Reusing Tin Cans

Bake Mini Cakes in Tuna Cans

I needed small cake pans, but didn't have any, so I grabbed some empty tuna cans. They are just the right size for mini cake pans.

By duckie-do from Cortez, CO

Reusing Food Cans

I keep all my food cans for recycling. Some I keep and decorate with paint, stickers, ribbons, and etc. I use them for organizing small items. Recently I cleaned out my medicine cabinet. I put small tubes like burn creams and antibiotic creams in them. I also keep band-aids, cotton balls, q-tips, my thermometer and sleeves in them.

Any small items that I can to keep things from falling out of the cabinet. You could also just paint them the colors of your choice and label the cans. Either way, whenever you open your cabinet, it is pretty and cheerful to look at. I use them for my make-up items too. It's a great way to store eyeliner, lip liners, mascaras, eye shadow wands, lip glosses, and like.

It just makes things easier for me to find what I am looking for.

By Tricia M. from Ridgeway, VA

Use Steel Cans In The Garden

One of the ways I recycle is by burying my steel cans in my garden, I leave the bottoms on and I bury them about 12 in. deep open side up. I fill the canned with compost and then plant above it. If I'm doing row planting, I will bury a roll of cans and plant above them. The cans will eventually rust away after a couple of years and in the process add much-needed iron to my clay soil.

I also take 1 gallon cans cut off the bottom and put them on the surface of the ground between my tomato plants, I push them in about an inch or so, then I fill them about half full with fresh compost and use this for watering. I fill it up with water and it slowly trickles through. We're in another drought here in Southern California.

By Babette from Lemon Grove

Cookie Cottages From Tin Cans

When using the coffee plastic cans or even the metal ones, I make cookie cottages out of them, and give them as gifts, with home made goodies inside. I crochet the cottage with windows and a door, even steps and some green for grass. I punch some holes in the lid with a big needle and crochet house tops on them. I use several different styles of roof tops. I then stuff the roof and stitch it onto the plastic lid with the holes.

I have several different types of houses I use and I change the styles all the time, changing the colors, windows, and doors. They are a big hit and look great in anyone's kitchen. They come off easy and can be washed and the lids can be hand washed and dried. I crochet a large rubber band around the top of the cottage so it stays on, nice and tight.

Source: I got the pattern for one cookie cottage years ago from somewhere. Since then, I have used my imagination to create my own patterns.

By Peggy8650 from Tunkhannock, PA

Using It All - Tin Cans and Lids

How do you use tin cans other than recycling them. Ideas can include craft ideas or anything else you can think of. Please specify type or size of can.

Sparkle Organizer

The photo does not do this project justice, but it's an organizer that is very easy to make, uses materials you already have on hand, is very nice to look at, and best of all will help your kids keep their things in order.

Crafting Time: 15 - 30 minutes

What You Need:

• Washed out can from vegetables or fruit, with label removed
• Aluminum foil
• Permanent markers
• Cellophane tape (optional)

Directions:

1. Cut off a piece of aluminum foil large enough to cover your can.

2. Use permanent markers to draw and color a picture or design on the shiny side of the foil. You'll find the permanent marker colors are extremely vibrant on the foil. Please note that with the sample in the photo I colored on the back (dull) side of the foil in the hopes that the photo would come out without a reflection. Bottom line - the picture still did not come out that great.

3. Wrap the foil picture around your can. The foil will extend under the can and down into the can so it is completely covered. If you like, you can tape the foil in place with cellophane tape.

4. Use the can to keep hair brushes and combs together in the bedroom or bathroom, or to keep pens, pencils, and markers together on your desk.

By Marie E. Cecchini from West Dundee, IL

Editor's Note: This would be a great Mother's Day Gift that children could make for their mothers and grandmothers.

Heath Risks When Reusing Food Cans

I would just like to have you post the following in response to the recipes I have seen here that call for using empty food cans that are on this site:

Please don't re-use empty cans to cook or heat anything in. Most cans nowadays have a toxic plastic material called Bisphenol A (BPA) inside them to keep the metal from affecting the taste of the food. Unfortunately the BPA is the same as has been used to make baby bottles and many other hard plastic water bottles. BPA has been linked to breast cancer and early puberty in women and when they tested very low doses on mice and rats they found the same plus diabetes, enlarged prostate and prostate cells prone to cancerous changes among the many health problems it can cause. The food that is in these cans is also contaminated by the BPA but then if you reuse the container by cooking or heating anything in them you release up to 50 times more of the BPA into the food.

Google BPA or check out Wikipedia's BPA page and it will make you not want to eat anything in cans anymore, period. Of course the chemical companies all say that the fears are unjustified just because a few rats and mice get sick doesn't mean anything. Sound like Big Tobacco some 20-30 years ago, huh? My sis-in-law who is a real pessimist says "Oh, well, these days everything is being found to give us cancer so why fight it?" I choose to fight it however and whenever I can, thank you very much.

By Evey from Houston, TX

Recycle Cans and Packaging Into Storage Containers

Make storage cans with empty cans. This one shown was made to be a pencil can. I always lose my pens.

Take your empty can and rinse it out with soap and water. Let air dry. Find anything you're not using and cover the front. For the second one, I used juice pouches to match the purse. :) Be careful, the hot glue is very hot. Trim with your favorite decals and go.

Thanks for reading this.

By Sharon from Miami