We’ve had an email from Chelsea, who has very nicely been pimping this site to her family:

I told my mom about this site and she asked if there was anything about coffee cans. She saves all the ones she has, and just uses them for storing nails and such. Any better ideas?

In the UK, most coffee tends to come in either jars or bags but we’ve got some old Illy cans knocking around from before John discovered our fab local coffee supplier, the Just Coffee People (if you’re in Leeds, you should really try it - coffee fans tell me it’s great from there and we also heart the tea - and if you read the about page you’ll see it’s a great Social Firm too. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes..). The Illy cans either came with a screw top lid or a rubber cap, depending on the size of the can, so have way more reuses than a standard more-difficult-to-reseal food can.

Like Chelsea’s mum, we use them for nails etc in the cellar, storing other teas & coffees in the kitchen, a pen pot in the office upstairs and I’ve got two in front of me in the living room right now working as money boxes for our spare change. I’ve also used the screw on lids as saucers under plant pots - they’re silver and quite deep so look fun.

Any other suggestions?

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We’ve had an email from Matt, saying:

My parents turned there old dishwashers into compost bins. Dad cut the back out and the hinged door becomes the lid. Sure, it’s a bit ugly but in the garden you hardly notice it - you could paint it - but either way, it’s better than becoming landfill.

It certainly is. And most dishwashers I’ve met have had quite insulated shells so would keep the heat trapped inside and keep things composting along nicely.

Any other suggestions about things to do with broken old ones?

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I do astound myself sometimes: we’ve featured over 300 items on the site so far, from the common place to the less common and the downright weird, but we’ve not yet covered yogurt pots.

Perhaps it’s because I don’t eat the stuff (it’s too closely connected with fruit in my mind and fruit = ick) or perhaps it’s because it’s one of those things that seems so ripe for reuse that it seems too obvious to feature it - but aside from plant pots for seedlings or using as a paint pot, I can’t actually think of that much to do with them - particularly the little tiny kids’ ones.

So what do you do with them?

(Photo by LotusHead)

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Christine Thompson got in touch recently to tell us how much she loves the site (in return, I love those emails :) ) and since she’s a primary school teacher, we chatted about the great primary-school themed suggestions people had come up with for school milk cartons.

She added that she’s made pirate ships out of taller tetrapak juice cartons with the triangular top, Victorian ladies out of “curvy” plastic bottles and:

I also made brilliant ‘Three Wise Men’ from Actimel bottles (saved them for months so everyone could have three!), little craft ball for head and lots of old Christmas paper for robes.

I thought that sounded like an excellent idea so let it inspire today’s post: what else can be done with those little Actimel/Yakult/’probiotic’-yoghurt-drink type bottles?

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We’ve had an email from unsteadyocean:

I was just wondering if anyone has suggestions for reusing the cloth bags that bulk rice comes in? I’ve seen suggestions for making them into tote bags but I would love to get more ideas.

Around here, they tend to be plastic-coated cloth or just plastic - but either way, ripe for re-using.

So any suggestions?

(Photo by kirsche222)

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