23 Jan
Posted by Hackery as Art & Design, Entertainment, Gadgetry, Health, Home, Life, Productivity, Technology, Various

Imagine all of the silly old stuff you have sitting around the house that is simply going to waste and hasn’t been used in years. Think it’s all junk? Perhaps not. Here are ninety-nine creative ways you can use things you thought had only one purpose, from beer and soda to rulers, stamps, sugar, toothpaste, old CDs and even your iPod.

Having trouble learning how to chopstick? Think of this approach as cheap-and-easy training wheels while you learn the ropes. Inexpensive plastic clothes pins can be disassembled without tools or much effort and their spring can be reused with any generic chopsticks.

Scared to fight for the road, pitting your bike against a few tons of truck or car? Take a conventional fold-out ruler, apply something shiny and reflective and strap it to the back of your ride. Fold it out as needed and back in when parked.

Sick of those fake-smelling toilet bowl fresheners that reek like faux flowers? Get the normal hanging plastic device but swap out the insides with a tea scent of your choice - there are plenty to choose from and it will almost certainly beat out “lemon mist.”

Looking to have a professional and colorful nail job but don’t want to pay for it? Find some interesting stamps with the same or alternating patterns, trim out and apply them. This approach is more manageable and easy to remove anyway.

Prefer loose-leaf tea but find yourself forgetting to buy bags or tea balls? No worries so long as you have a handy household stapler and some tissue paper.

10 Unusual Uses for Beer: marinate meet in it, grow better grass, kill slugs, snails and mice, calm a stomach ache, polish gold, take a bath, polish furniture or cook with it.

3 Unusual Uses for Chocolate: make underwear, cars or even a dress.

6 Unusual Uses for Tooth Paste: Stop itching bug bites and minor rashes, clean up Kool-Aid stains, sooth minor burns, clean ivory piano keys, remove smells from your hands, spot clean your shoes.

6 Unusual Uses for Paper Clips: unbreakable bag closers, zipper pull replacement, cherry pit remover, bathroom door key, Christmas tree ornament hooks, reach electronic reset buttons.

10 Unusual Uses for Sugar: make cut flowers last longer, improve outdoor plant health, hand cleaner, wasp trap, soothe a burned tongue, kill cockroaches, fly catcher, start a fire, keep biscuits or cake fresh

6 Unusual Uses for Butter: remove glue from your hands, gum from your hair, swallow pills more easily, slice through sticky items, remove tree sap or even use it to shave.

10 Unusual Uses for Human Hair: test tress making, growing food, cleaning oil spills, making clothes, creating furniture, crafting art, making soy sauce, nesting material, creating rope.

10 Unusual Uses for an iPod: load text files of exam answers, plan workouts and set timing goals, load a subway map, calculate a tip, learn a language, use the light to read, repel telemarketers, facilitate geocaching, magic 8 ball or sing in the shower to tunes with a waterproof case.

