Kids can be fun. Kids can be mischief. Then kids can be not so much fun and mischief. When it comes down to that last option, it looks a lot like the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder your kids took from the kitchen and dumped into one giant bowl. You are standing there, looking at the mess, and wondering if there is some way you can sort out these ingredients so that you do not have to dispose of them entirely. Actually, there is.
Buy Filter Bags
Industrial filter bags are used to sort all kinds of materials, including flour, sugar, and sand. Find out where you can buy filter bags. Then buy a filter bag to extract each of these ingredients from the others. You could get the kids to help, which might make clean-up a little more fun, but that is up to you.
Why This Works
Every particle in this bowl of mess the kids made has a different size and shape. Sugar particles, for example, are cube-shaped and are larger than flour particles. Baking powder particles are smaller than flour particles. Salt is almost the same size as sugar, but it has a different shape. Using exactly the correct filter bag for the size and shape of particles of each material, you will be able to carefully sort and sift out each of these ingredients from the other.
Make sure you do your homework first. Ask the manufacturer of the filter bags what the company recommends for particles of different sizes. Be sure to list the materials that you are trying to separate. The manufacturer of filter bags has filtering bags made for micron-sized particles from the infinitesimally small, to particles bigger than pea gravel. By revealing what you are trying to separate, the manufacturer can look up particle or granular size, and sell you the correct filter bags.
Until the Bags Arrive
Until your filter bags arrive, dump the entire mixture into airtight plastic bags for now. It will keep the ingredients fresh and prevent them from getting infested with bugs. You may find that the filter bags also do an excellent job of rooting out anything that is not a particle or granule of the four materials dumped into and sifted through the filter bags. This includes bugs that may have already been in the materials/ingredients prior to your kids dumping them, or afterward, when one of the kids may have decided to add "a special ingredient.
Get in touch with a business like Randals Industrial Supplies for more information.