Recycling Small Plastic Containers around the House

It is amazing how many uses we have for small plastic containers around the house and how many would get thrown away of we didn’t save them. It’s no surprise that many things come over packaged today, and even those that don’t often have containers and packing materials that can be reused (which is another word for recycled).

The problem with plastic is it doesn’t break down, at least most plastic doesn’t. I’ve read in many places that conventional plastic breaks down in 100 years, but the truth is no one knows; plastic has not been around for that long. When plastic is sent off for recycling, and tomorrow is recycling day in Scarborough Maine where I currently am, energy is expended to recycling it. Both picking it up and then doing whatever they do to it has a carbon foot print. On the other hand, if you simply reuse, there is no carbon footprint. Reuse is the purest form of recycling.

We get all kinds of things in small plastic containers that can be reused. Just within sight of where I’m currently sitting, I see all kinds of plastic containers we’re reusing.

Many of them are food packaging related, which normally get tossed in the trash, but not in this household. For reused food containers, I can currently see a large round plastic container that formerly held chocolate chip cookies from the bakery and now has died pasta pieces used for crafts by my daughters. There are also two plastic bins that came with luncheon meat in them; one now has some kind of rubber stamps and the other holds markers. Yet another one holds my coffee beans.

I can also see from where I’m sitting several small rectangular containers that held baby wipes. The kids are now 6 years old and up, but we went through lots of baby wipes, and saved and are reusing all the containers. One on the microwave holds pens and pencils, there are several in the cupboards which I can barely see right now through the nearly closed cupboard doors that hold spices.

These are all small plastic containers I can see from where I’m sitting that we are reusing. I know if I go into the cellar we have dozens and dozens that hold hardware and tools, and I also have at least 20 that hold fishing gear like lures, hooks, rigs, and lots of fly tying materials.

If I actually walked around and looked I bet I’d easily find over 100 small plastic containers that we’re reusing. Most of them would have probably ended up in the garbage and perhaps then a landfill, and maybe some would have gotten recycled, if we hadn’t been vigilant.

Now I'll admit some are very hard to reuse, for example those that fruits like grapes and strawberries come in. They are flimsy and have holes on top and bottom. They go into the recycling.

How many plastic containers do you throw away? How many can be reused or at least sent to recycling? Something to think about!