This is not strictly a Zero Waste project because it is only a one-time reuse, not a perpetual reuse. But it is cute.

I don’t know if everyone reading this knows what an Altoids box is. It is a sheet steel box used to hold a mint flavored, sucking candy, widely sold where I live. It has a steel cover. By some stroke of design, the box inside is 2.5 inches by 3 inches, which is exactly the standard size of an American business card. So the obvious way to reuse it is to hold those business cards we are always accumulating.

The only problem is that the corners of the Altoids box are rounded, not square. To make it work, I immediately cut the four corners of each new business card. The corners never have printing on them. Another wrinkle I use is to spray paint each box to cover up the Altoids advertising. This can be done with many boxes at the same time. Maybe Altoids wants to make adhesive labels available in just the right size for the top of the cover.

An easy way to make this usage a standard practice would be if business cards were universally offered with rounded corners. This would also require the introduction of new, standard cutting molds, so that cards could be ordered with rounded corners without extra cost. The style could be called “The Altoids Cut”. Maybe the Altoids company wants to see if they can make this happen.

The funny thing is that the last time I ordered business cards rounded corners were a standard feature. Maybe I’m not the only one noticing….