An Idea About All Those Darn Boxes

[drgirlfriend]

As many of you know, being a pd patient involves oodles of boxes and bags and waste products. It makes the boyfriend feel so guilty and wasteful taking out bag after bag of used supplies every week. Certainly most of that stuff can't be recycled in any way, but the boxes are really good quality and are great for moving. We used several of them for books since you can't get enough in one to make it too heavy. I was thinking about trying to sell them. Maybe have a standing craiglist ad saying they're available once a week for pickup. Or one of those freecycle or trade sites. What do you think?

[Jean]

Personally, I think that any way you can make some money from those boxes is good. OR, you could do like that young kid did last week and made his own arcade from the boxes.

[deniferfer]

I think that's a great idea! Right now I just cut them up and take them to a recycling center. But if I could sell them that would be awesome! Right now I go thru 42 boxes a month.

[drgirlfriend]

Jean - if I had the imagination and skills, I would make something cool outta them! Didn't that kid get a big scholarship for that?
deniferfer - I think the boyfriend goes though nearly that many a month. Depends on how many bags he messes up!

How much you think I should charge for them?

[deniferfer]

How does he mess them up? lol

I was thing the same thing about how much they would be worth?
Maybe look at the ups like store and see what they charge for a box about that size. There is one small problem people may have is cuz it was use to hold med stuff they mite freak out a bit.

I totally for the art idea! I saw someone drew a face on a box spring and it was called art! lol

[drgirlfriend]

The boyfriend uses Heparin and will occasionally get nervous and scrape the inside of the med-port with the needle. The hypodermic just freaks him out for some reason.

[Joe]

I'll ditto your idea for using them for moving. We just moved, and I'd guess 70% of the boxes we used were my Baxter boxes. They were great! You almost can't overload them, and they stack unbelievably well. Now that the move is over, I'm just putting them out for the recycling, I average about 9 boxes a week but can't think of anything else to do with them.

[WishIKnew]

I think the Craig's list idea is great - even if you just charged 1$ per box that would add up over time!  We donated many of mine to our  church.  They do a monthly food distribution called Angel Food and needed to break down the shipment into almost 100 individual orders so the boxes came in handy.  They are a great manageable size.  Good luck finding a use for them.  Dialysis creates so much waste and it really bothered me, too.

 

[Rerun]

Staples sells their empty paper boxes for $1.   I've purchased a few.

[Jean]

Yeah, I think $1.00 is  a good price, or like 6 for $5.00, that sort of thing.

[BillSharp]

When I was on Home D, we gave mine to a woman who had a home business making quilts. She used them to ship her products.

[Jean]

All of the storage laces around here sell packing boxes. Maybe you could sell the boxes to them. Of course, you would get less money, since they would have to make a profit, but at least maybe a steady outlet?

[Poppylicious]

If you were feeling really generous you could just offer them for free - I expect you'd get rid of them far more quickly than if you charged for them!  Also local colleges might need them (the cardboard can be useful for art based courses).  I used to hate the amount of rubbish (recyclable or otherwise) that PD generated; it used to make me want to scream very VERY loudly!

 

[drgirlfriend]

To tell the truth, I'd rather give them away and anticipate doing so eventually. The boyfriend is in love with the idea of trying to get some money out of anything and everything, so we'll try that first.

[Darthvadar]

Do you have a food bank near you???...

They'd be delighted to get the boxes... They're SO strong, they'd be great for loading things like canned food into...

Darth...

[cariad]

Darth, that's a brilliant idea!

I don't think I'd bother trying to sell them. Freecycle is fairly overrun with people offering moving boxes, and I imagine Craigslist is the same. There are certain items that make people a bit hostile when you try to sell them. I don't know about moving boxes, but I've seen people get aggressive reactions to trying to sell coupons or empty baby food jars.

[Darthvadar]

Glad to help, Cariad...

I just thought that Food Banks often have cans, fresh produce, etc. to deliver (probably to people who live a couple of flights of stairs up!) , and if the boxes aren't reliable, there could be difficulty...

Good way to offload your supply... I only wish I had a food bank near me, but I'm sure my local charity shop may use ours... Muct call them... I'm getting pretty peeved about having to tear them apart and put them into the Recycling bin!......

Love to all...

Darth...

[WishIKnew]

Google to see is any churches/organizations near you participate in Angel Food Ministries.  If there is one, contact them and see if they want your boxes for their food distributions once a month.  They get a big shipment of skids of food but have to break it down into individual orders, so they need godd, manageable boxes.  That's where a lot of mine went.

[smcd23]

We recycle ours (go through about 14 per week for solution plus the cassettes) but what I really wish was for a way to recycle the bags and tubing! I hate hate HATE throwing away that much plastic. We're by no mean a 100% green house, but we try to do our part, and man, those bags are really counter productive.

I'd post a free ad on CL. A lot of schools and summer camps can use cardboard for art projects. And they make awesome boxes for storage and shipping!

[Joe]

I agree with you completely about the plastic and tubing, what a waste! (no pun intended.. ) I really wish they would recycle all of that.

[paris]

I love Freecycle!   I have picked up free plants, Beth got patio furniture.  It really is a great way to recycle.  You just put it on the site, say where the person can find it (in front of garage, by mailbox, etc) and you don't have to talk to anyone.     We just put 80 books on Freestyle and they were gone the next day.

Let us know what you decide.  Good luck with the boxes!

[brenda seal]

Hey Joe , Laurie hates waste and insists on cutting off the tubing from the dialysis bags as it is the same as the tubing my son uses in his aquarium . So far we have about 100 kilometres of the stuff - no need for anyone to buy plastic tubing in the next millennium !

[smcd23]

Hey Joe , Laurie hates waste and insists on cutting off the tubing from the dialysis bags as it is the same as the tubing my son uses in his aquarium . So far we have about 100 kilometres of the stuff - no need for anyone to buy plastic tubing in the next millennium !

   Brenda that's awesome! I wish we had a reason to keep the tubing, but I just can't imagine where we would store it.

[Darthvadar]

A friend of mine who's a Landscape Gardener uses his friend's tubing for tying plants to trellis, etc...

He says it's perfect, very soft, easy to handle, and is very gentle on the plants... Another advantage is that it's clear, and so it doesn't affect the astethics of the gardens...

Darth...

[Joe]

I think that's the catch Brenda, even if I could think of something to do with the leftovers we generate so much of if we'd be overwhelmed in short order.

I do like the idea of using it to tie up plants, sounds like a reasonable thing to do.