We’ve all seen them, and we’ve never really thought twice about them. But those little packets we see in our shoe boxes and shipments from Amazon are called silica gel packets. They’re full of small grains of silicon dioxide. The water can move through the packaging, which is usually paper. What’s their purpose? To keep moisture, and thus mold, mildew, damage, smell, and staining, away from sensitive items. And that’s why we find them in closed packages.
Source: Shutterstock.com
But those little packets actually have lots of uses other than just sitting in a box and collecting dust. For example, they can be used in cat litter and even as an anti-caking agent in food. So let’s see what else these nifty little packages are good for.
My suggestion: start saving those little packets and save them for a rainy day (or use them every day).
Dry Out Your Phone
Problem: You drop your phone in the sink (or worse, the toilet!)
Solution: Put your phone in a Ziploc bag with silica gel packets inside and make sure there are enough to cover the phone n both sides. Seal the bag and let it sit for at least 24 hours.
Source: Janine Ngai for Little Things
Listen, it happens to the best of us. Our phones drop in the toilet (ew), and we have to not only pluck it out as fast as humanly possible, but we also have to find a way to rid the device of all the moisture it just got enveloped in. And since silica gel sucks up moisture, it does the job well.