Glass Jars

I can't begin to tell you how much I love glass jars! They are so versatile, easy to clean, and they are good for the environment! The three methods you learn about in school for reducing waste are the three R's "Reduce, Reuse and Recycle". Glass is a great option for all of these principles!

Let's start with Recycle: did you know that glass, when it is recycled, is turned into more glass? That should be pretty obvious but when plastic is "recycled", it isn't turned into more plastic containers. Usually, plastic is turned into downcycled products such as carpet padding, plastic lumber, and jackets. I do my fair share of recycling of glass jars too, but for the most part, I reuse them until something catastrophic happens (such as cracks, chips, or if someone decided to rob my house and deprive me of my glass jars... that's how much I love reusing them!). I'm not certain if this is true, and please comment if you have more information about this, but I always feel like food stored in glass jars tastes better and I don't worry about chemicals leeching into my precious consumables. 

This is generally what my kitchen looks like after I've done the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher, we do all our dishes by hand). So many glass jars and most of them are reused from food that we ate. 

Here's another glass jar spotted on the table in the living room. Do you have a need for holding beans that were collected from your garden? Well, there's an answer for that (I'll give you three guesses...)

We also use them for making cuttings of plants. This little one is ready to be transplanted already! Look at all those roots...

And finally, the pantry. Ours is filled with canned vegetables from our garden and from the farms that my roomies work on. Yummy!

WAYS TO REUSE GLASS JARS:
-Use them anywhere you would use tupperware
-Can food with mason jars that can be reused over and over as long as the integrity of the jar is intact
-Take cuttings off your existing house plants and let them grow roots in a reused glass jar
-Make beeswax candles out of your old jars
-If you're into drinking wine, make some drinking glasses out of the jars
-Better yet, use those wine glasses to make candles
-Use them as water bottles instead of buying one of those crappy plastic ones that always leak!

Really, the possibilities are endless if you just stop and think about the potential of the glass jar. How do you reuse your glass jars? Any more ideas?