How can I reuse or recycle old subway or train tickets?

Subway ticketJen of the tape dispenser suggestion had another query:

Another suggestion is all those old metro cards that I’ve been keeping… I’m not sure what I want to do with them yet. Any suggestions?

I’m such a sucker for keeping old train tickets too – credit-sized bits of card – because like so many things, they seem like they’re really useful. I’ve used them folded up under wobbly chairs/tables in restaurants on occasion but this really isn’t enough to justify keeping as many as I do.

So suggestions?

(Photo by eurok)

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18 Responses to “How can I reuse or recycle old subway or train tickets?”


  1. Bobbie says:

    Make art for you wall in the form of a collage or montage.

  2. Joe says:

    Use them as homemade business/contact cards to hand out to people.

    Put them in your bike wheels so they make a cool sound when your spokes hit them.

    Sell them to people trying to get a metro ticket, then run away before they realize it’s an old ticket (just kidding).

  3. Magali says:

    If you surf on the catalogue of the public libraries of Paris, you can find a wonderful book with special origami patterns for subway tickets :-)

    I’ve made quite a lot of jumpig frogs with metro tickets, my little sisters simply loved them!

    Online catalogue of the Parisian libraries:
    http://dac-opac-pret.paris.fr/cyberpac/

  4. Peter Ellis says:

    Use them as reference bookmarks for things you read that you might want to refer back to later (you can tear/cut them into smaller pieces).

  5. TB says:

    This may sound silly. But you can use them as TP and save twice as much paper.

  6. ile says:

    this is obvious if you’re in college: use them as filters to smoke weed! ;P

  7. Dr Useless says:

    I know its a little disgusting, but I sometimes keep a few in my wallet to use as toothpicks – I have a gap between two teeth that a normal toothpick can’t fit into, and I’m always getting bits of apple stuck there, plus I get the train every day!

    As I said, its a bit disgusting because of the possible dirt and grime, but as my Grandad always said “You have to eat a ton of it before you die!”

  8. Put them in the spokes of your bicycle!

  9. lol says:

    fold them in a certain way to make a cool tower
    (place one portrait and the other over it landscape, fold the potrait ones ends over the landscape and turn 90 degrees. repeat until tower is huge!!!

  10. Blub blub popcorn... says:

    ☆☆☆ U could always shred them and make confetti…hehehe ☆☆☆

  11. Anonymous says:

    You can use them to roll joints. Actually they are perfect for the job

  12. Rama Gurung says:

    A fresh reply from 2012, to a post from 2008. I collect these train tickets too. thought it was stupid so threw a whole lot when moving house. collected more again and now I have got a tiny idea for a project. but now the machine keeps taking my ticket. haha. so I was looking for anyone who could donate their tickets for the project. lol.

    • louisa says:

      A fresh reply from 2012, to a post from 2008.

      And that’s encouraged me to leave a new reply too! Clare from Three Beautiful Things recently wrote about how she uses old train tickets as both a sort of diary and bookmarks:

      I save my train tickets for bookmarks, and I write notes on them about the journey. Sometimes it’s just where I was going, or the purpose of the journey; other times it’s a few words to jog my memory about the day (‘a row of birds’; ‘cable theft in Maidstone’; ‘the proud man’). … When I need a bookmark, I take out the oldest ticket (it goes back about nine months at the moment). When I finish the book, I leave the ticket in. Where the book goes, the ticket goes.

      A truly lovely idea! Do read the whole story about it for more lovely details :)

  13. Nathale says:

    I’m doing my A-levels at the moment and thought my copius pile of train tickets could make very handy revision cards which are expensive at the best of times!



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