Other than filling with plaster and taking a cast of your bits, what use do you suggest for large glass jars?
Seems like a shame to throw away and must have a use.
Depending on where you live, this may be the start of your plastic-free/no-waste journey. (You'd obviously need a place where you can shop plastic-free somewhere near you )
One possibility is that, any of these jars that were vacuum sealed in the first place, they can easily be re-vacuum sealed with a cheap vacuum chamber/hand pump combo. it's not an appropriate preservation method for all the kinds of things that originally came in the jars, but will keep dry goods from oxidizing/etc.
Nice collecion you have there! Just got my hand on a large cardbox worth of jars. Almost all of them have caps as well. My plan is to slowly clean and fill them up, just like you did! Also I recently found out (by a foodwaste prevention program) that I have plastic-free shop not too far away from me.
Even if you don’t have a place like that, it’s still worth it to put the stuff in jars to prevent maggots from ruining everything.
I've slowly been adapting to this! I love having all my jars, it's like living in a lab with specimens
I know you were probably joking, but as a PSA I will add that you NEVER dip any ‘bits’ or any body part in plaster in a closed, rigid container! 😬 A mold should be made with alginate, silicone, or other resilient material. The plaster is what would be poured into the mold afterwards, to make a casting. thanks.
Yep.
And if you knew it was bad, but didn’t know how bad:
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/oct/12/girl-loses-fingers-school-art
Oh my god, TIL it is that bad
A school was ordered to pay nearly £20,000 in fines and legal costs today after a pupil lost all but two of her fingers in an art lesson.
The penalty was increased on the Giles foundation school in Boston, Lincolnshire, because staff failed to report the "catastrophic" incident, involving plaster of paris, to the Health and Safety Executive.
WTF was it increased from, £2000? Maybe I'm just used to settlements in the hundreds of millions of USD but that seems insultingly low, even for 15 years ago.
Edit: OMG 2009 was fifteen years ago...
I don't know why I'm surprised that plaster can burn skin. My grandfather did construction and got a bit of cement in his boots one time while working, and it laid him up for days.
This person molds
Glass recycling is pretty good. Near complete recovery of the material. Plastic is basically impossible to recover, but glass and metals are generally very recyclable.
Just put it in the bin. Let the city recycle it. You'll get it back as a beer bottle or another glass bottle like this one, or something else entirely.
There are two well known uses for a jar on the internet. You don't want any of them.
I save them up all year, and come Christmas / Lunar New Year, I bake cookies then hand out jars filled with cookies to coworkers and neighbors.
It turns out that my wife and I consume exactly enough jam in a year to balance out the jar egress for the maximum number of social connections we can sustain.
If I have a spare, I might make mango chutney. It doesn't need to be vacuum sealed if you just make one jar and eat it reasonably soon.
I suppose you could engineer them to be solar garden lights too. There ought to be enough room for the panel on top of the lid, a battery and circuit on the underside, and then you hang an LED in there.
Do you happen to have a recipe for that mango chutney?
Ya know, for a friend...
Not exactly! I just sort of take finely chopped apples (for pectin), onions, mango, and dried raisins or dried apricots. Then I boil, adding (a little) vinegar over time until it looks like chunky jam. Then I flavor it with soup stock and cinnamon to taste. Some nutmeg too, if you like. Finally I adjust acidity and sweetness with more vinegar or some sugar -- but that's usually not necessary if I add things in slowly.
If it's too acidic, boil it longer, adding a little water if it gets dry. Vinegar (acetic acid) is a gas and will evaporate out slowly this way.
Mix frequently.
I once saw a video or a guy had a jar. I'm going to leave it a surprise but he put it somewhere. Maybe you could do that?
In the bin?
Definitely in a chute
Put a piece of food in, take a picture every day for a year and post it in youtube.
Make one of those sealed jar terrarium ecosystems.
