Part of being an adult is feeling the constant need to replenish household essentials. One way to break this cycle is to be more conscious about recycling and reusing your stuff. But you can take it a step further: there are many things that we consider “single use” that can actually be used more than once. If you use things at least twice, you’ll use less of them, which means you’ll spend less on them (and less overall) and throw less of them in the trash. So if you find yourself tossing any of the items on this list in the trash every time you use them, think twice.

Aluminum foil is incredibly useful, but too often we treat it like a disposable item. But it’s metal, people. It’s pretty durable, and it’s absolutely possible to clean a used sheet of aluminum foil and reuse it a second (or even third) time. If it was only used to cover a dish and didn’t get particularly dirty, you can simply smooth it out and reuse the sheet. But even if it’s dirty, you can wash it—by hand or by putting it in the dishwasher (top rack, dirty side down, with something on top).

If you don't feel like reusing the foil when cooking, you can wipe off the used foil, roll it up and throw it in the dish washer. It will make everything look a little shiny again.

Like aluminum foil, there’s no reason you can’t reuse the same sheet of parchment paper for multiple baking adventures. As long as the paper hasn’t charred or burned from the heat of the oven, and doesn’t have a baked-on crust from previous use, you can wipe it down and reuse it for that second (or even third) batch of cookies. This is an especially helpful tip because parchment paper isn’t recyclable, thanks to the thin layer of silicone on its surface, so reuse it as often as possible to reduce waste.