Uses for Maxwell House Plastic Containers

coffee scoop image by Jeffrey Zalesny from Fotolia.com

The plastic containers that Maxwell House coffee comes in are recyclable in the sense that they can be reconstituted at a recycling facility, but they're also recyclable in that they can be made into useful household containers with little or no extra effort. If you drink lots of coffee and have the pile of plastic containers to prove it, consider reworking them for a functional second purpose before hauling them to the curb for pickup.

Portable Paint Container

Plastic Maxwell House coffee containers can be put to effective use as portable paint containers, with absolutely no extra effort necessary to modify or alter the container in any way. The usefulness of these containers for paint purposes is two-fold. First, the handles that are molded into the containers make them easy to carry around from place to place. Second, the easy-to-snap-on lid keeps paint in the coffee container from drying out when there's an extended break in painting activity. The small, disposable plastic paint containers that many large hardware stores are completely unnecessary with these handy coffee container paint totes.

Food or Small Item Storage

Because Maxwell House plastic coffee containers have airtight snap lids, they make excellent food storage containers. Specifically, they are great for storing dry goods, such as dry legumes, pastas, flours, grains, sugars, oats and loose teas. Labeling the containers to avoid confusion can be as simple as a piece of masking tape with the food item written on it in marker.

Storing small nonfood items such as paper clips, thumbtacks, rubber bands and writing utensils is another idea for these plastic containers. Since these items are nonperishable, you may even want to decorate the containers by spray painting them and hot gluing craft items such as ribbon or buttons to them. Given the toxic composition of spray paints, using them on food storage containers may not be the best idea.

Piggy Bank

Using a Maxwell House plastic container as a piggy bank is as simple as cutting a notch into the lid with a small, sharp, serrated knife. You'll want to make the notch at least as long and wide as a quarter, with a small amount of room to spare on all sides. Emptying the piggy bank is as easy as popping the lid off. As with the small items storage idea, these containers can be painted and decorated with craft items such as plastic dollar signs or toy money to spruce them up.