You know all those little bits and bobs you have laying around, like screws you might use one day, a pen that probably has half a page of barely visible words left and those paperclips with the ripped box? Them, you put all of them in there, it will be frustrating to get what you need out, but it will be worth it.
Why, uh. Why was that your first thought.
Life, uh, finds a way.
Wash it, pour boiling water over it, put hot jam or other preserves inside, it will hold all winter. Just make sure the lid is concaved when the jam cools down - that means it seals well.
Wait, wait, wait!?! Wash it, then pour boiling water over it? Then put jam or whatever in the jar and it will be fine?!?
I'm not sure you've got all the steps in the correct order.
Instructions unclear, jam stuck in penis.
The hot water is to kill bacteria, of course you remove the water before you put the jam in. I have apple jam from 2022 canned using this method and it still holds, no mold and good taste.
I'm wodnering what seems so odd in this procedure because that's how I've been taught to do it
This is how I store my collection of randomly sized screws, nuts, and bolts.
I use them for grease after cooking. Or for drinking glasses when I can't be bothered to run the dishwasher.
Seems like a shame to throw away
Don’t throw away glass! It’s almost always recyclable if you cannot find a reuse for it!
Also, if you have a local “Buy Nothing” group I can guarantee someone will take it off your hands. My wife has gone deep into the Buy Nothing world, and pretty much anything someone takes. Broken espresso machine? Someone wanted it. Glass containers from old individual serving tiramisu? Someone wanted it. Someone online said they had old broken paving stones, someone took them. It’s amazing how often you can find someone else to reuse something you might not have a use for.
Between Buy Nothing, industrial composting, and recycling, we end up with a surprising amount of the waste from our house staying in the “Reuse, Recycle” part of the waste hierarchy (since composting is technically recycling), and very little actual trash.
Seems like a shame to throw away
Don’t throw away glass! It’s almost always recyclable if you cannot find a reuse for it!
I mean... maybe because I am not a native English speaker but how you say it normally? Don't people say "throw away" even when they throw it to the recycling bin as well?
I never thought it would imply to not recycling it, I am confused.
Could be, who knows! Regional differences in English make it complicated.
I’ve always used these as separate verbs. “Throw away” to me means to put it into the garbage, “recycle” means to put it in the recycling bin. Like, “Oh, don’t bother recycling that, just throw it away” or, conversely, “Don’t throw that away, it should get recycled.”
But at the same time, if someone were to hand me a rinsed-out milk carton and say, “throw this away” I would probably ask them where their recycling bin is. All down to interpretation and situation, I suppose.
Language is fun!
In colloquial American English you throw away trash. You throw away garbage. You can throw away rubbish. You sort recycling or you take out the recycling. Recycling becomes a noun in this use case.
Fill the jars with loose screws, nails and bolts then screw the lid into the bottom of a shelf above your workbench. Screw jar into lids and voila you're living in 1972
Collect loose change maybe
Look into sterilization, you might have to get something for under the lid like go between. But lemon curd, jams, marmalades and pickles can all have a pretty long shelf life if the jar is sterilized properly
I use old mason jars to store my whole bean coffee in the freezer until I’m ready to grind and use it.
A coffee aficionado can probably chime in on why this is bad, but uts the best use I’ve found for the jars.
Freezing is okay and helps for storage of big bags, but freezing and taking them out and putting them back in every day isn't good because of the condensation.
But even then, it's probably fine.
AFAIK the best thing you can do to improve your coffee-freezing process is to prevent moisture from getting into the beans when you thaw. If you let it, moisture from the air will condense on the cold beans. So keep the beans in a closed, airtight container until they come to room temperature. (Airtight because water vapor is air.) So yeah, jars are good for this. Or sealed freezer bags should work too.
Good to know! Thanks! I vacuum seal what I can’t get in jars and let it all thaw freezer > fridge > ground.
Speaking of coffee, cold brew! Although I have two large mason jars and a metal filter that are designed specifically for that purpose.
