Recycling Tips: Six Great Uses for Those Egg Cartons
by If you eat eggs you will invariably come across the need to dispose of egg cartons. Before you do though, here are some ideas to recycle and reuse them.
Recycling Tips: 6 Great Uses for those Egg Cartons
If you eat eggs you will invariably come across the need to dispose of egg cartons. Before you do though, here are some ideas to recycle and reuse them.
I love eggs for breakfast, as do many people. However eggs also produce waste that eventually could end up in a landfill. For starters make sure you compost those egg shells. Dig a hole and bury them (with other food scraps). Worms will love you for it by producing nutrient rich castings.
That’s the easy part, but what about that darn egg carton. If your egg cartons are made of cardboard type of material then can simply put them in your recycle container for cardboard. If they are made from Styrofoam then you need to other solutions. I have listed a few below.
Seed starter
You can also use the cardboard style for this as well. Put some potting soil in each cup, then place one to two seeds in the potting soil, cover the seeds with some of the potting soil. After the seed have sprouted, push up on the bottom of the cup to remove it and transplant it either outside or to another, bigger pot. If you were using the cardboard variety you can cut out the cup from the carton and transplant the plant and cup to your new area.
Easter egg storage
Do you have those plastic Easter eggs for decoration or Easter egg hunts? Instead of storing them in a plastic bag, use your egg cartons instead.
Paint Palette for kids
Do your kids like to paint? Then put a little paint (environmentally safe paint) in each cup so you can regulate how much of each color each child gets. This way they do not go through too much of one color by constantly squeezing the tube or pouring from the bottle.
Use a Jelly Mold
Here’s a neat little trick someone told me recently. For their children’s 1st grade class parties she fills each cup with jello and puts it aside until it is finished congealing. Then the kids can pop them out and have small jello snacks.
Ice Cube Tray
Don’t try this with cardboard variety as they will leak, but with the Styrofoam variety fill the cups up with water and put in your freezer. When frozen you have some really neat ice cubes for your next outdoor barbecue.
Packing Material
Instead of using Styrofoam packing peanuts or bubble wrap, use your Styrofoam to secure objects during shipping so they do not break. If you are shipping large packages then you will need a bunch of them, but that is ok, you have been saving them before you throw them out since there is not hurry to have them end up in your local landfill just yet.
These are just a few that I have gone into detail with as far as what you can do to use and reuse those egg cartons before you end up throwing them away. I always recommend however if at all possible buy your eggs that come in the cardboard variety egg cartons. These cartons are more readily biodegradable and have many more valuable uses then their Styrofoam counterparts, such as turning them into fire starters.
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Post CommentMorgana
On February 16, 2009 at 10:49 am
Great ideas
Dee Huff
On February 16, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I buy mostly organic or free range eggs, and they tend to come in cardboard cartons. I tend to rip these up and put them into my composter, together with the egg shells. I like your idea of using the styrofoam cartons as packing material.
Brian Daniel Stankich
On February 16, 2009 at 4:12 pm
Like the emphasis on the cardboard – I’ll have to consider that.
Mary Patricia Bird
On February 16, 2009 at 6:27 pm
When I was young we had the brightly coloured styrofoam egg cartons (don’t see them here anymore). My grandmother taught me how to use yarn to sew the lids together (top side in so that they formed a six-sided shaped circle). We cut a piece of cardboard to fit, sewed it on the bottom, pasted sticky tack paper on both sides of the cardboard bottom and voila! Waste baskets in wonderful different colours.
You could also decorate the outside of the ‘baskets’ with stickers, etc. It’s a shame we can’t still get those cartons. Those waste baskets were amazing gifts.
We only get cardboard cartons here now and we put them in the recycle bin, though I suppose you could paint the lids pretty colours and sew those lids together. Wouldn’t have quite the same effect as those pastel coloured egg cartons.
Reilley
On February 16, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Cardboard egg carton are the best free soundproofing available.
when I was younger, I had a buddy who played bass in a rock band. One night we went to a practice at the farmhouse owned by the grandfather of the drummer. The rehearsal space was a large bedroom that had egg cartons stapled to all four walls. Outside of the door, the sound level was that of a radio on low, and the band jammed at top volume without disturbing the rest of the house.
Since then I have used egg cartons stapled to the ceiling of my finished basement, between the joists. My kids play down there, do karaoke, and listen to music, and there is almost no sound at all on the first floor.
Joie Schmidt
On February 17, 2009 at 2:07 am
Very good ideas – thanks for sharing!
Blessings.
Sincerely,
-Liane Schmidt.