Five on Friday: Creative Recycling

Here are my top five ways to reuse common containers:

1. Empty tissue boxes are great for storing small plastic bags in, just push them in the top where the tissues used to come out. I do have a hanging fabric holder for super-market sized plastic bags but I also save smaller ones (like the newspaper comes in) for picking up after the dog when we walk her. 

2.    Squirt top bottles (like ketchup or dish soap comes in) are great for homemade laundry stain remover to go in*. Also so fun in the tub or at the beach**.

3.    Empty tortilla bags...we don’t need no stinking Ziploc; we get three plastic strorage bags a week for free with our tortillas! 

4.    Spray bottles (like window cleaner comes in):  Use for your own homemade glass or multipurpose cleaners.* Or thoroughly clean, fill with water, give to kid to water the plants or just go outside and spray for fun. In the winter, add food coloring and decorate the snow. Extremely useful in grossing people out by making them think they are eating yellow snow.** 

5.  Shaker top containers (like Parmesan cheese or one of our favorites, nutritional yeast, comes in): fill with baking soda to use for cleaning sinks, tubs, and toilets. * They are also fun in the sand box for sprinkling dry sand onto sand cakes. **

If you haven’t tried nutritional yeast, you should! It adds a delicious cheesy flavor to food but is actually deactivated yeast (& vegan) and is a complete protein that also provides several vitamins.  

Bonus Recipe!: take a can of garbanzo beans, drain, rinse, then shake up with 1 T olive oil, 2 T nutritional yeast and 1 t garlic salt. Roast them at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or so. Delicious & nutritious snack!

*See also future list of five best natural cleaning tips

**See also future list of five best ways to entertain young children