Don't Throw Away That Cardboard Drink Holder From Your Last Fast Food Run — Use It For This First

It's no secret that we live in a culture that produces a lot of garbage. It's estimated that the average American produces around 5 pounds of trash per day, and a lot of it comes from single-use items like grocery bags, takeout containers, and those cardboard drink trays that come with a coffee run. Some of the garbage we create is admittedly unavoidable, but you can easily lessen the burden on our natural resources by finding creative ways to reuse things before they go to the recycling or trash bin. Those cardboard drink trays, for instance, are perfect for organizing delicate produce in your refrigerator and reducing food waste.

With a bit of cushioning from a cardboard tray, loose produce that tends to roll around the fridge and get squished has a fighting chance. The same design that keeps coffee cups from tipping over in the car works perfectly to organize and protect individual vegetables and fruits that bruise easily like apples, tomatoes, peaches, and avocados. Even better, these cardboard trays are stackable, so you can store and organize all kinds of foods in the individual compartments all in one place. Once you get the hang of this hack and see how much longer you can extend the life of certain foods, you'll never toss another drink holder before its time.

There's no special technique for reusing cardboard drink holders to organize produce in the refrigerator. Just fill each compartment with foods that fit. With that said, cardboard will degrade over time in the refrigerator. Most drink holders are made with uncoated cardboard, which is porous, so they will absorb moisture from the fridge. The lifespan of a cardboard tray stored in the cold conditions can span anywhere from a few days or a week to a few weeks depending on your machine's settings. Produce drawers, the best place to store fruits and veggies (if used properly), hold more moisture than the main compartment of the fridge, so if you plan to put a cardboard tray or two in a drawer, expect the trays to soften up faster. Most of the time, however, they'll last about as long as the life of the produce you're planning to store, and oftentimes you can get more than one use out of each tray.

Once the drink trays start to get soft and lose their shape, it's time to toss them into the recycling bin. Or, if they don't have a shiny coating, the trays are biodegradable so you can tear them into pieces and mix them in with compost. As a reward for all that earth-friendly upcycling, you can justify a trip to the coffee shop for a little treat — just don't forget to use your drink holder to keep your produce looking perfect.