I wanted to make a gift bag in a hurry the other day out of some old brown paper. A quick search pointed me towards a number of tutorials which used existing boxes as templates – either intact boxes or as nets – but I wondered if anyone else had any other designs?

Another idea I had was to make a quick pouch out of a pretty fabric – or even just fold the fabric furoshiki style.

Any other suggestions?

Dismantled some fitted cupboards, six tall louvre doors leftover. Ideas?

I really like the idea of louvre/louver doors as indoor window shutters, an alternative to blinds. I’m not 100% sure what they’re called but you can get hinges to fix them together so they fold at the joins, rather than needing a pocket recess/recess space.

Similarly, you can use them to make a concertina room divider and there is a lovely Instructable which explains all. The same principle could be used to make a sun-screen/privacy shade for the garden.

They can also easily be transformed to get rid of the dust-attracting louvre slats – a flat piece of wood over the top of the slats modernises them quickly or, if the outside frame is pretty sturdy, knock out the slats and replace with cute gathered fabric for a country-cottage feel.

Any other suggestions?

Can I put sweets gone sticky in my compost bin?

As with many “can I compost this?” questions, there is no fixed answer that applies 100% of the time in 100% of the situations. In a basic open heap, I’d say no – the sweetness may attracted unwanted insects and if it’s only breaking down slowly, you might end up with a sticky lump in the middle of your heap. Even when it does breakdown, they won’t add that many nutrients to your compost heap – in the same way they’re not exactly nutritious for us to eat either.

In other situations though, sugar can be good for a compost heap – it encourages bacteria growth in bins otherwise lacking (bins filled with leaves usually need more help than bins filled with a mix of stuff including kitchen waste) – so in that situation, you might want to add your sweeties. To avoid the sticky lump thing, you could try heating them up and making them into a runny sugar water solution. Said solution can also apparently be used to perk up weak plants – a soak for bare roots – or even, moving away from compost, overworked bees. What else can they be used to perk up?

Any other uses?

(Photo by BarBloke)

I teach art in Glasgow and I’m trying to find some way of punching disc of various diameters (eg.10mm 15mm 22mm 30mm) out of recycled plastic, fabric, paper etc. to make jewellery. Any suggestions?

The ring-binder size metal ones, like one in the picture, work fine for small circles, but only small discs about 5mm in diameter. I tried using fancier shaped/bigger hole punches with thin plastic but because the ones I had were designed for thick paper/card, the plastic kept gumming them up. Alison Bailey Smith has more luck than me with that sort of thing though and recommends a particular brand of hole punch – X Cut.

Are there any alternatives to using punches? What are the options for bigger circles? Anything quicker/more accurate than just cutting them out with scissors?

Punching holes in fabric other than felt (and the like) may cause a fraying problem, which might ruin/reduce the lifespan of the garment. Any ways around that or other advice?

The room is damp because it’s partially underground on one wall but, more importantly, it was used as a bedroom for years and was made completely draft-proof. The chimney was blocked up, then covered with a wall, the floor was completely sealed with asphalt, all the windows/doors UPVC double-glazed and the outside walls were sealed with render – the damp air had nowhere to go but sit in the walls. Stone-built Victorian houses like this used to breathe, were built to breathe – but they suffocated it.

It’s already improved loads since we opened up the chimney but the work we’re doing now will stop the problem happening again. Unfortunately though, it involves a lot of destruction and mess – all the old water-logged plaster and plasterboard (drywall) has to be pulled away and replaced. The last lot of rumble we generated became filler for the sloped area we’ve levelled up in the garden but we don’t need any more for that. So what else can be done with it? Can it be used for anything more productive than its ability to take up space?

I seem to remember reading somewhere that about 15% of it is wasted during manufacture/installation and new stuff – offcuts – can be reclaimed and repressed into new boards. Can this be done with old boards too?

UPDATE: Oh, it seems plasterboard is now classed as hazardous waste in the UK so it can’t be landfilled – does that have an impact on its reuses?

