What to Do with Those Tidy Cats Litter Containers?

I can't remember how it started but I started collecting my Tidy Cats litter boxes and soon one of my cat families started saving theirs to give to me once they heard how I was reusing them.  Locally, our waste companies do not accept these bins to be recycled so these big bulky litter containers take up space in our garbage bins and landfills.

The containers are built to hold up to 35 lbs of clay litter so they're obviously strong and durable and are built to stack upon each other, while holding all that weight

Tidy Cats asked their customers how they reused their bins a few years ago on Facebook, you can read some of the responses!

Iowa State University used them for glass recycling!

Here are some of the different ways I've used them...

I spray painted these ones and use them to hold feed! Spray painting them different colors makes it easy to know what is in each container.  These 3 colors of bins hold sunflower seeds, chick feed and chicken scratch.  Even if you don't have feed to store, the bins make excellent buckets.

I've used one of the bins under my kitchen sink to hold my kitchen scraps (with the lid on of course!)  With the handle on the bin, it makes it very easy to carry out to the garden and dump the contents into our compost, and then I rinse the bins out with the hose.

With a few large holes drilled on the bottom, they make excellent bins for weeding.  I have a few of these throughout the garden which make it convienent for weeding and pruning.  The holes are great so you don't have to worry about the bin filling up with rain.  These also get carried to the compost.

I have successfully grown veggies in them too! Again, with 1" holes drilled in the bottoms, I've grown peppers, beans and carrots in them!

This bin is currently my chicken feeder!  At the very bottom of the front side of the bin, I drilled two 2" holes.  The bin then sits in a small plastic container and I can fill the bin full of chicken feed and it keeps food available to the chickens for days!  (There are also some black sunflower seeds in there too)
 

My next bin project:  I will be cutting off the bottom 3-4" of a few bins to use as shallow trays to grow fodder for the birds during the upcoming winter.  This picture is currently day 3 of fodder, which will be a full bed of sprouted seed and grass in a week!

So you can see there are multiple ways to reuse these bins and even if you might not have a need for extra containers, someone you know might!