them.

And recycling isn't as bad as the OP makes it out to be... Aluminum is much better to recycle than mining and refining new aluminum, newspapers here get loaded up on a truck and sent to the insulation making factory, and glass gets ground up and used in roads/asphalt mixes.

I kind of wish that there was a re-use center, something like Craigslist, but where people could drop off things they don't need, and other people can pick up things they could use. Scrap pieces of wood, sheet metal, bolts, tools, pallets, boxes, bikes, car parts, etc...

[Dammitall]

Along with some other stuff (plastic bags for the litter box, ziplock bags for a bunch of things, wire ties to bundle electric cords and computer cables), I've started collecting dryer lint to use as tinder for (camp)fires.

[snowy]

I reuse a lot of things. ZombieSquirrel thinks I'm weird for using Adams peanut butter jars to store food in, but they're in a cupboard, so who cares? I reuse all kinds of jars.

I reuse the plastic tubs our salsa comes in for freezing things. They're very good for freezing, and they come in 2 different sizes. I reuse yogurt containers for freezing, too.

I reuse all kinds of plastic bags. I take plastic grocery bags in to my work. When kids get sent home with dirty clothes, the dirty clothes go into a plastic grocery bag. With as many kids as we have potty-training right now, we go through a lot of them.

I like canning because I get to reuse the same set of jars over and over again. I have quite a collection of mason jars.

I reuse paper bags and cardboard boxes as recycling receptacles and cat toys.

I reuse newspaper in my garden, in place of weedcloth. This is the first year I've tried it. We'll see how it goes.

[RogueGypsy]

Originally Posted by Tirian

Bicycles:

I enjoy saving them from headed to the dump, doing the simple fixes which are usually all that is required, and giving them to folks who can use them.

Some I chop apart, and weld into weird wacky and custom bikes.

That is very cool, I'd love to do that, but I need a shop before I start collecting anything else.

Originally Posted by ASU2003

And recycling isn't as bad as the OP makes it out to be... Aluminum is much better to recycle than mining and refining new aluminum, newspapers here get loaded up on a truck and sent to the insulation making factory, and glass gets ground up and used in roads/asphalt mixes.

I kind of wish that there was a re-use center, something like Craigslist, but where people could drop off things they don't need, and other people can pick up things they could use. Scrap pieces of wood, sheet metal, bolts, tools, pallets, boxes, bikes, car parts, etc...

I haven't researched Aluminum. Being a metal and used in very few consumer products other than soda cans, so I'll take your point as true on that. Just a very small segment of the 'household trash' roster.

Newspaper is the the most reusable paper by far, but it's also the a very small part of paper recycling. Anything glossy is far worse to deal with.

Glass is the one recyclable product that's worth the time and effort, that I've found in my research. It's the only product (with the possible exception of Aluminum) that takes the same of less energy to recycle as to produce from raw materials. And reproduces the same quality after recycling.

I'm not sure about in your area, but here in the Great NorthWet, the Enviro-Monkeys are all about re-use. We have several re-use centers in my area (county > 70K) ReStore being the most popular. But also several small entrepreneurs that recondition just about everything and resell them. We also have a Craigslist-esque site called Freecycle. Where individuals can post items for free, for others to pick up and use as needed.


..

[Grasshopper Green]

I forgot...I reuse bags as well. Plastic bags usually end up as trash liners, while sturdier paper bags are good for totes (I use these frequently at Christmas to bring gifts to work or family gatherings).

[genuinegirly]

Originally Posted by ASU2003

I hope you didn't swipe any o-rings off the shuttle, it needs them.

Nope, we're talking o-rings that have already flown and are being discarded, the ones for hardware that hold biological experiments.

[Lindy]

I reuse lots of things, both large and small, and I buy used as well.

Originally Posted by RogueGypsy

....We have several re-use centers in my area (county > 70K) ReStore being the most popular.....