The idea is that you have a mutually beneficial veg bed and fish tank – the fish dirty up the water with lots of valuable nutrients (poop nutrients = pootrients) which is pumped up to fertilise the gravel-bottomed veg bed. The gravel works as a filter, keeping the nutrients & other gunk to feed the plants while the excess clean water is returned tank to begin the process again. Smaller tanks are probably only suitable for small ornament fish but you can grow your own freshwater swimmers in larger ones – an alternative to keeping chickens in the garden!

Has anyone already played with aquaponics on a small/domestic scale? Did you make your own system or did you buy a ready-made one/components? If you made your own, what did you use?

I don’t think we’ll have the time to build a system for quite a while (so many other things to do first!) but it makes sense to start collecting items we can reuse when we see them – I suspect something to use as a tank will be the most difficult part find – any ideas?

• Lynsey from SwirlyArts has been in touch to tell us about two of her recent reusing projects – turning a unwanted old diary into an expenses notebook and how to make pretty padded envelopes out of old books & bubblewrap, as an alternative to boring Jiffy bags.
• The Cottage Smallholder is having a reusing/recycling gardening competition this month – how are you reusing/recycling things to get ready for the next growing season?
• Speaking of getting organised, check out My Tiny Plot for a great idea for keeping up with seed sowing – it’s not strictly a reuse but it could be — an old floppy disk box/card file would be great for this.
• Mrs Green on My Zero Waste has written about a new initiative to recycle crisp packets in the UK.
• I really like the aesthetic of cardboard for home decor so love this idea of making wall art using toilet roll/kitchen roll tubes.
• Julie on Crafting a Green World has written a great round-up of baby projects made from old tshirts.
• And finally, make a feature wall at home a bit different – don’t use generic feature wall wallpaper, use old books (or music scores) instead. As a booklover, I don’t know if I could take apart a still-could-be-read book for such a purpose but it’s a great idea for books that are falling apart.

Hi. I saw everyone’s great ideas about bread bags the other week but we don’t get sliced bread, we get baguettes and the stuff baked in the shop which come in film rather than plastic bread bags. Can that be recycled too?

Ooh, good question. I’m not 100% sure what type of plastic that is – I’ve sent emails to a couple of supermarkets to see if they know so can advise further. It’s maybe cellophane – and if it is, it’s biodegradable. Anyone know?

As for reuses though, it’s not as smooth and, for what of a better word, floppy as the LDPE/number 4 plastic used for pre-packed bread – but because of that, it would be better to use as a lightweight packaging material (it would scrunch, not crush flat). It’s not as pretty as the plastic wrap used on bouquets but there might be some overlap in the reuses.

Any other suggestions?

How can I recycle old badges? plastic and metal.

Actually recycling them may be difficult as they tend to be mixed materials – metal and potentially multiple types of plastic but they’re perfect for passing on to someone else. A lot of people collect badges – doesn’t matter what’s on them or actually, the more obscure the better – so either offer them to a local charity/op shop or if you’ve got enough of them to make it worthwhile, offer them on your local Freecycle/Freegle or even eBay/Etsy/Folksy.

A question for badge makers – can old badges be recovered using badge making machine?

Any other ideas?

(Photo by Miss Frannington)

I have recently designed and restored a cast iron roll top bath. I’ve taken an antique original bath and I have recently designed and restored a cast iron roll top bath. I’ve taken an antique original bath and have given it a bespoke twist using ceramic handmade mosaics as decoration. With the iron legs chromed too I feel it would stand out in any bathroom.

Replica cast iron baths take large amounts of energy to produce and thus leave a large carbon foot print. This is my greener alternative!

This is a great idea – there are so many old baths dumped because they’re no longer pretty but this now is pretty flash.

Our bath in our last house was very old – the original one when bathrooms were installed in the houses in the 1960s (when the council decided that the 60 year old houses weren’t actually “temporary housing” as planned) – and as a result, the enamel was damaged & stained by water deposits. It was always our plan to explore re-enamelling it but as with many things in our lives, we never got around to it. Has anyone else had any experience re-surfacing a bath? Did you do it yourself or is it a job for a professional?

A lot of baths nowadays seem to be made from plastic or fibreglass – not quite so cold but more prone to cracking that a solid hunk of metal. Has anyone fixed a damaged plastic/fibreglass bath?

There is a section of old drainpipe in the woods next to our house too – I haven’t investigated it too closely yet but I think it’s an old metal one, so not as easily hackable but still potentially useful.

