Wild Uses for those New-Shoe Packets

I put them in my PC tower. All my boxes get them and I don't have to worry about the humidity damaging anything.

Good article.

Now this is definitely neat. Thanks for sharing!

find tiny ziplock baggies.

fill them with the clear silica nubbins.

go to a night club.

toss those tiny baggies on the floor.

watch the hilarity ensue.

the same effect can be garnered by throwing pen caps all about.

"...Gather your razor blades; Store with film..."
Hello. It's the 21st century now.

I use film. Lots of it. Hello.

The "greatest" thing about them is, they are totally poisonous and can cause all kinds of health-related troubles as breathing problems and burn-marks on the skin. Wow, neat!

You mean there are people who do not know you can buy a box of the stuff, instead of looking through shoe boxes for it?

These are some great ideas, but be aware that once they are saturated with moisture the packets are pretty useless. You need to change them out regularly. You can also give the used packets a light toasting in the oven to remove the moisture and then use them again.

My anthro professor collected them from the students to keep her mummified cat dry. True story.

I sprinkle it on my morning Cheerios, keeps them from getting to soggy.

I put them in my fire/water safe. Looks like a suitcase....

I used to amass lots of huge packets of this stuff when worked in shipping/receiving and it made a great additive to cat litter.

CYBret: actually, you can dry silica out in the oven and it will "reactivate" it. i can't remember the exact temps or time, but IIRC, it's something like 200 degrees F for about 3 hours. you can reuse it pretty much indefinitely. just make sure you take it out of the little plastic baggie first (the baggie will melt.) once it's "dehydrated" again, you can put it in a ziploc bag that has some holes poked in it and use it again.

Sininen: you're kind of right about silica being dangerous to breathe BUT....that only applies to silica that is super-fine (ie, dust-size.) the silica packets in food and clothing contain nuggets that are far too large to inhale (it's usually almost gravel-sized) and are perfectly safe, aside from any chemical additives (as the article states.) silica by itself is perfectly safe as long as you're not inhaling a dust version of it. even if you somehow manage to eat some of those "nuggets" of silica, the worst that's going to happen is MAYBE an upset stomach if you eat enough of them (although most likely they'll just pass through your body and you'll never know and be no worse for wear.) and as far as silica causing "burns" on the skin?!?! i don't know where you got that from, but that's completely false. silica is basically just sand, pure and simple.

You can buy 2 lb boxes of silica desiccant at Harbor Freight for like $4. It even turns pink when it's been saturated, so you know to change it out.

Even better, you can bake it in the oven at 200 degrees F for 15 minutes and it's good to go again.