13 Perfect Ways To Repurpose Wipe Containers To Use Around The House

While the "reuse" corner of the reduce-reuse-recycle triangle often gets shortchanged as we focus on the other two, certain products all but beg us to make use of them once or twice more before the recycling bin beckons. This is rarely more true than it is of hard plastic disposable cleaning wipe containers. These things have functioning lids (removable in the case of the cylindrical containers usually used for household cleaning wipes, hinged for the more boxy baby wipe containers), and usually a secondary lid for more restricted access. Those secondary lids often cover little mechanisms that tension the wipes as they're removed, making them easier to separate into single sheets. All of that functionality must be of some use after the containers are empty, but what can we do? We are, all of us, surely completely organized, without any further need for containers to segregate our stuff.

Since that is, of course, utter nonsense, we unearthed 13 ways you can reuse every style of these disposable wipe containers, including the soft-sided ones with hard plastic lids. Most work with little or no modification, meaning you can start living just a touch more intentionally (and organized) right away. And a few are so good that you will be tempted to just dump the wipes and get on with the reuse. 

With a wipe container, you can make a big improvement in terms of how you store those plastic grocery bags that litter a small corner of almost every home. Disposable wipes containers –- whether the cylindrical ones or the more boxy types -– are a natural holder for those bags, happily dispensing them one at a time when you need them, and otherwise keeping them neatly under wraps. There are even ways to chain the bags together (@Andrea Jean Cleaning shows how on YouTube) so that pulling one out prepares the next for later dispensing.

It's a universal truth that all sidewalk chalk not properly contained will end up disappearing — usually into your carpet. The usual solution, a plastic bag, has one glaring flaw: it doesn't protect the chalk from crushing, so it will eventually get smashed to dust and find its way into your carpet anyway. A wipe box solves the problem with neither drama nor chalk dust. And if you think this is just a hack for kids, think again. A box of chalk in your garage or workshop is a great way to help prevent your tools from rusting.

Teachers must be, on average, the craftiest bunch of people we know, and Lysol has a few ideas for how its wipe containers can be repurposed into teacher's aids, including as ruler holders and writing prompt dispensers. Some of these ideas work best with cylindrical containers, and some can work with either style of hard plastic container. If you've got a crafty teacher, you've found a person to pass your empty containers along to guilt-free — just make sure you gift them some printable sticker paper, as well, in case they want to create some colorful labels.

Those soft wipes containers with hard plastic covers are all but impossible to refill ... but you can use the cover on a Ziploc bag or vinyl pencil case to make a refillable pouch that you can add store-bought or homemade wipes to any time. It takes a bit of work, but it's not at all difficult. At a minimum, it can be a good excuse to buy wipes in bulk, reducing your costs and landfill footprint. If you know you won't have the patience for this upcycle project, you can also get refillable pouches on Amazon.

Have you noticed that commercially available first aid kits never have the exact things your family needs in them? And have you noticed that you seem to need about 12 first aid kits (or more, if you have kids ... at the rate of about seven per child)? Here's your solution: Buy the goods in bulk and distribute them as you see fit among a dozen or three wipe containers. For an idea of what should go in the kit, see our list of emergency supplies that every house should have on hand.

If you thought a first aid kit was important, wait until you see this idea — an always-on-hand kit that you can hand to a child who's starting to gloomily chant "I'm bored." A notebook, crayons, pencil, various craft supplies, a deck of flashcards, or some index cards with game instructions or activity suggestions can be all you need to cure a child's boredom and maintain your sanity. Switch out the contents of the creative box from time to time to keep things fresh for your child.

Whether your end goal is judiciously portioning candy for your kids or keeping them away from it entirely, few things are as intuitively avoidable as a wipes box. That makes it the perfect place to hide candy until you are ready for them to have it — or eat it yourself. Just be careful not to hand this to your kid when you meant to hand them the emergency creative box! Of course, you can stash other things in the box; cash comes to mind, since no burglar is likely to take an interest in cleaning up.

With a little hot glue and a pair of scissors, you can turn a few of those soft wipe dispensing pouches into a nifty organizer for small objects. Coins, coin cell batteries, MicroSD cards, pills, different sets of ID issued to you by your handler. There are many possibilities, and you don't need James Bond's Q to create this bit of kit for you. Just glue a bunch of the hard plastic tops together with cardboard dividers in between. We can't tell you if film from those tiny spy cameras will fit, though.

Why is it that the people who make nitrile and latex gloves can't make a container that, well, contains them for more than about 45 seconds? The bags tear irreparably, and the cardboard boxes invariably get ripped to shreds or bent out of shape in no time. This is the perfect application for a disposable wipes container, and you can even fancy it up by decorating it if you want. Besides that fact that you should always wear rubber gloves when cleaning, you should also always have latex or nitrile gloves on hand for safety, sanitation, and fingerprint-obscuring purposes. We're kidding about the fingerprints!

We haven't tried this one, but it certainly looks promising. Putting a skein of yarn inside a disposable wipes box and running the thread through the dispenser opening gives you a very slight tension on the yarn while holding the skein in place. It also looks like it might be a way to disguise the yarn so that cats won't become overly interested in your knitting project. But maybe that's asking too much. Anyway, don't forget that yarn is not just for knitters, and Michael's is a great place to buy yarn if you're a thrifty DIYer.

It might be an immutable law of nature that little jars of paint or ink, left unprotected, will eventually find their way onto any piece of difficult-to-clean fabric that you own. Keeping them in a handy box made from a disposable wipes container is the perfect upcycle to solve the problem ... though you might need more than one box, depending on the scope of craft projects around your home. This idea applies to craft supplies in general. Anything that can fit can be misplaced, so why not group and store them?

This one might be our favorite use of all. Glue a Lego baseplate inside the lid of a disposable wipe box and fill the container itself with random Lego pieces. Toss one of these kits for each kid in the trunk of your car, and you have instant entertainment whenever you have a car full of whiny children. These would also make great party favors, which would in turn make a great way to unload a bunch of excess Lego pieces on your kids' friends. (To say nothing of a bunch of wipe containers.)

Ok, this might sound a little silly, but actually this is the most sensible approach to repurposing disposable wipes containers. With sufficiently strong paper towels, like Z400 White Rags, it's simple enough to cram some new wipes into the container, add the liquid of your choice, and have some wipes that might very well be better than the original ... especially if you have misgivings about the chemicals used in many commercial wipes. And if you're making your own reusable paper towels, why not have a container on hand to store the soiled ones?