Travel mugs, thermos, onya bags and more: What re-usable items do you use & save £s?

ZeroWasteWeek

oystercatcher wrote: »

Also if I don't stop for coffee all that is wasted is hot water and not the coffee !

Never thought of that - thank you! Mind you, some people would probably reheat and drink anyway <shudder>

ZeroWasteWeek

cat4772 wrote: »

Instead of buying small yoghurt pots, I'll buy a 500ml container (or make my own) and just take a portion in a small pot. a handful of frozen fruit keeps the yoghurt nice and cool and provides part of my 5-a-day.

Thanks Cat - do you use a special yogurt maker or just make in a flask? Making yogurt is something I've not had much success with

ZeroWasteWeek

jackyann wrote: »

I'm a great Onya fan, and use their bags, drinking bottles, little towels, and the net bags for fruit & veg.

I'm a huge fan of onya too and I do love the Morsbags site - very MSE :j

[Deleted User]

Hi ZeroWaste Week we got the tiffin boxes quite a few years ago either from Spices of India online or E.Bay can't remember which but they have 3 separate compartments and a built in plate and a metal locking band that is also a carry handle. Brilliant things and going to outlast us I think, very good quality and not too expensive as I recall.

I've just looked at the SpicesofIndia website and ours are still there. They are Appa Tiffin Boxes. pyramid style so gradually smaller to the top and are on sale for £19.95p, which might seem quite a lot to outlay but ours are still as good as the day we got them and have been much used in their lives. Hope that helps, Lyn xxx.

moneyistooshorttomention

ZeroWasteWeek wrote: »

Apparently you can make your own calcium supplement from washing and drying the egg shells in the oven then blitzing into a powder to sprinkle on food - now THAT'S reuse!

I've tried that - and it didn't work for me.

I have a Vitamix blender (ie really high-powered one that blitzes icecubes and all) - but the eggshells still came out of it a bit "bitty" and crunchy. Rather offputting I felt and I decided to stick to using bashed-up eggshells on the garden and giving that a bit of calcium supplementation instead.

kboss2010

I use a camelbak insulated travel mug to take coffee to work each morning. It was quite expensive (about £20) but it doesn't leak at all when tipped like most cheap travel mugs. Having said that, my partner uses the £5.99 plastic Starbucks ones and they're equally as good for not leaking, they're just not as robust if you drop them lol!

I have a lock n lock sandwich box for toast in the mornings, use systema bento-style lunch boxes or leftover takeaway cartons and buy those stackable square snack boxes that come in sets of 4 from Paperchase. I also own a banana guard to avoid squished bananas on my walk to work! That way I never need to buy lunch at work whether I bring something cold or leftovers to reheat from the previous evening's meal.

I also keep large margarine tubs, biscuit tubs etc. to use as Tupperware for storing leftovers in the fridge and freezer although they're never microwaveable for re-heating.

I have a sigg aluminium water bottle for the gym and the cinema to avoid buying plastic bottles.

If you can teach yourself to use them, children's sized chopsticks are an excellent space saving utensil!

Former_MSE_Andrea

We have a bento lunch box something like this but black. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000246GSE?ie=UTF8&!!!!!bentoboxlunch-20

We also have one of these http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001CSPU18/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B001CSPU18&linkCode=as2&!!!!!natureblog-20

When it comes to re-usables, it may sound obvious but I try to always wipe down the kitchen table with a cloth rather than kitchen roll.

I also try to mop the kitchen floor (it's tiled) with our floor steam mop rather than the mop with throw-away pads. I say "I try". Sometimes with 2 kids and 2 cats it's quicker to do a quick mop but I'm getting better!

Former_MSE_Andrea

Ladies may like to see the Menstrual MoneySaving discussion on the MoneySaving Mums board. Men may not....

The_Rubbish_Diet

Hello all and huge thanks to Andrea and the MSE Forum team for inviting me along. Ditching single use items and other disposable objects has become an enjoyable mission of mine. I particularly love seeking out products whose packaging has longevity in secondary use and saves me buying an alternative product specifically made for that specific purpose. My favourite refillable water bottle is a glass Voss sparkling water bottle that cost just a couple of pounds at the supermarket (cue reuse geek alert).

Anyway, this newbie waves a big hello. It's very lovely to meet you.

P.S. My other favourite --- 'Disposable' cotton handwipes, normally handed out at restaurants following an Indian meal, make great cleaning cloths if you're brave enough to save them before they're collected from the table (after which they're normally binned) and bring them home for washing.

[Deleted User]

I always save and reuse the plastic containers on those rare occasions we have chinese takeaway meals, I saved and still use the heavier plastic vitalite margarine tubs (now the packaging is lighter and not useable) to portion out the dinners I cook and then freeze for the lurcher. I save commercial bread wrappers and then use them to store bags of flour in my storeroom/pantry after they've been in the freezer for 24 hours, sealed with a plastic clip. I never take plastic carrier bags, I've a heavy duty nylon one from M&S given to me some years ago and another one from Pavers the shoe people which I always keep in my rucksace when I'm shopping. We save 2 litre carbonated drinks bottles and with a special nozzle from the garden centre we use them to water seedlings, hanging baskets,tubs etc. We recycle newspapers by making papier mache bricks from them which we dry in the polytunnel and use to light the woodstove. Many more too!!!