Get project buckets for free!

Get 5-gallon plastic project buckets for free, keep them out of landfills.
To see my related Instructables, click on "unclesam" just below the title above or in the INFO box to the right. On the new page that appears, repeatedly click "NEXT" to see all of them.
Unclesam

Step 1 Food-grade pickle buckets

Chain hamburger joints get their sliced burger pickles in sturdy food-grade 5-gallon plastic buckets, and these buckets cannot be reused for their original purpose. You can use the buckets to tote and store things in the shop, cut and shape them as parts of projects, or make a wooden rack that holds rows of buckets on their sides as wide-mouth storage bins for tools, components, materials. They are useful to crafters, farmers, gardeners, homeowners, boaters, the list is endless. These buckets are more sturdy than similar ones sold at hardware stores for $4 to $6 each, and the pickle buckets also have a snap-on lid. (Photo shows soft black seal ring on underside rim of lid). A busy burger joint will empty one to three buckets a week, depending on the season. It is inconvenient for most small businesses to recycle the buckets, so they get thrown into the business' dumpster, then go into a landfill. The plastic could be recycled, but reuse is more efficient, and it actually saves the business manager money to keep the buckets out of his dumpster.
I regularly visit a nearby chain burger joint, and its manager has his buckets rinsed and set aside for me to pick up when I drop by. I offer them free to friends and neighbors and to a charity that helps local folks. You could do the same in your neighborhood, or just get a few for yourself. Bakeries, donut shops and the cake departments of grocery stores also get ingredients in buckets, and they are all much easier to clean than buckets used to ship paint and drywall compound.

Comments

[Dsanders2014]

How do you ask for them? So I am not rude

[unclesam]

Dsanders2014, I suggest making a print of the bucket to take with you, could save some arm-waving. Choose a business that you patronize, if possible, where your face may be recognized by the employees. Visit at a time when the place will not be busy, between meal times. Best to buy and eat a meal indoors there, so you can scope out the place and the employees, then after you finish, choose best time to approach an employee. Explain about the buckets, ask if you need to speak to the manager, and if not available, ask for some other time or day to return for a talk with the manager. If you just want a few buckets for your own use, make arrangement with manager for day and time to come back to pick them up. Good idea to have a meal there on pickup day as well. If you want to pick up buckets on a continuing basis, mention possible users that will likely create sympathy in the manager, such as Scouts, Little League, Youth sports leagues, and that you will keep buckets out of the landfill. Take some kids with you, in their uniforms (buckets are great for storing lime for marking fields, baseballs, for racking bats). Ask to have the buckets and lids rinsed, stacked in the back indoors where an employee can get them for you when you drop by regularly. In this case, it is very important that you are diligent about picking up the buckets regularly, otherwise they will become a nuisance for the business. If you are going to get buckets on a continuing basis, you might recruit a re-user organization, such as scouts, to make the pickups and thoroughly wash the buckets, as a community-service project.
Best of luck, Unclesam

[Takelababy]

I place a new white "kitchen catcher" inside a plastic pail then I don't have to worry about what it held altho I will still give it a good soaking in bleach water first.

[splazem]

Sweet!

[SIRJAMES09]

even buckets that once had clorine pucks can be use for food BUT, you need to run water thru the bucket for about 30 minutes(minimum-I preferr 1hour) and use HOT water. after that, Scrub out the bucket really good with soap & water. if there is no clorine smell after this, you're fine, BUT if you smell clorine scrubb again & again till there is no smell.

this I learned from experience.

[Sketch98]

I'd rather buy a new bucket, it would even be cheaper than half an hour of warm running water.

[w0x0f]

If you don't need food-grade buckets, check with your local swimming pool. Our pool uses a solid chlorine puck system and the pucks come in a 5 gallon pail with a screw on lid. I wouldn't use these for anything food-related, but they're clean pails that only need a rinse before you use them. Try not to breathe in any of the dust that may be in the pail, it's not good for you.

[fragile.ecstasy]

I'm thinking this might be good for holding my son's cloth diapers. Will have to see if I can scrounge some up.

[paulo500]

That's exactly what we use for our cloth diapers. Works perfectly.

[Kevanf1]

For anybody in the UK try your local supermarket. If the supermarket has an instore bakery ask them for any empty jam buckets. I've had some really useful square shaped 5 gallon buckets from my local Asda store.

Good 'ible' and useable worldwide.

