A clever cook gave an ineffective gift a new life thanks to their sew-savvy friend.
In the r/ZeroWaste Reddit forum, the original poster shared a photo of a "useless" tea towel they transformed into a "zippered bag for bulk buying" with help from a friend who knows how to sew.
They explained in a comment that their mom regularly gives them "decorative" tea towels as gifts, and this one in particular wasn't "absorbent at all."
The OP was already planning to buy a bag to use for shopping for grains in bulk, but instead, their friend offered their "time and talents" to create the zippered bag. They also noted that they are engaged in an "ongoing effort" to talk their mom out of buying them gifts that are less than useful, but they still have a "backlog" of towels to work through.
Repurposing the towel into a reusable bag is a genius way to make better use of a gift that could have otherwise ended up in a donation bin or worse, the landfill. It also saved the OP money on buying a new product, cutting down on resources that would go into the item, including fuel for transportation.
As we head into the holiday season, it's important to consider thoughtful gift-giving. According to Forbes, last year, nearly 1 in 3 U.S. adults planned to return or exchange gifts they received. And many of those returns still went to the landfill, contributing almost 9.5 billion pounds of landfill waste. Returns also create a reported 16 million metric tons (over 17.6 million tons) of carbon pollution each year.
Redditors in the comments were inspired to make their own reusable bags out of tea towels, as well as repurpose items in general.
"Love this idea. I think I still have a tea towel like that. Now to find it in my fabric stash," one person wrote.
Another shared they were similarly inundated with decorative cloth that they weren't a huge fan of, adding: "I love this idea for transforming them into something I'd actually use."
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