Solving Problems the Simple Way

I can't help myself. When I get bugged by something, I try to fix it or make it better. Sometimes I get good ideas from other people, and sometimes I actually have original thoughts. In either case, I hope that this helps someone out there.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Newspaper Bundler

Clear out the Clutter!

Nothing clutters up a house faster than newspapers lying around. They cover flat surfaces and chairs so quickly that we strike out in frustration, pick them all up, and put them... uh... somewhere....

In my town, we have a recycling program where we can leave things like newspapers out at the curb every-other week, and they will be picked up and recycled. It is great that we have that option available to us. We only have to store the newspapers for two weeks, and then put them out. The challenge has been the storage part...
We have been keeping them in paper bags under the sink, but we fill a bag every 3 days, and it is always a stuff job to get more into the bags. Recently, I decided to do something about the short-term storage problem, and built a little box that the newspapers can be put into. This box is specially designed to allow me to wrap a couple of pieces of twine around the contents of the box and tie them off before attempting to lift the bundle out of the box.

This idea is not a new one, and there are tons of examples on the Internet so I can't take credit for originality. I would like to encourage you to solve your newspaper pile problem though, so maybe this will work for you also.

 
Notice that the twine goes under the stack before you start piling the newspapers in. I like to pull out enough twine to make two passes around the stack. It is really simple once you get the hang of it. 



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