Take care.

Kevan

[ScattyCrafter]

Ooh thanks for the idea in UK often I need buckets for storing my craft things .

[Kevanf1]

Pleasure to help out :-)

[hopit]

I've found these buckets in market dumpsters while rescuing discarded good food and other items. They've proven useful or putting compost scraps and using in the garden to store mulch, etc. It would make a lot more sense for the stores to return the buckets to the vendor to be refilled. If all the discarded buckets were actually put to other uses and not thrown out, before long everyone would have more buckets than we needed and would have to throw them out because we don't have a place for them. The only sustainable society is a zero-waste society. Otherwise we'll use up our resources and filling up our land with trash heaps.

[unclesam]

hopit, I agree with your sentiment to see used buckets returned to their source for re-use, and I have often considered how this might be done. However, I fear the logistics would be difficult. Imagine trucks carrying used empty buckets all along our highways, some still having resIdue of various food products. Imagine warehouses where they are piled waiting for sterilization and re-use. Add a few weeks in the hot sun, and you have a recipe for public health disaster. Would people eat at restaurants that they knew got food packed in used buckets after seeing photos of this process? I think not. Soft drinks (and beer) used to be distributed only in returnable glass bottles, and the bottles were cleaned and re-used, not broken up and made into new glass. I used to pick (filthy) bottles from ditches to turn in for cash, and I later handled the mountains of empties that came back into the grocery store where I worked. The truck that delivered the beverages picked up the empties. Once I bought a coke out of a machine, took a long cool swig from the returnable glass bottle, and only then noticed that there was a layer of mud and a large snail in the bottom of the bottle. Urk! Re-using food containers for food has some risks that our society is not currently willing to take. U.S.

[ScattyCrafter]

Yes BUT if every supplier took back the buckets to send back to the supplier of those then it would work.
I remember the days when we used to take our 'empty glass bottles of soda' back to the vendor for recyciling( probably re-use ) and we would get 2 old pennies or even 3 for each bottle.
Some children made up their pocket money by going around collecting discarded bottles :-)
why can we not do that now?

[hopit]

Yes, there are issues in reusing the buckets and they should be addressed. With our current system our toxic landfills are growing and raw materials are getting depleted. We've got concerns about sanity on one side, and the desire to not trash our planet on the other. Which is more important?

[luvit]

i once looked for food in the dumpster on a hot day. it was a bit cooler in the dumpster, so i took a nap.

[Rustar]

I work at a Wendy's and our pickles come in bags. My mom however buys kitty litter in huge plastic buckets; now every time the plumber comes over she gives him some and he knocks off a couple bucks.

[abbyadams]

I got some surplus square-sided buckets dirt cheap. They were meant to hold a lot of cat food, but they'd never even been used. I guess the company was changing the design. Anyway, now I have white translucent wastebaskets in every room. Plus, I left the handles on, so in a pinch they're still buckets.

[ScattyCrafter]

Also easy to pick up to empty them :-)

[eulaliaaaa!]

We own a vineyard, so we need buckets to put the grapes in. When we need new ones, we go to LeMars, where the Blue Bunny ice cream factory is, and we get free buckets there. We can usually acquire around seventy buckets for free!

[moonchylde]

If you're not above a little trash-picking, you could always look for empty cat litter buckets. They're usually 2 1/2 gallon square buckets, and people toss them all the time. But always be sure that the buckets are empty before you toss them in your car; I've gotten a few that were refilled with used cat litter before.

[BtheBike]

i tried getting buckets from Safeway bakery . The baker was like "No ! We dont give them out anymore." She was kind of rude about my simple customer inquiry . I talked to the manager at check out, not trying to get anyone in trouble but just to know. I was told that people were using them to make illegal drugs with !!

They are like $1.40 at home depot but reuse is preferred over new . Plus used bakery buckets are food grade . Dam meth heads = ( Have to get an elderly person to get them for me .

[maryshe]

I was thinking that 5 gallon buckets would be good for Lego storage.  You could even sort by color.  They were too expensive for me so I looked on this site.  What do ya know?  I find out how to get them for free.  Thanks.  Does the pickle smell really not come out though?  Icing buckets would at least have a vanilla smell, right?

[rhaubejoi]

Hi, I used to sell Tupperware and one of the tips they shared with us was that crumpled up newspaper left in a sealed up plastic container will help take the smell out. That was one that they told us for people that leave the leftovers in a little too long. I am sure it should work for a pickle smell too. Leave the crumpled up newspapers in there for a while. A week or two should be good.

