All the ‘Single-Use’ Household Items You Should Be Re-Using

Part of being an adult is feeling the constant need to replenish basic household supplies. One way to combat this loop is to be more mindful about recycling and re-purposing your stuff. But you can go one step further—there are many things we tend to treat as “single-use” that can, in fact, be used more than once. Using stuff at least twice will reduce how much of it you use, so you’ll spend less on it (and spend less overall) and throw less of it into the trash. So if you’re throwing any of the items on this list into the garbage every time you use it, think twice.

Aluminum foil

Foil is incredibly useful, but too often we treat it as a disposable resource. But it’s metal, people. It’s pretty durable, and it is absolutely possible to clean a used sheet of aluminum foil and use it a second (or even third) time. If it’s only been used to cover a dish and hasn’t actually gotten dirty, you can just smooth it out and repurpose the sheet. But even if it’s dirty, you can wash it—either by hand, or by placing it in your dishwasher (top rack, dirty side down, weighed down with something).

If you don’t feel like re-using your foil for your own cookery, you could at least wipe down used sheets, ball them up, and toss them into your dishwasher’s utensil bin to shine things up a bit.

Parchment paper

Just like foil, there’s no reason you can’t use the same sheet of parchment paper in several baking adventures. As long as the paper isn’t charred or burned from the heat of the oven, and doesn’t have baked-on crust from previous uses, you can wipe it down and re-use it for that second (or even third) batch of cookies. This is an especially useful tip because parchment paper isn’t recyclable, thanks to the thin layer of silicon on its surface, so use it as often as possible to reduce its waste.

Dryer sheets

If you use dryer sheets, you’re probably over-using them—if you pop one into your laundry every single time, you run the risk of clogging up your clothes (and your dryer vents) with the residue of the fabric softeners and other substances infused into the sheet. And you can reduce your use of them even more by using your sheets twice, as a “used” sheet will probably still have enough oomph to treat a second load. Alternatively, you can cut your sheets in half before use—you won’t notice any difference and your box of sheets will last twice as long.

Plastic shower curtains

Plastic shower curtains get buildup of soap scum and mildew over time. But rather than throwing them away as soon as they get gross, right, just toss them into your washing machine and watch it come out looking like new.

Soap

At first glance, soap would seem to be the ultimate “one-use” product, but if you’re using bar soaps in your daily routine, you end up with those tiny bits of soap at the end—the “slivers”—which you probably toss in the trash. But it’s not hard to hang onto them and then mash them together into a whole “new” bar of soap. There are a couple of ways to accomplish this ranging from the fast and funky to the more nuanced and professional, but the bottom line is that you can use your soap twice, and save a bit of scratch as a result.

Grocery plastic bags

While a lot of grocery stores have eliminated the plastic bag for carting home your items, there’s might be one place you’re still getting “single-use” plastic bags: the produce aisle—but you can absolutely use those produce bags a second time. You can even wash them if you’re worried about contamination of some sort, and then feel good about not dumping a bunch of plastic into the landfill.