We’ve had an email from Kacy, asking:

What can I do with a gazebo tent? The ones you put over barbecues in the garden.

Pop-up gazebos have been very popular in the UK over the last few years because they’re a quick and easy way to provide shade from the blazing hot sun (or, more likely, from the endless drizzle) – but because they’re so popular, they’re often cheaply made and not that stable or long lasting. They’re usually a polyester (or the like) cover over a steel tube frame, some with sides to make a full tent and some with guy ropes for extra stability.

The steel poles can be used instead of canes around the garden. I suspect most probably wouldn’t be strong enough to use as a frame for a pergola – the weight of the plants might be too much for it.

The fabric cover could probably be used in a lot of same reuses as other tents – suggestions include using it to make bags & kites, using it as a pond liner or to make small shades for kids/people fishing.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Carolyn asking what she can do with some plastic buckets that have “split at the bottom”.

The first ideas that spring to mind take advantage of the fact it’s now not water tight – use it as a garden planter or an upside down planter next summer. You might even have to add more holes to it to allow adequate drainage or for more shoots to poke through.

You can also very easily use it as a caddy too – but patch the split/hole with something like duct tape so stop the split spreading any further and to stop little things falling out. You could use it for holding brushes/tools while you’re up a ladder, for fruit/veg collection or for dumping weeds in while working around the garden (saving multiple trips to the compost bin).

I’m sure there are lots of other uses around the garden too – what do you do with them?

There is a lot of chatter in the US and the UK at the moment about putting a “tax” on plastic carrier bags to stop shops giving them out willy-nilly.

There is already a charge in place in Ireland and I read something the other day that explained while the amount of carrier bags given out by shops has dropped dramatically, the number of bin liners and garbage bags sold has increased because so many people used to reuse the carriers in the bin. That makes it feel like less of a victory – and it’s not exactly a huge victory to start with.

The thought of buying something to use to aid throwing stuff away seems really counter-intuitive to my brain but without using bin liners or the like, we’re constantly having to scrub out our kitchen bin with pretty harsh chemicals – we’re not big wasters, we compost as much as we can and most packaging we get is recyclable, so usually the only things that end up in there are pretty yacky.

So is there a line between disposable plastic bags and endless bleachy scrubbing? I thought about newspapers – a sheet as a throwaway liner would probably be fine for all but the wettest stuff – but since we don’t buy them either, that’s not an option really – what is?

We’ve had an email from Lou:

There is a load of really heavy old rope in our garage, god knows where it came from. It’s a bit mossy but seems in ok condition, we just don’t know what to use it for because it’s 4″ thick!

Unless you’ve got a big boat to tie to a quayside or something, I imagine you’d be best reusing it as a weight or a border in the garden – if you ever have to cover anything with plastic sheeting, it could be used stretched out or curled up to stop it blowing away or to stop lawns creeping into flower beds.

Any other ideas?

We’ve had an email from Janey:

What can I make a lampshade out of? I’ve got the cable and fitting from an old lamp and want to make something cute for my home office.

While it’s not specifically recycled stuff, I saw a paper cutout lamp shade on Craft last week which I thought was a great gem of an idea that could easily be adapted for recycled paper or the like, and customised regarding what shapes are cut from the paper. I wonder if it would be safe enough to use a big old fizzy drink/soda bottle for the inner layer… I suspect not but I’m overly cautious regarding electricity – anyone know for sure?

There have been a number of “make it into a light shade” suggestion in reply to posts on Recycle This over the years and I’ll try to add some links to those in the comments below – but the one that most obviously springs to mind is using photo negatives.

Any other ideas? Anyone know any safety guidelines to minimise the risk of fire/melting?