How can I reuse or recycle … coconut shells?

Thu 18 May 2006

How can I reuse or recycle … coconut shells?

Categories: food and the like, items, packaging

Coconut shells For reasons that seemed fun at the time, a few of years ago we halved and scooped out some coconuts. We clip-clopped up and down the street and around the house Monty Python style for a bit then the shells went in the cellar. There they stayed for a year or so then we found them, clip-clopped some more and then cellared them again.

Now, after a third bout of clip-clopping for the amusement of local children, the empty shells are now living in the garden and are really begging to be reused to save them from involvement in more repeat attempts at “humour”.

Any suggestions of things to do with them?

(Wonderful picture by minmax, c/o sxc.hu - because ours were too soggy to photograph well)

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I seem to remember, back int he day, they used them to make bird feeders on Blue Peter. I can’t quite remember how they did it but think they used fat to hold the seeds, then hung it from a tree.

SaraR

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yeah, that’s all I could think of, but, Like you, I dunno how to make ‘em :O(

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There is a minimalist recipe and method here - http://www.budget101.com/Pets/pp21.htm

But this - http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/birds/thingstodo/birdfeeder.shtml - is a far niftier (albeit ugler) way to combine bird feeding and recycling.

I heart the internet :)

-louisa

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You can use them as interesting wall-mounted or hanging plant pots. Drill a hole or two in the bottom for drainage and then eitgher screw to a wall/fence/tree or drill some more holes at the top so you can thread twine through or something then you can hang them like little mini hanging baskets. If you wanted to get advanced, you could bolt three ofr four half-shells together and then hang them up - giving you three/four separate pots to plant in - great for plants that would take over if they were all in the same hanging basket. I haven’t tried this yet but next time I have a coconut in the house, I will - it sounds like it could me quite useful and interesting.

Another gardening response - I think I must come off as a gardening obsessive on here! LOL!

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