Karlie emailed over a clever idea that she saw on the Martha Stewart show recently – shopping bags out of old tshirts:

First the bottom hem of the shirt was sewn closed.

Finally, the sleeves were cut off.

It’s a great idea for t-shirts that are too baggy (ahem) or misshapen to go to charity shops – and when they’re worn out as bags, the fabric can be recycled again anyway.

Any other clever ideas for reusing old tee shirts?

(Photo by goodsignal)

We had an email to Compost This from Tracy, asking:

Just wondered if old wallpaper is compostable. Just stripped it all off my daughter’s bedroom walls and I am just starting on the rest of the house. I don’t know and wondered if you did. I would assume that it’s not due to the adhesive but thought I would ask you.

I’d agree with the “no, it’s not” verdict because of the synthetic contents of most pastes, dyes used for patterns and/or paints applied to the surface. But what else can be done with it?

When we stripped our living room a few years ago, we had some really big pieces – almost full strips – as well as those annoying scraps that JUST WON’T COME OFF THE WALL but we ended up just bundling it all up and throwing it anyway because we couldn’t think what else could be done with it.

Any suggestions?

(Photo by the wonderfully named Woopidoo2)

We’ve had a clever idea email from Victoria about making an oven/slow cooker out of polystyrene. We’ve covered moulded polystyrene in the past but I liked this idea so much that I thought I’d feature it again:

i have made an oven from recycled polystyrene when my next door neighbour got her new washing machine she had just the thing i needed to make my energy free oven. keep with me!

on www.selfsufficientish.com, they explain how to make an oven and it works.

i had an old storage unit one that goes out side that you can store all your veg in. i moved and had lots of storage in my new kitchen so no longer needed it. i put the polystyrene in and insulated my storage box. i also added balls in pillow cases around.

i put my stew on the hob for 5 mins popped it in my “oven” and 10 hours later hot stew cooked!

i was so amazed i want to make another for my friend but can not get my hands on the polystyrene.

i know that this is not everyone’s cup of tea but for me, its a great way to recycle.

It is indeed. Anyone else done this as well? Or made other cool things out of polystyrene?

We’ve had an email from Karen, asking:

What can I do with old tissue boxes? The ones I get have a plastic layer on the inside of the top so make it easier to pull single tissues out. I realise that if I tear that out I can just recycle them with my card but is there anything I can do with it otherwise?

The greenest solution is usually to use hankies or equivalent re-usable clothes instead of tissues but that’s not always possible.

I buy big boxes of tissues and decant them into old smaller boxes for different rooms around the house so if the plastic-ked ones are quite small, you could do that.

Any other suggestions? What about for the box in general?

(Photo by scol22)

A few weeks ago, I had a bit of a panic about the situation with my personal paperwork. For our business, I’m pretty good – everything even remotely related to anything goes in a folder, which goes in the filing cabinet, and promptly gets forgotten about until it’s next needed. My personal stuff – bank statements, utility bills and all that jazz – though, who knows? There was a box in the living room, a box file in the bedroom and about five separate stashes of papers in the spare room-cum-study-cum-store-room.

So a few weeks ago, as I said, I had a bit of a panic and sorted everything out. Everything is all neatly filed now and if I need the July 2003 credit card statement (balance: £00.00, charges: £00.00) from a card I never used, I know exactly where it will be. Hurrah!

But, during my sorting, as well as finding we had kept a metric ton of waste paper stored up there, I found three cheque book and credit card wallet sets. They were included in the opening-account packs of “freebies” in my bank-hopping days at university.

The cheque book one is, by the feel of it, cardboard covered in vinyl and the cheque-book shaped, while the credit card one is vinyl with semi-opaque card sized pockets.

I thought about writing recipes on the back of old business cards and using the card one as a mini cookbook in the kitchen but since the pockets are not transparent, I’d have to take the cards out to read them – which kinda defeats the point of protecting them.

So any suggestions?