Tag: new uses for old vices

Green Thought Thursday: More Uses for Old Vices

Josephine ButlerBlog, Sustainability, ,

Once again, our intern Ashely Hurteau is jumping in to share a few more green thoughts…

We love these ideas from Real Simple Magazine!

Last week, I shared four new uses for old vices. These clever ideas from Real Simple come at the perfect time – we’re all still sticking to our New Year’s resolutions, right? This Green Thought Thursday, I’d like to share a few more ideas. They are:

  • Giving up gambling for good? Turn your poker caddy into a pen and pencil caddy. Close off the bottom with poker chips and the sides with playing cards – very appropriate!
  • Any hipster’s dream – transform old beer cans into paperweights by filling them with coins or sand and sealing the top.
  • If soda is a thing of the past, take the old bottles and turn them into an uncooked spaghetti holder. Coincidentally, they hold the perfect amount for a single serving!
  • Clean your contacts and the landfills! Use plastic bottle caps as contact lens holders. Be sure to clean them before you re-use.

Last week I vowed to re-use my wine corks for a cork board. This week I am going to suggest something that I have been doing for years. Save the funnies from the Sunday news and use them as wrapping paper. Give a gift, a laugh and one less wasted item!

As always, we would love to hear other ways you will re-use things in 2012!

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Green Thought Thursday: New Uses For Old Vices

Josephine ButlerBlog, Sustainability, , , 1 Comment on Green Thought Thursday: New Uses For Old Vices

Today we’ll hear again from Ashely Hurteau, our fabulous new intern and fellow lover of all things green.

As we embark on 2012, many New Year’s resolutions will involve kicking bad habits. In the spirit of going green, Real Simple has shared some ways to re-use items that you might have otherwise shunned. For today’s Green Thought Thursday, we’d like to share a few of those ideas with you.

  • If you can’t kick the habit of sweets, at least kick the waste. Take old candy wrappers and use them to wrap small presents. Aren’t they adorable?
  • Clean the air and your lungs by quitting smoking. Then use your old ash trays as cute little soy sauce dishes!
  • Cutting back on TV and don’t know what to do with the remote? Remove the batteries and make it your new hide-a-key compartment or emergency cash holder!
  • Give up gambling and use the numbered cards as gift tags. They’re great for birthdays, and the Queen and King of Hearts are perfect for Valentine’s Day!

I loved these tips from Real Simple so much that I decided to come up with one of my own: as a self-proclaimed wine connoisseur, I vow to re-use the corks by collecting them to make a cork board.

So whether you do it in stiletos or boots, in 2012 make one of your resolutions to reduce your carbon footprint while kicking your vices, and stay tuned as we share more ideas from Real Simple. In the meantime, we’re kicking it over to you. Please share your ideas in the comments section.

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