You know those little paper packs of gel beads that everything from shoes to handbags gets packaged with?
As a child, I always saw their “do not eat” signs as a sign that they contained extremely dangerous, nuclear-waste level contents (even though they look a bit like the salt packs in Salt & Shake crisps).
Perhaps as a result, I’ve always immediately thrown them away as an adult. But according to the TikTok account Sustainability Matters, I could be wasting a valuable tool.
We’ve written before at HuffPost UK about how everything from theyellowish liquid on your yoghurt to the tops of strawberries can be reused. So what does the second life of silica gel packs look like?
The packs are basically tiny dehumidifiers
“These packets help fight moisture build-up,” Sustainability Matters explained. “So I like putting them anywhere that needs to stay dry.”
That makes sense ― after all, the forbidden contents of the paper bag are actually silica gel, a compound made from silicon dioxide.
Silicon dioxide is a major constituent of many types of sand and can even be found in foods like bananas and eggs.
You mostly can’t eat the packs because the beads are a choking hazard, though sometimes manufacturers coat silica gel in toxic cobalt chloride.
Either way, the beads are highly absorbent. They can take up to 40% of their weight in water.
So, packs of them are “great additions for gym bags and smelly shoes,” the TikTok revealed.
You can even “add some to your bathroom cabinet to help fight mould” and even anecdotally help fix some water damage in phones.
People in the comments had even more suggestions
“You can put them in your carved pumpkins so they don’t mould as fast,” one commenter said (oh dear, we really aren’t that far from Hallowe’en, are we...).
Another TikTok user said they put the gel packs in their musical instrument cases to keep the insides dry.
Other suggestions included placing the packs in your cupboard, jewellery box, and even your car’s dashboard during condensation-heavy spells.
I’m with the commenter who wrote, “not me FOMOing over the hundreds of silica gel packs I’ve thrown away over my lifetime now...”.