Milk Crates - not as green as you think
I know milk crates are a really sturdy container and popular for a lot of "green" projects.
The problem is that they're stolen. They belong to the dairy whose name is printed on the sides. Dairies reuse these crates. They don't discard them, contrary to popular belief.
Reusing them would be green if they were discarded. Sadly, dairies must keep replacing their stolen milk crates. That means more resources used. The milk crates outside stores aren't being thrown away; they're awaiting pickup from the dairy driver.
Even damaged crates belong to the dairies. They send them to be repaired and continue to use them.
http://www.gotmilkcrates.com/myths-and-misuse.html
The problem is that they're stolen. They belong to the dairy whose name is printed on the sides. Dairies reuse these crates. They don't discard them, contrary to popular belief.
Reusing them would be green if they were discarded. Sadly, dairies must keep replacing their stolen milk crates. That means more resources used. The milk crates outside stores aren't being thrown away; they're awaiting pickup from the dairy driver.
Even damaged crates belong to the dairies. They send them to be repaired and continue to use them.
http://www.gotmilkcrates.com/myths-and-misuse.html
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Many are sold on the open market...but still called "milk crates".
This one DOES have the company name on it,,,. but it's not a milk company
I have been given them by store owners who have gone out of business or switched dariies. The daries didn't come for their crates.
I have gotten them from dumpsters and other collections of discarded items.
I have been given them.
To return these items to the rightful daries would require me to extend effort and give the dairy free labor. It would cost me more time and effort than the crate is worth.
Is it green to use discards. Absolutely. Is it green to spend time and effort to return discards to the owners. No.
I would not expect a dairy driver to spend time tracking down the owner of a hat or pair of gloves that might have been left on one of his crates
They sell crate-like objects at the hardware store, but they're not nearly as well made.
I ended up making a ton of wooden ones. They're fairly useful as nomadic furniture, but not nearly as nice for holding books as I thought.
At $6 a piece online, dairy crates are still cheaper than a lot of other materials for creating basic furniture.
Crates can safely be arranged into small shelf units if they're zip-tied (I used wire back in the day) together tightly. I liked milk crates for efficiently storing and accessing lots of mass market paperbacks, as well as CDs, videotapes, and audio cassettes. I still use an extra-big record crate for storing my LPs.
A few strategically placed crates can raise a mattress or futon off the floor on a slab of plywood.
Crates are great for carrying crap out to the desert and back, because you'll leave the sand and dust behind. They also stack, lock, and tessellate better than cardboard boxes, and won't be damaged by fluids or crushed by what is above them. This makes them good for hauling food.
I once made an abstract Christmas tree by stacking milk crates up into a trunk and sticking brooms and mops into it like branches. Lights, boom, Happy Holidays.
yea, these look like the real deal. $6.50 plus shipping is cheap too. I wish I could have bought these back in 1995, online, as easy as I could today.
The rectangular ones sold at this site hold more cubic inches per dollar paid, so would be my first choice.
My only other concern would be if a cop saw all your crates in the back of your car, would that now give him probable cause to search you vehicle? I'd guess it would.
I also believe that once probable cause to do a warrantless search exists, showing the officer the legally own status of the crates would not extinguish the probable cause.
With grandmas being arrested for buying too much allergy medical and the fact that the average person unknowingly commits an average of three felonies a day, I don't think my fear of warrantless searches is overblown.
In the UK, it is an offence to possess information that could be of use to terrorists. Not only does that make most high-school chemistry text books (and the brains of the teachers) illegal, it makes it illegal to know where potential targets are, so if somebody stops me in the street and asks for directions to a police station, my helpful response would make me a criminal.
Add to that, the UK government has changed the law for the Olympics - unauthorised use of the Olympic rings and other logos is no longer a civil matter, but a criminal matter. The simple act of adding the images below, without getting written permission from the IOC makes me, technically, a criminal.
Thats not the only printed foible either. Its a pretty big derp.
They're held together with over 20 drywall screws each. I've got 4 of them holding up my bedframe at the moment.
I'll try to post some pictures in a bit if that feature has not been removed by the anti-adblock scripting.
I use mine all the time as step stools while painting walls,
I'd log that as a bug, but it's probably a "feature".
My wooden crates ended up being almost $4 each due to the large number of drywall screws each one used.
The wooden pallets are sometimes reused and sometimes tossed, which is why it is important to ASK FIRST before taking them unless you are fishing them out of a dumpster. Same goes for the giant wooden spools.
Sadly, the shopping carts are always stolen. Even the ones found in a creek at the bottom of a ravine were originally stolen and could have been repaired. Many supermarkets are installing special wheels that lock when the cart is removed from the parking lot to deter theft and reduce overhead.
http://www.duluthtrading.com/store/product/milk-crate-commercial-milk-crate-78090.aspx
http://www.dcrates.com/Dairy-Crate-13x13x11-Square-Plastic-Milk-Crate-White-DC131311W.htm
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/organizing-and-storage/storage-baskets-bins/milk-crate/s251766
http://www.amazon.com/16qt-4-1-Gallon-Plastic-Crates/dp/B005OKDLLG/ref=pd_sim_sg_2
And since they're wood Im not sure i'd used them too many times :l