I have always bought my jars. After all you can use them for years so the cost is an investment. I am still using jelly jars I purchase over 20 years ago.
I had a friend who told me it was OK to reuse commercial jars. She gave me several jars of tomatoes, only some of them exploded.
But to be honest we have gotten away from using a lot of prepared products, those two jars of mayo I use a year won't be much help when I can.
If your environmental conscious bothers you and you hate to throw those jars out you can use them for short term storage or you can take them to an area recycler. We are lucky to live in an are which has just gotten curbside recycling, but before this we could take them to local fire stations and grocery stores where they had bins for them.
Last edited by OHSue; 09-03-2012 at 12:07 AM.