Unusual Uses For Cable Ties – Part 1

With a name like cable ties you could be forgiven for thinking that these humble looking items were good for nothing more than tying cables but believe it or not, the truth is that they are ridiculously useful for all kinds of things, some far more unusual than others.

To give you a taste of some of the multiple possibilities and uses, we are going to share five ideas to show you how these versatile, self-locking straps can be used to secure, organise, repair and create in multiple ways in your home, garden and workplace. Trust us, cable ties are not just for cables!

1.      Secure Your Floral Arrangements & Wreaths

As a florist, small cable ties are an incredibly useful tool for keeping floral centrepieces and arrangements securely in place and they are brilliant for helping you to create stunning wreaths, holding everything tight and secure and enabling you to attach all kinds of decorative features with ease.

If you are experimenting with flowers or wreaths as a DIY project, cable ties can be a fantastic help to keep your work in progress in place as you build it, just bear in mind that you should not pull the ties so tight that they cut into or damage live stems.

2.      A  Helping Hand In The Garden

Anyone who spends time in the garden should have a selection of cable ties to hand to help you take care of all manner of tasks quickly and efficiently. In my own garden, I have used them to support trees and tomatoes to supporting stakes, attach shade netting to an arbour, secure bird nets in place to protect fruit, hang bird feeders on branches and display exterior fairy lights.

Strong and durable, they do a fantastic job and by using different colours, (generally green and transparent in the garden), they blend in seamlessly with the surroundings too. Cable ties can be joined together if necessary to create a suitable length for the task you are working on.

3.      Temporary Zip Replacement

Broken zips on your bag, jacket or sleeping bag are an absolute headache making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible to operate your zip successfully. It may not be the most beautiful solution out there, but a cable tie, threaded through the hole where the pull should be makes a remarkably good temporary replacement, enabling you to use the item as you normally would, until you can get it properly fixed.

4.      Travelling With Cable Ties

To make a nondescript suitcase or bag stand out on the conveyor belt in the airport, try attaching brightly coloured, or fluorescent cable ties to it, so that the colour pop helps you to identify your bag immediately. Small cable ties are also fantastic for locking your zips securely shut, making sure that nobody can tamper with your bag when it is out of your sight, without you knowing about it!

5.      Repair A Woven Basket

Whether it is made of wire or wicker, once a woven basket becomes damaged, it generally tends to get worse rapidly, often unravelling before your very eyes. The moment you see a break or gap in your basket, repair the area by pulling a transparent cable tie around the break and cutting off the surplus part at the end. Your repair will be barely noticeable and your basket will remain in good shape.

Think Green – Reuse Recycle

Reusing and recycling responsibly is important for the environment and if you have used cable ties to repair an item that may otherwise have needed to be replaced, you have already done some good!

Certain tasks are better suited to releasable cable ties, a type that can be released and reused many times over. If however your cable ties are not releasable, don’t forget to place them in the appropriate recycling container once they have reached the end of their lifespan.