The r/upcycling subreddit proved once again that you should never doubt the internet's ingenuity when it comes to finding new purposes for would-be trash.
One beneficiary was a user looking for what to do with plastic shot glasses with dividers.
They wrote in their post: "I got these shots for Christmas and it's such a sturdy plastic, I'd hate to throw them away. In one side was liquor and the other side was some sort of chocolate cream. They're too small to be an organizer for anything I can think of."
Luckily, the Reddit community was overflowing with practical ideas.
One user offered "Q tips and another bathroom thing," with other Redditors jumping in to suggest "nail clippers and tweezers" and "dental picks."
"You can propagate plants in them," a commenter suggested.
The original poster's desire to upcycle is admirable given that discarded plastic can fill planet-heating landfills indefinitely and leak worrisome microplastics into groundwater and soil as well as our food and bodies. And that's just the plastic that doesn't end up in the ocean or in nature, where it can create an eyesore that is bad for the local ecosystem.
While some might suggest that the OP could recycle, we don't know whether their area would accept the shot glasses or how effectively they could be recycled. However, there is some positive news on that front, as scientists are hard at work optimizing what gets recycled so it really breaks down.
Upcycling, meanwhile, has allowed other Redditors to find ways to breathe new life into items such as cardboard, old furniture, and T-shirts. Plastic bottles are a more common cousin of what the OP was dealing with, and social media users have cooked up several ways to upcycle them as well.
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Giving me money back 💰 Lest you think the community was done, users shared even more ideas on the food and drink side.
One commenter suggested:: "What's better when mixed at the last moment? I have been enjoying espresso and soda water shots. You have a chance at some fun with that."
Another had a long series of delectable ideas, including "red and green gazpacho, homemade dunkables (long cookies on one side, frosting on the other), and crudites with dip (cut carrots, celery, green beans, peppers into thin strips and put ranch or hummus on the other side)."
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