I'm not the only one who does it

My brother remarked to me recently that there was no accounting for the reason why I save some of the things I save, but weren't there some things I could throw away? Something to that effect.

I do save a lot of stuff. One reason I save stuff is that I really do hate the idea of how much stuff is buried in the land fills. And once there it probably isn't going to be used again.

And I do recycle everything I can. I just read that some recycling places do recycle vitamin bottles, I'll have to investigate if my county takes them.

Anyway here's a list of some of the stuff I have saved: plastic bottles of all kinds, large and small; water, juice, vitamin, spice, pill bottles, etc. Non-bottle plastic containers such as the kind that hold potato chips, and cocoa, etc. Oatmeal boxes, and similar such cardboard containers. Plastic spice "tins" (not the bottles). Bottle lids. Cardboard tubes from paper towels and toilet paper. Altoid, and similar tins. Keys. Old clothing of all sorts. Plastic bags. Paper bags. Gift bags. Newspapers. Tissue paper. Wrapping paper. Ribbons.

Reuse ideas. I just spent a good bit of time googling reuses ideas. Here are some I found. Some I had thought of myself.

* I found a place to send keys. Wind chime. Weights for the hems of curtains or table cloths to be used outside.

* Lots of people thought of using the small plastic containers for storing paper clips, beads, buttons, etc. (Yeah, I had thought of that.)

* Clean, food-safe bottles for lunch boxes to put nuts, or salad dressing.

* A chandlier. The chandelier I saw made of various plastic items--not at all attractive, I havta say. I have thought of trying to make some kind of sculptures.

* A soda bottle greenhouse. The greenhouse made of 2 liter bottles looked pretty cool. A "green" greenhouse.

Some of my own ideas.

* Cut-up old jeans to make quilts for charity.

* A small plastic vitamin bottle makes a good place to put broken pins and needles.

* Put small plastic spice containers filled with water in the freezer to use as ice packs. I use the ice packs both for packing food and for pain relief. (Ice is good for reducing inflammation, and the bottles don't drip as much as bags of ice.) This also also a good to fill up the freezer. It's supposedly more energy efficient for some reason.

I have thought of trying to open up a warehouse or something that just collects such things so every conscientious person who had more plastic vitamin bottles, etc. than they need could take them there. And anyone would needed such stuff for a craft project or whatever could just come and get what they needed. And the stuff wouldn't just go the the land fill. I haven't been able to think of a way to cover the expenses however. I wonder if it would be worth it to the county to keep so much stuff out of the landfill?