Any suggestions?

I plan to scavenge some round tubs from somewhere – old plastic barrels or the like – but I’d like some nicer planters – probably trough/window-box shaped – for on the balcony/patio bit, and for the slither of space between the front of our house and the road. They don’t all need to be deep enough for root veg as I want to grow plenty of above ground stuff too.

My father-in-love has suggested making them out of scraps of decking – a box with decking for sides – but any other suggestions?

Our wonderful family and friends brought a selection of home made cakes to our Christmas party and I’ve been left with 5 cake boards. They’re card so I won’t be able to wash them to use them again but I don’t want to just throw them out. What can I do with them?

Actually recycling them might be a problem if they’re mixed materials – cardboard topped with foil or the like. You can rip the foil off and recycle the card but it’ll be better to reuse them if possible.

I’ve seen a pinboard made from cardboard cake boards – stick a couple together if you want them to be thicker/stronger. An alternative to that might be sticking a bulldog clip or the like to the top and using it as a clipboard for shopping lists. The thinner square/rectangular ones might also work as covers for a notebook – perhaps for all your favourite cake recipes? :)

It’s hard to reduce waste when items come as a gift but perhaps you could encourage the cake bakers in your life to use washable alternatives in the future – either a purpose-made acrylic or wooden board, or a large pretty plate — I find charity shops a good source for the latter.

Any other reuse suggestions – or alternatives for future cakes?

How about ribbons? I always nab ribbon from shop bought cake and the slightly more upmarket clothes tags thinking ‘That’ll come in handy’ but I never seem to find a use for it – especially ones with brand names written across them. Thanks!

I also add them to my craft stash too – but I doubt I’ll be using the branded ones in anything decorative any time soon. So suggestions?

The thin ribbons from new clothes are another challenge – they’re not long enough to use for many “tying up” tasks but are still useful for some things.

Anne says:

They make great gift labels along with old birthday cards.

And Alison Bailey Smith also uses them in her work:

I roll them with wire and then coils them or recently I have used them to wrap around combs when making fascinators with wire used to hold toys in place and flowers made from toothpaste tubes.

They also make great cat toys – tied together, they were just long enough to hang to cat-height from the door handles of our old house and just about every door had one for ongoing cat amusement.

What do you do with them?

We currently recycle around 37% of our waste – up from just 11% in 2001 – but still lagging behind other European countries, who recycle up to 70% of their waste. The new targets will have us recycling 50% of our waste within five years (2015) and recycling 60% by 2020.

Recycling provision has grown immensely over the last decade – hence that 26% jump – and most people, certainly in urban/suburb areas, do most of their recycling through regular kerbside pickups. But what do you think would improve the doorstep recycling most in your area? What would allow you to recycle more? What do you think would encourage less green-focused people to make the effort too?

I’ve put a poll together to make it easy for people to contribute but feel free to add your own suggestions in the poll or in the comments below.

How can I reuse or recycle those cheap, tiny plastic toys that come in Christmas crackers, snack packets and the like, please? These are mostly just brittle, non-recyclable plastic ’shapes’, not like the playable and durable fast food premiums. I don’t buy them, but what do I do with the bunch I’ve acquired over the years at parties and such? Even if I try to reduce by not accepting them, they would have been purchased, and would be given out to others anyway, even if I decline. Thank you in advance!

As I explained last month, I don’t celebrate Christmas so it comes across as Bah-humbug when I say it, but ugh, I hate Christmas crackers – so much waste for a split second of cheer. I understand the “it’s hard to reduce” point – they’ve already been bought and few people want to kick up a fuss and refuse to pull one at a party – but so. much. waste. One idea for the future might be to ask if you can provide the crackers for the party – you can then make them out of recycled materials and/or at least know exactly how to recycle all the paper waste, and you can include small but actually useful items as opposed to the random useless stuff you get in commercial ones.

But what to do with the commercial stuff – those little plastic toys? I know a number of people who would use them to make fun costume jewellery or mobile phone charms. You could also use them in little terrariums. Other ideas?

