Cardboard is a versatile and easily reusable product, and one Redditor hoped to find a variety of uses when they posted their dilemma on the site.
In the r/upcycling subreddit, the homeowner posed an interesting question to the group.
"I recently took some thick unimportant cardboard from work and I made steps so my elderly cat can climb onto my bed," they began, adding they're looking for similar suggestions.
They considered making "freestanding drawers to slide from underneath my bed as a cheap storage option. But not sure how I'd prevent it from being weighed down. Might be too much friction with it touching the ground."
"Anything handy or frugal or interesting I can make with a variety of cardboard? I have access to different shapes, sizes, thickness, etc," they concluded.
People flooded the comments with a variety of suggestions for the original poster. One person had several suggestions, including "drawer organizers, for anything from clothing items, to stationary, to a kitchen junk drawer" and "christmas ornaments, like, gingerbread cookies, since most cardboard is brown already, with a white paint marker to decorate them."
Others suggested more items for the person's cats, including seeking out a person on Instagram who demonstrates making "literally everything cat related" like toys, beds, and scratchers.
Another suggested making custom gift tags from thinner cardboard materials like cereal boxes.
Upcycling cardboard is limited only by your imagination in most cases, presenting a great low and often no-cost option for acquiring it (especially if you have leftover boxes from Christmas). You can save money by making all sorts of items from it, including things like seedling starters for your spring garden or enriching baby toys.
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Repurposing your cardboard also helps reduce its presence in landfills, where it can take up space as it breaks down and releases polluting gases.
And anything you don't use is typically recyclable, with the American Forest and Paper Association reporting a 93% rate of recycling for the material. The office supply chain Staples has had a recycling program for years and recently added a rewards system for customers, for everything from electronics to old crayons and pencils. Walmart also recently made a switch to recyclable cardboard packaging for hand and dish soap made by Cleancult.
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