Molotov cocktail?
Sourdough starter!
You could use it to make kombucha
Growing mushrooms.
Tell me more...
So I'm not too clear on the details but you can buy mason jars with silica in them and some spores. Put them in a dark spot and water them(?) and you'll soon have psilocybin mushrooms. Unclear how you get the spores in the jars...I think they come that way? I'm not sure but I think you can order them online but it might be a dark web thing.
I just put them in the recycling bin.
I use them for tinctures! So many tinctures to be made...
Do you happen to have any My Little Pony figurines to put in the jar?
I use wide mouthed mason jars for Kratky hydroponics. This design (not my design) makes them into nice, decorative pots.
Just wanted to say this comment got me interested in a Kratky setup, should have the rest of the equipment later today. Thanks for sharing!
Gonna start off with some leafy greens and see how it goes.
If spaghetti fit, you could use it for that.
Around here, there's also these shops that sell all kinds of goods without packaging, so where you bring your own containers and they fill it up with oatmeal or nuts or noodles or sugar etc.. Would be a useful container for that.
Spaghetti storage. What you described I'd do with an old tennis ball can. Glass jars have uses.
I make body scrubs in these.
Used coffee grounds, coconut oil, and some alcohol to keep it from molding
Don't drop one! D:
It'll just be a bit more scrubby.
Might be a bit narrow, but if you wanted to make some pickle spears it should work.
I like to do a fridge pickle (always gets eaten within a few weeks, so spoilage isn't a huge concern). Something like this pickled jalapeño recipe works with most veggies, and you can use some whole black peppercorn and mustard seeds (or a pickling spice mix) to give it that pickle flavor.
I've seen at least two videos of a jar being used in the wrong way. Using these to make casts is the third because the rigid container will have to be broken to get the mold.
I recommend cleaning it and just using it to store bits and bobs or food if its food-safe. Or just recycle it. Or, make a lego submarine.
I am not clicking those links.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Hot Dogs! Oh…. wait
Make a candle?
Container for smaller objects.
Gonna need a longer jar.
I fill mine with plaster of Paris and cast....oh, yeah I mean, beyond that I don't know what else.
'Fess up, OP - you wouldn't need the whole jar for that.
I have a co-worker who just started pickling his own eggs. He boils and peels them, then puts them in a jar with 1/3 water, 1/3 white vinegar, 1/3 apple cider vinegar, 1 tsp sugar and some pickling spices. I've seen him eat an entire jar for lunch, which makes me grateful my desk is far away from his.
If you don’t always need glass jars to pour your bacon grease before you wash the pan, you are clearly not eating enough bacon
Just some thoughts: Spaghetti Lasagna Paintbrush with turpentine Tie wraps Paint rollers
My mom has a collection of old jars. I'm not sure even she knows what to do with them, but she's pretty crafty. Or if you're not super crafty yourself, maybe you know someone who is and would appreciate the jar? Idk.
Alternatively, you could recycle it. In my city there are a couple places people can take their recyclables (plastic, paper, glass, even yard waste) for free.
Look into lacto fermentation (home made pickles like real sauerkraut).
Basically make sure your jar is as clean as possible; chop up a little bit of cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli (any or all, this is just an easy beginner list, the possibilities are endless); jam it down in the jar leaving a good gap at the top, and packing it in to leave as little air as possible; top up with clean, salty water so the veggies are covered (not crazy loads of salt, but the water should taste like between blood and sea water) (can also use a weight to keep the veg submerged if necessary, like a clean glass with water in); cover, leave at room temp a few weeks; enjoy a delicious and healthy food that humans have maybe been doing since prehistory. I was going to say how it works, but ran out of time, look it up!
Do you have a bulk food store nearby? We have one where you can BYO containers, tare and label them, and then fill them up at the store. Bulk food with no bags or single-use containers, it's great.
Freezer bag sealing clips like Ikea's Bevara
