I can find a use for many discarded things. I rebuild,reweld,repurpose,reinvent. Sometimes for economics, always for the challenge!...one of my projects!

If you're teaching your kids how not to be wasteful humans, and how to reuse items that would normally end up going to waste in a landfill, please feel free to
tell anyone who has a problem with it to go fuck themselves.

I reuse and repurpose things all the time. I draw the line at dumpster diving for
food because I personally cannot get past the fact that it's in a dumpster. However,
I'm pretty sure that if I were starving, I'd get over it. I'll let you know if that ever happens.
I have known people who do that. It didn't seem to bother them at all.

Raise your small humans however you see fit. Sounds like they are healthy, happy, and being raised intelligently.
Tell anyone who feels otherwise that if they aren't willing to support your children financially, and in all other ways, they don't get to have an opinion.
Or you can just tell them to fuck right off. Whichever.

How to reuse and repurpose whenever possible I don't own a Keurig either.

It is not disgusting . Do they think you're climbing into a restaurants dumpster ? Reusing and repurposing are good ways to pinch pennies and come away with useful items and even beautiful art. Keep up the good work??.

A friend of mine was doing some volunteer work in India. They gave the kids a balloon and when it burst they cried "can`t you fix it?" For them the concept of such a disposable item was alien. Everything in their lives fixable or reusable.

With a limited income I repurpose things all the time. No dumpster diving for me, if I got in one I don't think I could get back out. If I see something interesting I may stop or I'll ask others for items.
I'm now making some wind chimes from wine and liquor bottles, small jars, deer antler, extra fishing line and aluminum sheet. Just to have something to do and to see if I can do it.

I guess it depends how you are acquiring the items you're repurposing. Goodwill, thrift stores, garage sales are okay. Dumpster diving, not okay.

I love making things from other broken things its the best thing ever!

It’s a good thing to reuse.

I love to repurpose objects or use them in my crafts projects. That's why I have an entire room of bins of various 'ingredients' such as fabric scraps, or glitter, or glues, or......

I used to cut up cereal boxes to make bookmarks. I pretty soon realised I would have more bookmarks than books so stopped!

One mans trash is another mans treasure. If you can re-purpose something that someone else doesn't want, GREAT! There is a thing called planned obsolescence and perceived obsolescence. If we consume as much materials in the US as much as the rest of the world, it's estimated that you'd need 4-5 Earths. Most of the tings we buy don't last more than 6 months before they are thrown out. Apple is notorious for downgrading their iPhones to make people buy new ones...

I love the way you use and reuse..we do the same....its fun too!

We live in a consumer culture that frowns on buying used, and repairing what is supposed to be our own devices. This has to go. Though I never really have taken it up, I've known tons of people who dumpster dive, and much of it has been both for surviving and as a practice of depending on consumer culture.

It depends on what you reuse or repurpose.

When i lived in japan, i would save plastic containers that had contained, oh, say, yoghurt, or margarine, and use them to store leftovers, or nails, or paper clips, or whatever. my japanese friends thought i was a genius. they'd been throwing them away and then going out and buying the japanese version of tupperware! i save jars -- any foodstuffs that come in boxes are susceptible to bugs, and that goes double for grains, so i seal that all up in jars. i just ground up some coffee beans that came in bags. i put my fresh grounds in an empty french fried onion container, and i put the leftover whole beans in jars. i use egg cartons to start seedlings indoors before planting season. jeans ripped beyond repair? patch material for stuff that CAN be repaired! i even made a quilt once, but i'm no good at it lol. pill bottles? i made beaded jewelry; beads can be sorted and stored in those bottles. yeah, i am big on containers, and i do use them -- i don't just save them. i go to adult daycare with my alzheimer's-afflicted fiancé, and sometimes the lunch they provide is either short on veggies or long on white bread. when i know this in advance i use a nice, sturdy saved container that once had something else in it to bring a salad along to eat with the provided lunch. i have even repurposed ugly prints on canvas, since fresh canvas is so expensive and i like to paint! and i had a cat, now gone, alas, having succumbed to a brain tumor, whose favorite toy was a nose spray bottle he stole from me! once i discovered his love for such things, i made sure not to throw the bottles away when i was done, but instead rinse them and let him play with them to his heart's content. orange peel you say? soak in white vinegar to make a wonderful nontoxic cleaning fluid! egg shells you say? calcium for the garden -- and those coffee grounds acidify the soil so your pink hydrangeas can blossom blue! we compost all our other discardable vegetable matter (even some kinds of paper); we don't have to pay for plant food.

i always wrap birthday and chanukah presents in pictures i cut from old magazines and catalogues (yes, i recycle the remains). tubs that have no lids? poke holes in the bottom: instant planters!

and what's wrong with a little judicious scavenging anyway? in japan, people would throw away entire sets, like 40 pieces, of china in perfect condition, and rocking chairs, and book shelves -- i missed out on a wok once (someone else grabbed it). it's not as if i rummaged through icky garbage; there were special locations to throw out furniture and stuff. i think the only furniture i had in my house that wasn't acquired from one of those sites was my fridge and my bed! (oh, i miss my rocking chairs!) as for thrift stores, what could be better than helping the cause of your choice AND finding a bargain? some of us can't afford to buy new things (and some of us prefer old things anyway -- the workmanship is often far superior!) garage sales/yard sales help the individual sellers and you can find such treasures.

by far the most valuable treasures i ever found were my cat wafer, discarded at the age of 10 days in a deep gutter the night before a hurricane, and my cat wasabi, thrown into a trash can with his tail broken and his nose dripping green goo from the respiratory infection that almost killed him. someone threw these two treasures away and they gave me joy for almost 15 years each.

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I love going to the dumps amazing what you can find .

Whoever has Lulu please give her back, I need to paint her nails.

I do try to repurpose old stuff but I am not much good with diy tools. But recycling is big here in the UK, which is brilliant.

Like always adding a comment withou polling. I never stop using a woman because she was broken!

I am pleased as punch sometimes when though it is a long time since i spent time each day thrifting...when my garbage toll for the week comes in at next to nothing. There is quite a bit of savings in packaging alone. Ifs the kits learn early and with some help it can be lucrative and creative, the market likes minds like that .

I'm all for reusing within limits. When looking for a solution, a used item is fine. However, it is not OK to save unused items for that potential purpose. That is hoarding and creates a lot more problems than it solves. Live minimally and efficiently. Reuse when it serves those purposes.

It’s hard to tell. It all has to do with taste. Some objects are worth reusing and saving, some are trash. Plastic is generally indicator of cheap, wood, stainless steel, copper are usually make prettier objects. There is no shame in recovering nice things and give them a new life. Hoarding is unhealthy though.

So the answer to the question really depends on the “how”.

How much time do you invest in that? How organized and declattered are your house and garage? Do the objects you recover have an intrinsic value most people would be able to see or are they only valuable to you? These are the questions that need to be addressed to figure out your question.

That said, old objects can have soul, history, and beauty