When an item is old or broken, it can be tempting to throw it in the trash without a second thought and replace it with a new one. Although this is necessary in some circumstances, a lot of these objects can be salvaged with a little bit of effort. Renovating old household itemsorclothes, etc., can be an excellent way to save money, get creative, and live a more sustainable lifestyle. If you want to try and achieve these goals, here are some suggestions for objects you can upcycle at home.

Glass Jars

Pasta sauces, jelly, pickles, and many other food items, often come packaged in glass jars, and you might find yourself left with a lot of them once you get through your groceries. While you can always recycle glass jars, there are also other ways you can use them… For example, turning them into candle holders that you can use indoors and outdoors, for a romantic ambiance. You could also use them to hold your pens and pencils on your desk, or to store loose items like buttons or coins, etc. If you want to make the jars more attractive, you could even purchase glass paint to add a more decorative flair.

T-Shirts

T-shirts are comfortable pieces of attire that you can get years of wear out of, but they won’t last forever. Donating old clothes is a good option if you are trying to thin out your wardrobe, but you can do more with your old and unwanted t-shirts… Some people choose to turn them into handy rags for cleaning the house, but if you have some old ones that mean something to you, you could always get them turned into an eye-catching blanket, at myt-shirtblanket.com.

Bookshelves

If you have a bookshelf unit that is broken, or you’ve fallen out of love with, you can always get stuck into a bit of DIY to breath new life into it.  If you’re not keen on renovation, or it’s a bit beyond repair, don’t throw it away just yet! There are still ways you can use that bookshelf unit that you may not have thought of before.

One way to give it a new purpose, is by using it as a decorative feature in your garden. You can use the shelves intact to place plant pots on, or simply let some vine plants grow up and over the unit. Alternatively, you can lie it on the floor if you have the space, fill it with soil and use it as a larger planter.

Plastic Food Containers

This is another common feature in kitchens as a lot of food products do come in plastic tubs. Again, these are things that you can recycle if you have no use for them, and this is a great way to help the environment. However, you might find that these containers are useful forstoring dried goods like cereals and oats, in airtight containers, or convenient for batch-cooking to separate portions for the freezer. It could save you a bit of money buying Tupperware,and alsohelp to reduce your plastic waste, by reusing old containers.

If you want to try and be more sustainable at home and save yourself some money, think about these items and others, and see what you could do to give them a new purpose.