We’ve had an email from Angelica asking about how she can recycle mobile phone chargers.

Some charities/companies that take old mobiles accept the chargers too since they’ll re-sell working phones to the developing world (for example in the UK, Help the Aged) but this isn’t the case with every phone recycling scheme. It might be worth checking with the ones that do take chargers if they take chargers by themselves.

Another idea might be to offer it on your local Freecycle group in case anyone in your area needs a replacement or wants a spare.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by canoncan)

We’ve had an email from Peter Hughes asking simply:

How can I recycle memory sticks?

I’m presuming he means USB memory fobs and not the bits of strips of memory used inside computers - but when broken, the latter make fun keyrings for geeks.

I had an idea of incorporating a small USB stick into a necklace - as a pendant - or other jewellery but I intended these to be functional rather than just decorative.

So any suggestions on ways to recycle or reuse them if they’re broken?

(Photo by woodsy)

We’ve had an email from Brian Garrett asking about recycling satellite dishes:

I’ve got one in the garage (after upgrading to the latest version). My neighbors have some on their roofs that are unused.

What is the best way to recycle an unused satellite dish? These are the smaller DirectTV/Dish network dishes - not the big 6′ dishes.

I suspect the number of old dishes floating around is growing steadily as people (in the UK) are encouraged to flip back and forth between cable and satellite depending on the current offer of the moment.

So any suggestions?

(Photo courtesy of my neighbours across the street who have a satellite dish on the side of their house)

A few weeks ago now, we had a weekend away (to Lindisfarne - was great) and when we returned, we were greeted by a big bundle of wires in the middle of our garden path. A neighbour had found - and disassembled - a broken sunbed while we were away and the wires were leftover. He knows we like using odd things so left them out for us.

So I took them in and sorted them by colour - but don’t know what to do with them. They seem to be quite thick - but malleable - copper, coated in pretty tough plastic. They mostly range in length from around 50cm (20″) to about 1m (40″), but there are some shorter ones at about 20cm (8″) too.

The wires look pretty flexible and strong but I don’t know if they’re bendy enough to use for something like macrame - at least fine knotting - but I like the idea of using them from something crafty. So any suggestions?

Or any more practical ideas?

We’ve had an email from Neil Williams:

I’ve just moved into a new house and when I finally hacked through the nettles at the bottom of the garden, I found a set of old car tyres.

They look like they’ve been there for a good few years so probably aren’t any good for a car now and I know some companies make them into mouse pads and stuff but I was wondering what I can do with them myself.

My dad used to use tyres (AKA tires) as planters for growing veg - a single tyre became an instant raised beds for lettuce or herbs or a few stacked on top of each other became deep bins for potatoes. I guess the stacked ones could also be used as a compost heap too.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by dragon_art)