Elastic Bands

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Elastic bands, or rubber bands, are known just about by everyone in the world. They come in many different styles and have a wide spectrum of uses. They are used in the food industry, medical field, exercise gyms, home and offices.

To make things easier, let me break down some of the common uses so we can figure out what we are looking at.

Exercise - Large elastic bands and shock cords are used for resistance exercises at the gym and at home. You will most likely find these for use with Pilates and yoga. Instead of lifting and tugging around heavy weights they basically use your own body weight and the resistance of the bands to tone your body. You can find a simple pair of exercise bands on amazon.com for under $15.

Medical – Hospitals and doctors don’t only use elastic bands to hold paper on clip boards and a handful of tools together, but they are use for hemorrhoid banding procedures and in operations where they need to cut off circulation to specific areas of the internal organs. These types of elastic bands are the typical ones you would find at a home office store. But speaking of medical bands, there are also elastic bands that help keep limbs up in the air like a sling. The benefit of them is that they allow for movement because of their suspension like properties.

Home and Office – You may find elastics useful for holding things together such as bread bags and plastic wrap tightly around the plastic containers top. This is usually the case around thanksgiving when we have too much food left over to properly fit in a container. I’ve often used elastic bands to hold stacks of papers together for the short and long term. For the home, the most beneficial investment you can get is an elastic band ball. It is basically thousands of elastics in one ball that is easy to keep track of. Elastics are also used in clothing such as those found in jogging suits and pajamas.

As great at elastics bands are, there are some potential problems with them. Some of the regular bands that you buy will degrade over time and their elastic ability will fail. Have you ever tried to use old elastic band only to have it snap in half with a stinging pinch to your hand. But more importantly, these small pieces of rubberized plastic can be lethal to children and animals. So it is important to keep these things out of reach and not just laying around. Even when elastics are tossed in to the garbage they have the potential to bring harm to the animals outside of our homes. Many marine animals will get these wrapped around their bodies and they will die a slow painful death
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As you can see elastic bands are a big part of our lives. The next time you’re browsing by the office isle, think about the different wants that they can be used. Who knows, maybe you will come up with your own new way to use them.