Asklemmy

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 )

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.

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.

The Internet has ruined me. I will not elaborate further.

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.

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?

Put a piece of food in, take a picture every day for a year and post it in youtube.

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.

Make one of those sealed jar terrarium ecosystems.

Why, uh. Why was that your first thought.

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.

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.

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.

Collect loose change maybe

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

here's 98 ideas!

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

Growing mushrooms.

Molotov cocktail?

You could use it to make kombucha

I just put them in the recycling bin.

Sourdough starter!

I use them for tinctures! So many tinctures to be made...

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.

I use wide mouthed mason jars for Kratky hydroponics. This design (not my design) makes them into nice, decorative pots.

Do you happen to have any My Little Pony figurines to put in the jar?

Spaghetti storage. What you described I'd do with an old tennis ball can. Glass jars have uses.

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.

I make body scrubs in these.

Used coffee grounds, coconut oil, and some alcohol to keep it from molding

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.

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.