The Binder Clip Trick for Fraying Cables

A pack of twenty-four black binder clips sat on Mary’s Brooklyn desk in June 2021, but none of them were holding paper together. The rubber grip on her phone charger cable had split again, right where the wire meets the connector. On that Tuesday, she noticed the metal arms from a binder clip were exactly the width of her USB-C plug. Instead of tossing the cable, she slid a binder clip’s metal prong around the cable’s weak spot, just above the plastic plug, and pressed the wire into the groove so it hugged the jacket tight. The clip’s tension kept the cable from bending, stopping the plastic from splitting every time she plugged in. She left it clipped there, and two months later that cable still worked-same clip, still no new cracks, and still zero fraying at the base.