# Better than recycling



## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

I do believe in recycling. But reusing is much better. Recycling can be difficult and expensive at times.
For the life of me I can't understand why some of the food producers don't put there product in a reusable 
container. I get stuff all the time that is in a plastic bowl with a pull off foil lid. If it came with a real lid
I could use it for lots of stuff. I would be willing to pay a little extra for food that came in jar that would 
be would be good for canning. Maybe have the same threads as a ball jar would. 

Have you found anything that's good for reusing that you could share for the rest of us? 


I took a small butter bowl and lid and filled it with bulbs from the junkyard everything from headlight
to dome light. I also have a precision bottle full of fuses. Keep them in the trunk.


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## Joe (Nov 1, 2016)

At work we are supplied with gatorade in 20 oz. bottles. I bring my bottles home rinse them out good, refill with water and put in 1 drop of bleach.I have dozens of these in my basement for water storage. the same can be done with 2 liter pop bottles only use 4 drops of bleach.


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## Targetshooter (Dec 4, 2015)

My wife saves every thing with a lid on it , from butter tubs to coffee containers .She has a box full of them .


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## sideKahr (Oct 15, 2014)

I take all my glass to a local plant just down the hill that makes beer bottles. We only get a few pennies for it, but man, I feel good about it.

"God is great, beer is good, people are crazy."


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## Survival For The Poor (Feb 11, 2017)

Crown Royal bags are my favorite! 
I also save the cloth drawstring bags that come with new bed sheet sets.
I also save empty water jugs and fill them back up with all the half finished water glasses my wife leaves around the house, that way we have toilet flushing water if the power is out.


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## Damskienet (Feb 12, 2017)

interesting topic


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## Slippy (Nov 14, 2013)

I agree budgetprepp,

Re-Using is better than Re-cycleing. Matter of fact, the whole term "recycling" just pisses me off. Yuppie word. Below is my barn table that I built using cedar from an old fence and left over pieces of 2x's and some 6x6 pieces that were waste from building the barn. I guess the cool term is "re-purposing" or some such nonsense...

View attachment 41537




budgetprepp-n said:


> I do believe in recycling. But reusing is much better. Recycling can be difficult and expensive at times.
> For the life of me I can't understand why some of the food producers don't put there product in a reusable
> container. I get stuff all the time that is in a plastic bowl with a pull off foil lid. If it came with a real lid
> I could use it for lots of stuff. I would be willing to pay a little extra for food that came in jar that would
> ...


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## JustAnotherNut (Feb 27, 2017)

budgetprepp-n said:


> I do believe in recycling. But reusing is much better. Recycling can be difficult and expensive at times.
> For the life of me I can't understand why some of the food producers don't put there product in a reusable
> container. I get stuff all the time that is in a plastic bowl with a pull off foil lid. If it came with a real lid
> I could use it for lots of stuff. I would be willing to pay a little extra for food that came in jar that would
> ...


Years ago, Best Foods/Hellman's & Miracle Whip came in glass jars and the lids were perfect fit for Regular or Wide Mouth canning lids & rings. We used to save these & reuse them. The only problem is those jars were not heat treated like Ball/Kerr jars are & had a high breakage rate, even for water bath canning & worse for pressure canning. Now they are all plastic & don't work at all. I have also found other glass jars (Litehouse Salad Dressing) that would be great.....but when screwing on the ring, it continues to spin once you get to the point of resistance.........this is how they foil the people from reusing their containers. IMHO.

I used to save a lot of the plastic butter tubs to use for leftovers or small amounts to put in the freezer, but hubs would get mad when he found stew instead of butter.......plus after awhile in storage they can get a funny smell.

I do still save some larger containers for different uses, like scooping feed with a coffee container or large sour cream tub. I also buy ice cream in the 4 or 5 gallon plastic bucket & save those for water & feed buckets for the chickens.

Some store bought foods come in glass jars with rubber seal lids......I do save most of these & reuse them for canning certain things like pickles, jams & salsa, but never for fruit, veggies or other more risky stuff. I would love to try making a good taco sauce & then can it in those types of bottles...such as Taco Bell sauce?


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## Flabbergasted (Mar 21, 2017)

JustAnotherNut said:


> I would love to try making a good taco sauce & then can it in those types of bottles...such as Taco Bell sauce?


My local co-op sells taco seasoning for cheap. I mix in a little extra ground red pepper and chili powder and store it in a glass jar.
Take some olive oil and cook your ground beef up in a deep pan, and then add water and your taco seasoning mix and boil to desired consistency.
Fake beef from Morning Star Farms is cheaper, healthier, frozen so it keeps WAY longer, and works the exact same way. Leftovers will last a week or two, as opposed to a few days for real beef.


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## stowlin (Apr 25, 2016)

There was a milk vendor here in CA that started offering milk in nice re usable jars with quality lids. In my spot I'm just not in a position to use glass but even if I was their price point for it was silly. Like $5.99 a quart I think.


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## lupine14 (Mar 24, 2017)

There are these little domed plastic containers that the tiny cherry tomatoes come in sometimes at the supermarket. They're hard to get separated, top from bottom, to the degree that the customer is 'supposed to' just peel back the label at the top, where there's a round opening, and get the little tiny tomatoes out from there, but it can be done with a hard twist. I re-use them every time to start seedlings. There's a drainage hole on the bottom, just enough ventillation from the top, but enough sidewall to keep them out of drafts and a little warm.

My all-time favorite is *baby food jars*. All my 'babies' have fur and they do occasionally enjoy that meat baby food - it's good for little ones or when somebody's not feeling well and needs to be coaxed to eat - but I like those jars so much, I'll go buy some of those fruit ones and eat them myself just to get more jars. That is, IF you can still find the good glass ones. Glass has enough weight to fit comfortably into the hand, and stay there nestled in your palm till you put it down someplace and then it stays where you put it; its shape keeps it from getting knocked over. Little plastic ones can fly out of your hand if grabbed quickly when you're in a hurry or can get knocked off a shelf if you do no more than sneeze. That's no good if you're mixing up a medicinal tonic that you need right now.

For little bits of medicine or vitamins that I need to keep cool for dosing my animals with a dropper, they're just the right size. I buy my spices, whole, by the pound and don't want to pull out a big jar whenever I want to grind up something, so I keep smaller amounts in those little jars, to keep them near at hand. The rest is limited only by imagination: thumbtacks, stickpins, little screws and brats, washers - and you can see them all because it's clear glass. I use them to soak seeds overnight that I'm going to plant so I can have a dozen different things soaking and haven't taken up much space doing it. The lids seal very well for a long time. I've lost track of whole spices while moving that I had in them, found them a year later and they still had all the punch when I hit them with a pestle as the day I put them in there.


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