Many of us have a steady stream of glass containers coming
into our homes, but we don’t know what to do with all of them. For our Facebook question of the week, we asked you, “Aside from recycling them, what creative reuses have you found
for your glass jars, bottles and the like? A terrarium? A light fixture? Maybe
even just a quick plant protector?” and here’s what you told us.
Gardening Jones I use larger glass
containers as mini ‘cloches’ to get an early start on planting tomatoes and
such outdoors.
Nancy Retynski I’m cutting the bottoms
off of large containers just like Gardening Jones to use as mini green houses!
I was also thinking about using the bottoms to create a rain chain and square
bottles as fence toppers.
Wendy Pillows Hixson Obviously, they’re
great for leftovers, but what I use a lot of glass containers for, especially
small ones, is for keeping small items organized. Crafts, hardware, jewelry,
toiletries, you name it.
Sharron Brinsfield McDonald I save all
my glass jars (if I can keep up with the lid). I will store things in them, use
them for vases, rooting plants, etc.
Noreene Bailey-Treece I sometimes use
my old glass jars to make solar chandeliers. If the glass is broken, I collect
it in a barrel and use it for pottery glazes.
Joseph Snyder I use empty wine bottles as
incense burners.
Angela Keeney I made a slightly raised
asparagus bed with wine bottles by shoving the skinny end into the dirt.
Pam Truesdale Every year during the
holidays I buy juice beverages in green glass bottles. When they are empty, I
use them as templates for wall sconces and chandeliers to use in power outages.
The neck of the bottles are perfect for holding the tapers that I use in mine.
They are decorative enough to keep up as a part of the decor. I think I’ll have
to start giving them as gifts, too!!
Helen Marie Turner Ford I like to save old
buttons in glass jars, just like my grandma used to do. It brings back lots of
good memories of looking through grandma’s button jars as a kid.
Carol Kipping I like to cut fresh
flowers from the garden, tie a bow around the top of a jar (whatever size) and voila … it brightens up the house!
Robin Baldwin-Woznica Someday, I would
love to gather all my different-colored glass jars, break them, smooth them in
a rock tumbler and create a beautiful glass mosaic.
Justin Rose This is more my wife’s
department, but she uses some of our old glass jars as holders for common household
items and makes beautiful wind chimes with the rest!
Christie Conlon Dark brown bottles make
excellent protective coverings for light-sensitive products such as vitamins,
oils and milk.
Half Acre Farm I recycle old glass jars
and use them to hold homemade vanilla.
Mary Foster I have made tiki torches
with Tanqueray bottles. Just fill the bottle with citronella oil, make a hole in
the cap, stick the wick through the hole screw the cap on and there is your
tiki torch.
Ritual We used to use our empty wine
bottles as decorative places for cuttings to root. We would wrap twine around
the neck for hanging purposes, fill them with water, and stick stems in until
they developed roots. It produced a steady stream of propagation material.
Walt Rose We try to melt our scraps
into something useful, but not all glass types fuse well together which causes
them to crack. However, if you melt the same type of glass together you should
find success.
Thank you to all those who submitted your great ideas.
Answer more questions of the week at MOTHER EARTH NEW’s Facebook page.
To see one more way people are repurposing glass containers, check out this
beautiful cordwood wall embellished with bits of recycled glass or read the full story on this community-built, energy-efficient cordwood building.