[willrandship]

Vanilla buckets have a chance of exploding.....it depends on whether it's real or fake, but I don't remember which. Still though, I wouldn't risk losing my legos to explosive vanilla bombs....

[mbear]

I wonder if you could get rid of the pickle smell with baking soda. It works in a refrigerator and my carpet. (I've even used it when the cat was sick to cover the smell so I could clean.)

Maybe mixing baking soda and water into a paste and "painting" the inside of the bucket would pull out the pickle smell.

Just a thought.

[unclesam]

maryshe, if you want to use pickle buckets and keep track of Legossorted by color, you could paint the outside of each bucket thesame color, or spray just a spot of color. Krylon makes spray paintsespecially for plastic, sold at hardware stores. I have not testedit on these buckets.  To remove the pickle odor, follow thecleaning instructions, especially for cleaning the lid and lid seal, instep 2, and allow buckets to air outdoors for as many days asyou can before using the buckets. You can easily pass the word to othersabout the free buckets by forwarding the link , included inInstructables text, to web site I created just for that purpose.
Unclesam

[sspence]

For all kinds of bucket projects and discussion see http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bucketproducts/

[oscargrouch]

hi, everyone....if you use discarded materials like five gallon buckets they can be used for many things you can construct your self...domes with tapered conical addition of recycled bottles. even space craft...... wanna help? helping get the buckets..... ::::) eric jason crews c.e.o. design desk 209 upland rd blacksburg va . email: [e-mail]

[alpacasweeteyes]

I will be checking my local McDonald's and White Castle for the buckets. I paid $4 each from an online source for brand new 5 gals.  But lets keep these guys and other plastic pop bottles and such out of the landfills and use them for gardening...yes, gardening!  These make wonderful sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) and grow just about everything BEAUTIFULLY! 
For the urban gardener, these things are the answer to buying bland-tasting, brick-hard tomatoes, cukes, bell peppers, etc.
The ultimate way to be "green" and grow-yur-own too!
Pics of a tomato planted in a 5 gal. sip in my basement under an 85 watt cfl.

[unclesam]

alpacasweeteyes,  Good idea. I live on plenty of land for growing veggies, but I don't plant,  because the area is full of critters who get to them first. Slugs, birds, skunks, badgers, deer, possum, turtles, foxes.  Growing  outside in buckets would present the same problem, but cultivating veggies indoors, under artificial light, would make the job of growing and harvesting much easier, also minimize disease and instect pests. I'll take a look at sub-irrigated planting. Does the CFL spectrum compare favorably to those lamps sold specifically as grow-lamps?
Unclesam

[alpacasweeteyes]

What's up, unclesam?  Compact fluorescent lighting comes in a wide variety of  sizes, wattages and spectrums...the best in my opinion for indoor use are the  85 or 105 watt CFLs which come in daylight, warm white, cool white and full spectrum.  Start plants with the vegetative lights at 5000k or above and end off with "flowering" CFLs around 3000-4100k.  They use less wattage for the length of time in use than the metal halides and such, but if you really want an indoor plant room, might want to look into the 250wt and up MHs and HPSs...
I just recently moved to Brooklyn, the backyard infested with "tree rats" (squirrels) so a wired enclosure for my SIPs will be a must for the summer. You might consider that for protection against your local wildlife!

[jestertime]

yeah pickle some alcoholic pickles they are great for football games,plays,movies and anywhere else that they need to be discrete.

[danm95]

Ha ha, one time I was in a play and there was a strange smell back stage. turns out it was one of these. the realy wierd part is I was in another play and there was ANOTHER pickle bucket. we laphed and made people smell it. it was fun :- )

[thetech101]

You could potentially use these for rain water barrels. Thanks for the awesome Instructable. I needed some rain water barrels, but they were too expensive.

[plzspoilme25]

thanks for posting sometimes the simplest thing are the why didnt i do that....me i'm shy and have problems with going into places and asking for such things....so usually do without all together....

[thetech101]

I used to. I was able to get over it, but it took practice.

[zekiller2193]

Is this the case at McDonald's cuz I would have to go really far away for anything else?

[unclesam]

zekiller2193, most Mcdonalds' that I know of also get their pickles in these buckets. Hope it works out for you where you live. U.S.