By Liesl Clark
There are some obvious reuses for chip and snack bags, like turning the silver side into wrapping paper. But our readers are looking for more. Since they can’t be recycled, except through a few specialty options like a Terracycle chip bag brigade (yet the chip bag brigades are all full), many people are looking into reuse options as well as reducing consumption of chips in a bag in the first place. This list provides you with some ideas for reuse. If you have more ideas to share with us, please include them in the comments below.
1) Make cool bike streamers from chip bags.
2) When you sew a baby toy or stuffed animal, putting a chip bag inside the ear or sail of the toy makes it crinkle, adding a little auditory stimuli for your little one.
3) You could try to make chip bag earrings like these.
4) Insta-reuse: Chip bag bowls.
5) There’s something disturbing about this shrinking chip bag experiment. It says to only use an old microwave as it may damage your good one. Proceed with serious caution.
6) Craft a beautiful silver chip bag pinata!
7 – 11) Check out these five awesome snack hacks for your curious child. You can make an instant compass or your own hydro foil! Super cool.
12) Turn your favorite chip bags into book covers to protect your journal when you’re travelling.
13) Make a no-sew chip bag tote.
12 More chip bag reuses can be found in our original post about chip bags. Don’t hesitate to check them out, they’re some of the best on the web!
Lou’s Upcycles turns them into functional accessories! http://www.lousupcycles.com
silver lined bags I reuse for blocker on storm door,keep sun out on hot summer days.
How clever!!! Thank you for sharing! I’m trying to teach my children how to re-use and recycle and your post will definitely help me!
Use your bags as gift bags! Turn your chip bag inside out, wash it with dish soap to get rid of any grease. Dry it out. Then reuse the silvery or white side as a mylar-style gift bag. We do this all the time and reuse them over and over. We just attach some pretty ribbon like these pictured here which we found on the beach (no kidding) hanging beneath a deflated helium balloon all twisted up in seaweed. These ribbons last forever, they’re made of plastic, and look as good as new even after years of floating in the open sea. I’ve picked up so many of them on the beach, I’ve had occasion to Freecyle a bag of them, with the caveat that the person agree to keep the ribbons on indoor gifts and not set them free with a helium balloon. When you’ve seen them wrapped around the necks of baby seals and sea turtles, you can’t help reconsider why we risk sending them into our seas via floating balloons in the first place. But I digress.
Use cut up chip bags to fill a pets sleep pillow.
Love it! Great idea.
— Liesl at Trash Backwards