Ways To Repurpose And Reuse Packing Materials After A Move
It's easy to feel bombarded with moving boxes and packing materials when settling into a new home after a move. Once your belongings are unpacked, you might be wondering what to do with all the cardboard boxes, Styrofoam peanuts and packing paper that have taken over your house.
Rather than sending everything to a landfill, try some of these simple ways to reuse and re-purpose your used packing materials.
Styrofoam Peanuts
Packing peanuts can be a pain to deal with because they seem to cling to everything, so you're probably anxious to get them out of your house. If you sell items online or mail a lot of care packages, it's easy to reuse them. Simply save them in a large trash bag in the garage until you need them.
Another way to reuse Styrofoam packing peanuts is by putting them in the bottom of plant pots instead of rocks. They perform the same drainage function as rocks, but they weight a lot less. This makes it much easier to move the plant pot around, as needed.
Air-Filled Packing Cushions
If you hired a moving company to pack and transport your belongings to the new home, you might have ended up with some long rows of air-filled packing cushions that were used to protect your breakables. If you cut off the end of each cushion, you're left with a slew of open plastic pouches. These little pouches work great for cleaning up after your dog or wrapping around sanitary products before putting them in the trash.
Sheets of Protective Foam Padding
Some movers use sheets of foam to protect large breakables while in transit. If you cut these foam sheets up into little squares, they actually function almost as well as regular kitchen sponges. Use them for cleaning around the house or washing dishes.
Packing Paper
Many moving companies use long sheets of brown packing paper to wrap around fragile glassware, dishes and collectibles. There are endless ways to reuse these sheets of paper, including:
- Use scrunched up packing paper to wrap gifts. The wrinkled brown paper gives the package a rustic feel and looks great paired with a brightly colored bow.
- Flatten out the long sheets of paper to use for arts and crafts projects. Kids love the extra-long sheets of paper because they can trace their bodies on them or create landscape-sized drawings.
- Cut the sheets of paper into little squares that can be used for grocery lists, phone messages and more.
Hopefully this list of ideas will help you repurpose and reuse all of those pesky moving materials that are scattered around the house. One final tip: when storing moving boxes for future use, they take up a lot less space if you disassemble and flatten them first. To learn more, contact a company such as Route 37 Self-Storage with any questions or concerns you have.
