Your cracked lunch box hinge is a 10-minute fix

A cracked lunch box hinge or latch is usually fixable in 10 minutes with the right glue and a little reinforcement.

Plain super glue alone won’t cut it — the hinge takes stress every time you open it, and thin super glue will just crack again. Use a two-part plastic epoxy (JB Weld PlasticWeld is the easy pick) or the super glue + baking soda trick: glue, sprinkle baking soda, glue again, and it sets into something much stronger than glue alone.

Clean the broken surfaces with rubbing alcohol first, wedge everything back into place, and clamp or tape it overnight. Epoxy is only as good as the cure time, so don’t rush it.

If the latch is completely snapped off, don’t overthink it — a zip tie through the existing mounting holes works surprisingly well as a replacement latch. And if the plastic is the slippery kind that glue won’t bite into, melt it back together with a soldering iron, using a paperclip or staple as a stitch across the crack.

Ten minutes of fixing beats $30 for a new lunch box.