There was one of these in my neighborhood until it closed last year. It was mostly office furniture (desks, file cabinets, tables, office chairs...) but also had some heavy iron storage shelves, car parts washers, vending machines, restaurant equipment, lumber, dog kennels, and lots and lots and lots and lots of paint.
I got a great office desk for my home office for $40 + another $40 delivery.Not an Office Depot desk, but one that would sell for a couple thousand dollars at a real office furniture store.
It was missing all its little drawer cubbies which I replaced with yogurt cups, smoked oyster tins, small glass jars, etc. A couple of coffee mugs with broken handles hold all my pens, pencils, scissors, letter opener, emery boards. A broken violin bow holds a ton of rubber bands, mixed with a few hair thingies and twisty ties, a paper punch.
I like old things that are still useable. I live in a 1927 house, have 2 cars, a 1981 AMC Eagle and a 2002 SAAB, I play a string bass made sometime in the 1920s, have a great pair of Advent stereo speakers made 40 years ago. I have an M-1 Carbine made during WWII and a twenty year old Apple LaserWriter printer that still works great.
I called it quits on coffee cans though, In my life, there's just no use for them, and last spring I threw away a couple dozen. Sorry. Now I usually buy coffee in paper bags.

Lindy

[Fremen]

I also re-use plastic grocery bags as small trash bags.
I love holding onto boxes of all sizes. You never know when you need that size box.

I'll keep around interesting shaped jars, too, to put my collection of interesting shaped rocks in.

We'll keep old newspapers around in case we need them to use as protection from paint, Easter Egg dye, shirt dye, or to absorb grease from cookies or other food. Also good for started the charcoal chimney for the grill.

I recently watched a program on one of the learning channels about recycling and the misconceptions about it.

They have a course in one of the big colleges/universities that study landfills and the rate at which trash broke down over the years.

They excavated down a few yards and found intact newspapers from circa 1900 that weren't degrading as much as they thought they should have.

If I recall correctly, the professor said the trash needed air to help break it down faster, and with the trash so compacted, it took it longer than normal to degrade. They're setting out to redesign certain landfills to be more anaerobic.

[Dammitall]

Newspapers... good—better than paper towels—for cleaning windows with your glass cleaner of choice, as well as for stuffing into wet shoes to absorb moisture and help dry them out.

[LaLa1]

Originally Posted by spinelust

Newspapers... good—better than paper towels—for cleaning windows with your glass cleaner of choice, as well as for stuffing into wet shoes to absorb moisture and help dry them out.

When we lived in Alaska we used newspapers a lot for getting fish smell out of the freezer. Stuff the freezer or cooler full of newspaper and it absorbs all the odors.

[genuinegirly]

Originally Posted by LaLa1

When we lived in Alaska we used newspapers a lot for getting fish smell out of the freezer. Stuff the freezer or cooler full of newspaper and it absorbs all the odors.

What a trick! I've never heard that one before!

[Shagg]

plastic shopping bags are a no brainer, we use them when cleaning the litter box.

Right now we are saving Fiji water bottles and martinelli apple juice bottles for use in table decorations for our wedding.

On a side note, I'd really like to see more trash burning cogen plants. It astounds me that more are not in use.

[snowy]

Shagg, here's an article from the NYTimes I read some months ago about trash-burning cogeneration plants in Europe: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/sc...h/13trash.html It goes into some of the reasons they aren't terribly prevalent in the United States.

[ZombieSquirrel]

Originally Posted by spinelust

Newspapers... good—better than paper towels—for cleaning windows with your glass cleaner of choice, as well as for stuffing into wet shoes to absorb moisture and help dry them out.

Originally Posted by LaLa1

When we lived in Alaska we used newspapers a lot for getting fish smell out of the freezer. Stuff the freezer or cooler full of newspaper and it absorbs all the odors.

Newspaper in rugby boots are great for both of these reasons: Moisture and Stank.

[Shagg]

Snowy, that article just highlights my irritation that more plants don't exist. Cogen plants are a win/win situation. Environmental groups campaigning against them with the argument that it will encourage people not to recycle is moronic.

