Thursday 21 September 2017

25 + Ways To Reuse Iceream Containers

Plastic icecream containers are so useful and handy to use around the home. I find it really hard to throw one out.  Instead,  I find a new way to get the most out of this FREE container.  I've listed 25 ways to use icecream containers.  I've personally used 24 of these ideas around the home.  Can you pick which one I haven't used ?

Feel free to add your own ideas and let's see if we can get to 50 or 75 ideas.  Share this post with your friends and help reduce the amount of containers going to landfill.


1.  As biscuit / baking containers.

2. To store Barbie Shoes.

3.  For storing homemade first aid kits

4.  For freezing food

5.  Travel sickness bucket.

6.  For storing bits and pieces for the home like screws,  curtain brackets,  curtain hooks,  washers from furniture etc.

7.  For storing battery packets and loose batteries.

8.  As drawer dividers for socks and underwears.

9  Lego block containers.

10.  To make large ice blocks for Eskys.

11.  Small round icecream containers make great pencil holders.  Have fun decorating the outside.

12.  Long oblong containers from ice cream shops make wonderful fruit storage in the fridge.

13.  Pet water bowl for outside.

14.  A large one with a handle makes a great peg bucket.  I used the same one for 10+ years.

15.  For storing plastic cutlery neatly.  I have one in the pantry

16  For storing coffee,  sugar,  salt and pepper sachets from accommodation

17.  For storing hair ties,  ribbons,  butterfly clips and headbands.  Years of first hand experience with my girls.

18.  As a planter.  Just add a couple of holes in the bottom.

19  For keeping seedlings hydrated.  When we buy a punnet of seedlings,  Darren puts them in an icecream container with 5cm of water in the bottom.

20.  As a mini rubbish bin in the bathroom.

21.  Tea,  coffee and sugar canisters  Decorate the outside to tie in with your kitchen colors.

22.  For storing bin liner packets.  Those bin liners can be hard to keep tidy when they come in a plastic packet.  An icecream container will keep them in place.

23.  For storing bits of ribbon.

24.  Make up storage to prevent the bathroom cupboards from getting dirty.

25.  To prevent food from being damaged when travelling by car.

Different sizes and colors

Household bits and pieces

Battery storage

How do you use icecream containers around your home,  garden  and garage ?

8 comments:

  1. I've never seen ice cream containers like that before! We're not ice cream buyers so I may have missed them. I have bought the clear pails with the handles before for a party so I have a couple of those. One stores cat litter in the back of the car for problems with winter ice. Two more are used in a very large planter to take up room so I didn't need so much potting soil. My husband keeps clean rags in one at his work bench in the garage.

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  2. We use these wonderful containers for many of the same things as you. I also have one as my kitchen compost collecting bucket. With the flies we have here it is necessary to have a compost bucket with a lid, and an icecream bucket is just perfect.
    I also use icecream buckets to transfer worm wee from the worm farm to the watering can. The icrcream buckets pliability makes it perfect to funnel the concentrated worm wee into the watering can ready for water.

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  3. Unfortunately the ice cream we buy, if we buy at all, is Kelly's Cornish Clotted Cream Ice Cream, and it comes in much smaller containers. Furthermore, they recently changed the shape of their container and I've been unable to find a use for the new shape. I used to wash them out and use them for keeping meals (they will do a portion for two nicely) in the freezer, soups and casseroles and so forth, but the new shape is only suitable - unless someone knows differently - for landfill, which is almost enough reason to make me stop buying this ice cream! Part of it is black plastic, and black plastic isn't recyclable. Why manufacturers aren't forced by law only to use recyclable plastic, I do not know. If there is a health reason, i.e. I bow to their better judgment in this, but I see no reason why the box shape and colour couldn't be made to be re-uses. However, I would not buy even this lovely ice cream, free from the ingredient which prevents it from becoming hard in a freezer, i.e. the food equivalent, so I understand, of anti-freeze, I'd not buy ice cream in such large quantities as we would never eat it. We only like a little occasionally.
    Margaret P

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  4. As a child I would put an empty ice cream bucket next to my bed if I felt unwell and like I'd vomit.

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  5. We use the large plastic ice cream pails with a handle for collecting rain water. We also with unsnap the handle and run it through our belt loop and re-snap to use it for a hands free bucket for berry picking.

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  6. Also whenever kids need to take a plate or food to share, I send it in an icecream container to save worrying about return of my containers. Also in our caravan where space is a premium they are very handy as salad bowls and popcorn/chip bowls. Unfortunately our council does not accept this particular type of plastic for recycling, so we do what we can. Marie

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  7. Hi Wendy,

    What a great post!!!

    Here is what I used the ice cream containers for:

    Scraps for the compost
    Store the sauce bottles in the pantry
    Storing seed packets
    Scooping water onto the garden from the sink etc..
    Storing the shoe polish in
    Storing the rags in
    Storing spices that are not in jars/bottles and soup packets in
    and Cutting up and using them as labels for your plants
    I think this list could be endless.....

    Maureen

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  8. Paint pot. Throw out after painting or line it with a plastic bag

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