5 Unusual Uses for Old CDS: mini hovercraft, disco ball, lamp, “q-ball” and sculptures

28 Unusual Uses for Coca-Cola: clean a toilet bowl, remove rust spots from chrome car bumpers, clean corrosion from car battery terminals, cook, loosen a rusty bolt, bake a moist ham, remove grease from clothes, clean rust in a bathtub, clean milk stains from clothes, make barbecue sauce, prevent an asthma attack, relieve constipation, prevent diarrhea, condition hair, fertilize azaleas or gardenias, clean eyeglasses, clean tarnished pennies, strip paint off metal patio furniture, get rid of fruit flies, boost a compost bin, prevent flatulence, relieve an upset stomach, kill slugs or snails, mousse hair, sooth a jellyfish sting, clean blood stains from clothes, soothe a sore throat, neutralize skunk odor.
36 Responses
K Stone
January 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm
1Add uses for duct tape and you’ll be up to 1000!
Web TV
January 24th, 2008 at 5:11 am
2@kstone
or Glue lol..
eshop
January 24th, 2008 at 5:15 am
3Coke to clean the toilet? i would rather drink it!
greg
January 24th, 2008 at 5:21 am
4These seem like nice ideas, but unless you’re on welfare (trying to move on up) then why not buy the intended item in the first place?
crina
January 24th, 2008 at 6:18 am
5This is so cool. I didn’t even know that so many things you can do with beer. I guess I have to drink it more oftern. :))
Frugal Duchess
January 24th, 2008 at 7:06 am
6Thanks for including me in this great roundup! I love the instant stamp manicure!
Best Wishes,
Sharon
Data Babble
January 24th, 2008 at 11:39 am
7I like the tennis balls…
elmo
January 24th, 2008 at 11:42 am
8You can use bleach to immediately stop the pain and swelling from bee and hornet stings. dab a little on with a cotton ball and the effect is immediate.
pissed
January 24th, 2008 at 11:45 am
9i feel stoopider (SEE i spelled stupid wrong) for looking at this. although the chop stick thing is cool if you dont know how to use them.
G
January 24th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
10So, I’m pretty sure Mythbusters killed about 15 of those Coke “uses.”
Pyro
January 24th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
11Heh it’s funny about the coca cola, it is such a good solvent that it can clean rust and even blood stains, and people actually drink that crap.
Fuzz
January 24th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
12Great article. You need to fix your RSS feed link. It points to the wrong address.
Linda
January 26th, 2008 at 10:30 am
13I have a use for tea bags.
Damp tea bags put on bleeding gums after having tooth pulled.
They will work on a cut or scrap when you need to stop bleeding.
Tea has a natural blood clotting agent .
Toxic
January 26th, 2008 at 6:03 pm
14McGuiver can work with half of the items here
NoItAll
January 28th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
15Most of the uses for Coke as a cleaner or solvent have been thoroughly debunked. Pyro had it right - Mythbusters did a whole show on Coke legends, and Snopes has a wealth of pages on the so-called uses and properties of the stuff (it’s useless against grease, rust and blood stains, but it does soothe [note the spelling] an upset stomach if it’s not too bad). If you reprint that old tripe, I find it hard to see credibility in anything else on this site.
busterhymen
February 1st, 2008 at 9:15 pm
16I agree with Noitalll
busterhymen
February 1st, 2008 at 9:36 pm
17Hair makes great dental floss, if its long enough.
kissmyapocalypse
February 9th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
18toothpaste can also be put on a zit… dries it right up
deliasdelight
February 10th, 2008 at 8:49 am
19Actually I think it is the seltzer or carbonate in Coke that degreases stuff. McDonald’s uses the carbonated water to degrease their floors especially by the fryers.
Izabael
February 13th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
20Toothpaste also gets rid of zits. (Just happened to read that on a previous stumble today–wash off zit after 15 minutes though.)
Chrissy
February 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pm
21Coca Cola does NOT prevent flatulence.
The carbonation makes you burp and fart.
Chug a 1 liter and tell me how your bumhole feels then.
Oh… and another good use for toothpaste (plain white mint kind), it polishes silver jewelry nicely when used with an old toothbrush.
Joy
February 21st, 2008 at 7:12 am
22I don’t see how coke can ‘prevent flatulence’ when the bubbles in it(the soda) are what causes it in the first place. ;-)
gxbrtpu
April 5th, 2008 at 1:03 am
23cool site for my mind its very goodPlease, send your abuse here!!! send.your.abuse.here@gmail.com
rocco
April 24th, 2008 at 7:54 pm
24i think its cool but they for got spark bomb
HP
April 26th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
25I like the idea of not smelling chemicals in the bathroom….but wouldn’t adding a tea bag to the toilet cleaner leave the water in the bowl a decidedly disgusting shade of brown?
Allison
May 7th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
26A classic use for hair for those of us who live out in the boonies is spreading it around your garden to keep the deer out (apparently they smell the human off the hair and stop eating your cucumbers :] )
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