I’m on a medication that gets delivered to me in a dramatically over packaged way every two weeks. Part of this packaging is a styrofoam cooler about 27x22x25cm and two unlabeled cold packs.
I currently have 7 of these and expect to be getting them for the rest of my life. Aside from just tossing them, do any of you lot have suggestions for what i can do with all these coolers?
Chop the Styrofoam into little pieces. Place in glass bottle. When the time is right, add gasoline. Now you have napalm. Rag for wick./s <-- this means I’m just kidding and you should never, ever do this or throw it at fascists.
Funny enough, I’ve done this before. The big issues is the styrofoam loses its fluff and you end up with a small glob. It’d be more effective to mix it in a bowl and pump it into the bottle.
Fuck, we were talking to an expert
I keep napalm for starting fires at home and camp. Can’t be beat!
I love burning down my home for a little excitement on the weekend!
Homemade napalm, is, uh, not like the movies. It’s merely a gelatinous substance, that once on fire, burns forever.
It doesn’t explode. It’s not reactive, to anything. It just sits in a jar until you take a twig and twirl some out, light it on fire.
Learn some chemistry, some basic science, experiment! Stop getting your ideas from Hollywood.
Oh I wasn’t trying to say that napalm is super dangerous or anything, to me your phrasing just sounded a bit like you’d be making campfires inside your home so I made a little joke. Of course its n.o big deal if you just use it outside.
fun for the whole family
Donate to a local food bank, homeless shelter, meals on wheels. Styrofoam containers can be used to store or transport hot or cold foods to those in need.
A quick check at amazon shows these costing about $14 each, no doubt much less in bulk but still expensive. Perhaps inquire with the shipper if they would accept them for reuse if cleaned. If the shipper is friendly they might consider setting up a program to collect these from your city and return them for reuse. The shipper could save considerably on costs and you might have found a new business.
Yes or just flog them on Ebay/marketplace etc
I would do Craigslist/marketplace. Find someone who resells them or uses them for some product and have them pick up every 3 months or whatever schedule for a set price. Way less hassle than finding a new buyer everytime.
Good idea
Start harvesting organs.
At today’s interest rates and inflation, this is the only viable solution.
~How much can I get for selling a kidney on the black market?~
Everyone is out here telling you to sell them for $x meanwhile I’d suggest just giving them away for free to anyone willing to pick em up. No compromises.
frustrating. I was also getting a steady supply of ice packs. One time one of the ice packs said it could be used as plant fertilizer and I was happy to do so but never saw another one like that.
I take my trash to a transfer station. The amount of single-use stuff we throw away is frightening.
I never came up with an answer. I asked my neighbors on an app and they had similar issues with chilled medical delivery.
Home igloo?
Put meals in them and give them to the unhoused?
Depending on the density of the Styrofoam, it can be used as a rainfall simulator for a greenhouse. Water drips through some Styrofoam in a very random way.
As much as I’d love that for a small greenhouse, these probably wouldn’t work. They’re almost 5cm thick and tight enough that I’ve stood on them without compression or denting.
May be worth running water over one just in case if you are interested in pursuing it. I was so confident that a Styrofoam container for my humira meds would hold water that I filled it up and started walking before realizing it was dripping all over me.
Hey, we’re med buddies! Well now I definitely have to at least fill it with water, I’ve got a lot of tropical plants that would love a good rain.
If they are the right kind of Styrofoam, they can be recycled. See if there’s someplace near you that takes them.
I did look into that and sadly they aren’t. Any recycling will have to be upcycled
Make a raft
You could keep them to pack your own food into encase of a power outage. I assume this nest together so they wouldn’t take up much room.
Likely not something you will do but I found this interesting: There is an electronics business in the UK who bought a machine to break up styrofoam into small bit. They also have a steady supply of the stuff. They paid for the machine by selling the styrofoam as blown-in insulation.
Make some styrofoam swamp coolers. My AC is not catching up this summer and I have a few of these due to some eyedrops I’ve been getting shipped to me. I’m seriously considering building one until I get my AC serviced when it gets cooler.
Personally I really don’t think swamp coolers are worth it. If you wanna evaporate water to cool off, do it right on your skin using a damp towel instead of making the air all swampy for a slightly cool breeze. Towel+regular fan is much more effective imo
I’d love that if it weren’t so humid here that they’re functionally useless. Though I am thinking about using them to insulate my attic to reduce heat transfer.
organ harvesting