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Life Hacks

Prevent Cuts and Splinters by Picking Up Slivers of Shattered Glass With Bread

You may think you’ve got that stack of plates in your oh-so-sturdy mom hands under control, but what happens when your five-year-old son and the family dog decide to play tag in the kitchen as you make your way toward the dishwasher and get tangled underneath your feet? Those poor fragile plates will go flying, leaving a dangerous mess on the floor that’s also a pain to pick up. Sure, you can sweep it up — but if you leave just one tiny shard of glass behind, someone may wind up getting hurt.

Thanks to Reddit user norwegiancharm, there’s a better — and completely unexpected — way to deal with those annoying, microscopic shards of shattered glass: Using a slice of bread to sop up the smaller pieces.

“If you break a glass, use a piece of bread to sponge the area where the pieces shattered,” norwegiancharm writes in response to a Reddit thread titled, What was the best household tip anyone gave you? “It picks up the smaller slivers of glass better than anything else I’ve tried so far.”

This method can be tricky, though, as Redditor akatherder notes.

“Put it somewhere safe,” writes akatherder. “I usually take another piece of bread with some sort of ‘adhesive,’ like peanut butter, and put it on the glassy piece of bread to keep the glass particles from falling out. Then put it in a plastic bag to catch any stragglers that do slip away.”

The foolproof method next time there’s an accident at your house: First, sweep up the larger pieces of glass with a broom. Then, take a soft slice of sandwich bread and press it onto the floor where the glass has broken. The dust-like particles that the broom missed will then (magically!) stick to the bread. Continue pressing until your slice is coated with glass. To be extra safe, wear a pair of rubber gloves as you do the cleanup.

Want more details? Check out this tutorial by “The Accident Housewife” of Howdini.com:

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