Recycling: takeaway containers
If you’re anything like me, there is usually (at least) one night a week when you can’t face the kitchen, and turn to your local takeaway for some yummy Thai, Indian or sushi.
After you have enjoyed your meal (and lack of washing up - yay), all that is left are a few greasy plastic takeaway containers. What should you do with them?
The Squeeze: The average American eats out 4-5 times per week.
Typical takeaway containers are made from plastic labelled #5: PP (Polypropylene). Check whether your local Council will accept this type of plastic as part of their recycling collection.
If you can’t recycle them, do not throw them away! All that plastic is made from petroleum, a non-renewable resource that takes hundreds of years to break down in landfill. Re-use them instead! Here are some ideas:
- Food: Store your leftovers, or use them as lunchboxes
- Kids: They make great paint trays, also good for storing crayons, stickers and knick knacky things
- Garden: Use them as germination containers by creating mini-greenhouses for seedlings
- Storage: They will help get all your electronic devices organised, your wool, gift wrapping and other odds and ends.
For more ideas see here and here. And check out these funky sustainable designs of takeaway containers:
Takeshi Miyakawa designed these “Furniture to Go” stackable food boxes, to be used as lego after used.
This BagBox by Casey Ng from New Zealand, is to carry fish & chips, that then can be pulled apart to become a cardboard tray.
JoAnn Arello designed this hexagonal cardboard box with internal dividers to reduce waste for Chinese takeaway food.
Living Lime: Over 15,000 empty plastic, glass and aluminium containers were recycled recently in a 30-foot tall recycling bin in New York’s Time Square, as part of Honest Tea’s Great Recycle event. GrowNYC will use the recycled plastic in the manufacture of raised urban garden beds.
PS: Share your ideas for reusing takeaway containers on our daily lime facebook page or in the comments below.
By Anna Minns
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