How to Find Eco Friendly Storage Bins Cheap!
Were you aware that plastic leaches into our food, off-gasses into our air and pollutes our environment for hundreds of years? Are you looking to reduce the amount of plastic you use in your daily life? In this latest video, Mette Aamodt shows you several eco friendly storage bins you can use as alternatives for your Slow Home.
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READ THE TRANSCRIPT:
Mette Aamodt: Hey, folks. Welcome to the Aamodt / Plumb YouTube channel, where we give you tips and advice on creating a Slow Home that is good, clean, and fair. I’m Mette Aamodt, co-founder of Aamodt / Plumb: Architecture, Interiors & Construction, and I’ll be your host. Today I’m going to share with you my tips on finding eco friendly storage bins, as alternatives to plastic bins, that are cheap and sometimes free, for your Slow Home.
If you’re like me, then you’re on a mission to reduce the amount of plastic in your home. Why? Because plastic can leach into the food that you eat, it can off gas into the air that you breathe, and it’s generally terrible for the environment. It’s also not very beautiful and I prefer to surround myself with things that are made of natural materials, because it’s been shown that natural materials and a connection to nature really calms the mind and the body, and that’s really important for a Slow Home.
I have taken some strides to replace my plastic food storage containers and even those plastic kids’ cups and bowls with glass jars like these, and I use these small Pyrex bowls that the kids love. They’re not fragile at all and I get them at my local hardware store. I also have some Pyrex containers like this. They do have plastic lids, and I haven’t figured out how to avoid that yet. If you have any advice, please let me know.
We also have a lot of wood toys – some pretty cool ones. These are called American Bricks. These were Andrew’s father’s toys when he was a little kid and he saved them. They’re kind of like wooden LEGOs and you can make all sorts of things with them. But we were storing them in plastic bins. Now, don’t get me wrong, plastic bins are eternally useful and I’m not going to throw them away. I just made a promise to myself that I would not buy any new ones and I would phase out the old ones. I’m going to donate them or sell them at yard sales or something like that. They definitely shouldn’t go into landfills.
But what am I going to use as an alternative? Now, I could go out and buy ethically-made artisanal woven baskets from local artisans, but those tend to run a couple of hundred dollars each and I’m on a budget. So what I’m going to do today is show you some tips that I use for replacing my plastic storage bins with eco friendly storage bins.
1. Goodwill
Tip number one, Goodwill baskets. A couple of weeks ago I went to the Goodwill and I just looked for baskets. I found these two, a dollar apiece. Interesting shapes, not the most beautiful baskets in the world, but they’re going to do the job. These hold diapers and these hold toys, and if it turns out I can’t find a place for them, I’m just going to donate them again.
2. Found Objects
Tip number two, found objects. Now, occasionally things come in the mail and sometimes it’s in really nice packaging. There was a flower arrangement in this one. This is a nice cardboard box, it doesn’t have any markings or stickers on it. I use things like this to organize my pantry cabinets. I’ll show you a picture of that (below). Some fancy chocolates came in this one. It had a ribbon and a wax seal, which I took off and sanded, but this is the kind of little storage container that my kids love to hide little treasures in.
Use found objects as eco friendly storage bins, like this cardboard box I use to organize my pantry, instead of plastic.
Then the best thing I’ve found so far – and you need to keep your eyes open because these treasures are all around you – someone was throwing away this crate. It was right outside of our office and it was out in the trash. Now, at something like the Brimfield Antiques Fair, you would probably pay $30 or $40 for one of these. It was free!
3. Wine Crates
Tip number three, wine crates. Okay, I have been looking for these for a while. I was even on Etsy and willing to pay $13 for one of these crates until I realized the shipping was going to be $20. That was a nonstarter for me. So the next time I went into my local wine store and I was buying some wine for myself, I just asked them. I said, “Do you have any of these wood crates that you’re going to throw away?” And they said, “Yeah, how many do you want?” I had to hold myself back from saying 15 or more, so I just said two to three, and he said sure. So I’m thinking to myself, okay, every time I go and buy wine, I’m going to ask for a couple of these crates. They were just in their basement, they were probably going to go into a landfill.
Wine crates sometimes have beautiful markings on them, making them a great eco friendly storage bin.
These are beautiful. They’re completely solid. They would be great as toy bins. I use them to store old papers, even in my closet to organize my sweaters. They are solid wood. They already served their purpose. I had to pull out a few staples and sand a few edges, but that’s about it. These all came from Europe, so the fancy wines get shipped in these. They sometimes have beautiful markings on them. They can serve as great large storage bins in your house, and these were completely free.
Now, I’ve given you three tips. We’ve got so far a total of eight bins and baskets for a total cost of $2.
4. Vintage Baskets
My next tip, tip number four, is for if you want to do a little splurge. What I like to do is first off go to Etsy. This is a beautiful woven basket at Etsy. This is the kind of piece, I think I paid $20 for this, that you would have out on your coffee table. It’s a really nice basket. Put remotes in it or a little flower arrangement or whatever. You can figure out a ton of uses for this beautiful basket. So that was kind of a splurge for me, but I think it was worth it.
Then this one I found at a vintage mid-century modern furniture store. Now, this really wasn’t their style. You can see this as a lot more traditional. But it’s a beautifully woven basket with a lot of detail. If you know baskets, which I don’t really, you will recognize that at an antique store this might go for $100 or $150. But because this wasn’t really their bag at the mid-century modern place, I got it for $30. Took it home, cleaned it up a little bit, and now it’s one of the nicer baskets that I have.
Okay, so I’ve showed you 10 bins and baskets for a total cost of $52. Now, I think that’s pretty comparable to the plastic and it’s a whole lot more beautiful.
Now, even though all these bins and baskets are very different, very eclectic, they’re all made of natural materials: straw, wood, etc. Therefore, they all have similar tones and so they really go well together even though they’re completely different styles. They would look really good on just some basic white shelves.
What tips do you have for finding eco friendly storage bins? If you have any answers or any more questions, please put it in the comments below. Please like this video if you enjoyed hearing about this and these great tips, and subscribe to my channel so you always get updated on new videos I put out. Thanks for watching.
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