The government has the ability to make this work. Oil refineries in California work under some incredibly strict air quality laws and I'm sure those laws extend to any industrial site that generates VOC's (volatile organic compounds). The CO2 generated by a waste burning plant is going to be more than offset by the pollution that wouldn't be generated by the same amount of waste going into a land fill.

[ItWasMe]

Plastic containers (butter, cool-whip, cottage cheese) we sometimes use to store left-overs in the fridge sometimes. Though we scaled that back a bit and started using clear storage tuppies. Trying to figure out where the heck the butter actually was when the fridge was full of 'butter' containers...

Cocoa 'cans' and such we sometimes use to store dried goods like beans/pasta/rice in the cupboards. Though we scaled that back a bit and started using clear storage tuppies. Trying to figure out where the heck the cocoa actually was when the cupboard was full of 'cocoa' containers...

Coffee cans we sometimes use for storing odds and ends nails, screws, etc. Though we scaled that back a bit and started using clear storage tuppies. Trying to figure out which coffee can held the stupid nails when the tool area was full of those stupid coffee cans...

Peanut butter jars I used to use for rice/beans/pasta because the jars are clear. We pretty much stopped doing that and started using clear storage tuppies. It takes so danged long to get the peanut butter smell out of the plastic jar, no matter how clean you scrub the jar. Using vinegar to get rid of peanut butter smell just made it worse. I don't like my rice to smell like peanut butter or vinegar.

So we re-use butter tubs, cocoa cans, coffee cans, and peanut butter jars for target practice now.

[snowy]

Prominent masking tape labels typically solve the problem of "what is that?" in my fridge. It's also one of the reasons I prefer the Emerald Valley salsa containers for leftovers/freezing--they're clear, so I can see the contents

My new dishwasher has never had a problem getting peanut butter smell out, but my old one did. What works best if you don't have a dishwasher: baking soda. Wash the peanut bar first with Dawn (and only Dawn, nothing else degreases as well) and hot, hot water (hot water dissolves the grease). Fill the jar with a bit of Dawn and hot water, and shake the hell out of it. Let it sit until the water is cool. Dump it out, then refill jar with baking soda and hot, hot water. Repeat until jar is clean and smell-free.

[Jinn]

Here's how I see it: Recycling is Bull Shit, it costs more and uses more energy than just producing new products from raw materials.

This is factually incorrect. I'd like to see a source for the argument that recycling costs more than producing new products. I'm on board with your idea about reusing, but justify it not by deluding yourself into thinking recycling is worse than not recycling, instead embrace reuse as 1 part of 3 that has always been the mantra of environmentalism. The best option is simply to reduce entirely, and not buy so many things that you then have to keep in order to 'reuse'. The next best is obviously reuse, and you seem to have that down. But when it comes time to realize that you're really not re-using everything, and simply hoarding some of it, then recycling is the next best option. It is in no way more energy inefficient than making new products.

Reduce, REUSE, Recycle.

[RogueGypsy]

If you would like to refute a statement, it's common practice to actually site a statement to refute it and not just say "I think you're wrong, prove it". Believing that taking a material through more processes to recycle it is more efficient than the fewer processes it takes to produce it in the first place, is just wishful thinking. Certainly it's possible if different methods are used, but if that were case, why wouldn't they use the 'different' more efficient methods to begin with?

Skip to 9 minute mark if you want the beginning of the meat.

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 1

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 1

This is almost all meat.

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 2.avi

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 2.avi

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 3

YouTube - Penn & Teller Bullshit - Recycling Part 3

And here's a link to Daniel Benjamin's 'Eight Great Myths About Recycling'

http://www.perc.org/pdf/ps28.pdf

And there you go, Recycling is BULLSHIT! Prove it's not.

---------- Post added at 03:03 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:39 PM ----------

If we had better, cleaner methods of recycling. Could it be better? Sure, but we don't, yet. There is promising research in the use of bacteria to digest waste and excrete a non-toxic by product, but it's not widely available. Personally, I think it would be great to be able to walk out into my back yard and dump all of my trash in to my 'bacteria recycler' and then shovel the fertile bi-product out of the back and into my garden. But that's not going to happen any time soon.