For the third Earth Day Lesson in our series (previously, Upcycle and Recycling), I thought I’d talk about how I reuse something around my house. Since I’ve been transitioning away from plastic containers as much as I can with a 2- and 3-year-old, I have been saving and reusing my glass jars. While we are far past the baby food jar stage (and we actually never used baby food in jars, since I made my own baby food), we still use plenty of pasta and marinara jars, as well as jam and olive jars.

One of my favorite was to reuse glass jars is, of course, my homemade kombucha:

NOTE: You would only place kombucha in a sealed container once it has reached the fermentation level that you like and you put it into the refrigerator to stop fermenting. Never put still-growing kombucha in a sealed container — it will explode!

Another favorite glass jar reuse is to store snacks in my pantry:

The only danger with this use is that my kids can reach this shelf and occasionally we have smashed glass from little hands wanting peanuts, raisins, or dried papaya.

Finally, I’m almost always reusing a glass jar to make orange vinegar — soaking orange or lemon peels in vinegar to create a less intrusive-smelling vinegar for cleaning.

You can find my Pin for orange vinegar here.

 What are your favorite reuses? Glass jars or otherwise?