So you removed and replaced your old, broken garage door springs. Now you have springs laying on your workshop table or on the concrete floor of your garage and you are probably wondering what you should do with them. It is not as though you or anyone else could reuse them as garage door springs, so what do you do with them? The following ways to recycle your springs might jumpstart some ideas of your own.

Fix Broken Spring Toys

Think of it--how many toys do you know of that require a spring in order to be fun and useful? A jack-in-the-box, a pogo stick, "moon shoes," and even a Slinky all involve springs. You could cut away the damaged pieces of spring and use what is left to repair broken spring-action toys or just to play with the springs alone. If you are especially crafty, creative and can build these toys in your shop, then you can incorporate the good bits of garage door spring into the toys you make.

See What You Can Get by Selling the Springs to a Scrap Metal Recycler

It may not be much, but if you have a lot of other damaged metal items laying around, you could recycle the springs with the rest of the metal stuff via a scrap metal recycler. These scrap metal junkyards pay for metal bits by the pound. At the very least, you might get some loose pocket change for your DIY work on your garage.

Use the Springs to Make Potato Guns or Potato Cannons

These hydraulic, spring action spud shooters are all the rage in some areas right now. To make a potato gun or cannon, you need a good-sized spring, typically shorter than a full-sized garage spring. Cutting the damaged part of the garage spring away makes it the perfect part for this hilarious project. Just be careful after you have constructed your potato weapon because the spring combined with the hydraulic compression can really pack a wallop. (It is comparable to getting sucker-punched in the stomach or having a bean bag launcher shoot bean bags at you.)

For added fun, use this project to teach scouts how to recycle ordinary objects into fun and useful items and then give the scouts the opportunity to shoot at a field target with the potato weapon. You may also want to incorporate some gun safety principles so that the scouts can earn more than one badge or complete several merits at the same time. Just be sure that it is legal to have and shoot such a device where you live.