The PJ balls work great for me. I've stored them in film containers mostly, but I also found a few empty cheap cigar tubes and have used those. What I do is take a length of jute and tie it into a big knot ball at the end and then drop it down the tube, leaving a decent piece of jute hanging out the top. I then take the PJ balls and stuff them in the tube. All I have to do is pull a little on the jute and a PJ Cottonball rises to the top. I think there are a good 5 or 6 cotton balls stuffed in to this. The jute obviously can be used as well to start a fire.