Here in West Yorkshire, we had the white stuff on the ground for nearly four weeks before it finally melted away at the weekend. I realise that’s nothing compared to many places around the world but for here, it’s remarkable. I think the longest I’ve ever seen snow stick around before was about four days and because of that, no one is prepared for snow here – we just take the opportunity to stay at home, eat Christmas leftovers and complain about the weather (which, to be fair, we do whatever the weather). Only one person on our street has a snow shovel and the council only gritted/cleared main roads so navigating through our side streets was slippery fun. No one has snow tyres/chains and also at least half the people we encountered don’t know how to drive in snow – they seemingly thought throwing as much power as they could at their spinning wheels would eventually solve the problem.

Because of our unpreparedness, people have been improvising. Rubber footwell mats are quite commonly used to provide emergency traction when wheels get stuck – and I’ve heard of other people keeping old carpet in their car to do the same thing. A friend of a friend heard you can use cat litter as a grit substitute but discovered that their type of cat litter just turned to a white paste and got trudged all through the house – so that’s not advised. Does the wood-based stuff work better though – or as an extension of that, sawdust?

What have you been reusing and recycling to make getting around a little easier during the snowy weather? What works? What doesn’t? What about for other forms of transport such as bikes or even just walking? Anything to help improve grip?

How can I recycle the little foil tins that mince pies and jam tarts come in??? I have a large stack this year and I just know they must have some amazing crafty type useage.

(Apologises that I’ve only picked it up a little late – after mince pie season has finished for another year…)

Foil tins can often be recycled alongside cans in metal recycling bins/kerbside – and sometimes (although less so now recycling is widely available) to raise money for charity.

Like foil cat food trays, they can be used as a mould for making soaps or for little tealight-shaped candles.

Any other suggestions?

Most pre-wrapped loaves (in the UK at least) come in LDPE bags – low-density polyethylene, ie, plastic number 4. They can be doorstep recycled in some places (check your local guidelines) and can be included with carrier bags at some collection spots.

But how can they be reused first? The most simple reuse is, of course, as a sandwich bag – but anything more interesting or creative?

(Photo by Richard George)

Parmesan rinds. Why am I keeping them? Dim recollection that Jamie Oliver has some use for them. Must find out soon or they’re for the bin.

Apparently, like broccoli stalks, it’s one of those things that some people ALWAYS cook and they don’t understand why the rest of us don’t use them all the time. What do you use them for? Away from the dinner plate, would they be ok to add to a bird feeder fat mix, or would they be too salty?

Away from parmesan, the biggest thing holding me back is when the rind feels a little fabric-y, like the cheesecloth is part of the rind. I presume – possibly wrongly – that that sort of rind isn’t edible – so what else can be done with it?

I bought a bird feeder a couple of year ago – a simple wood/metal grill thing – and it was fine in our old house. Here though, the squirrels gnawed the wood and ripped a whole in the metal on Day 1, so I clearly need to make something sturdier. (I don’t mind feeding the squirrels, especially at the moment, but would rather they didn’t break stuff.)

We’ve got some offcuts of wood – small flat pieces of pine, salvaged from a joiner – which I could yoink from the stove’s wood pile and use to make a little box/tray with a roof (probably a hanging one, rather than a table because of the cats). There is always the simple milk bottle option or juice bottles too. Coming at it from another angle, coconut shells or hard gourd skins can be used for homemade fat feeders, and those that plan ahead purposely grow sunflowers during the summer to feed their feather friends during the winter.

Speaking of the actual food, don’t just resort to shop-bought seed mixes – Mrs Green from My Zero Waste has pulled together a great list of waste foods that can help the local wildlife.

How else can you make bird feeders reusing and recycling random stuff?

And what do you feed the birds once you’ve got your feeder in place?

Price tags on clothes from highstreet shops seem to be multiplying – one piece of card for the brand/sub-brand, one for the price, one for care instructions… True, most are card so widely recyclable but increasingly I’ve spotted fabric ones on brands attempting to make themselves look more upmarket – held on with a piece of string or ribbon, instead of those little plastic things. A lot of waste that’s just usually pulled off and thrown in the bin straight away.

Anyone got any suggestions for reuses – rather than just recycling – of the card ones? And what about the fabric ones?

(There is, of course, a reduce case here – stop buying excessively tagged highstreet clothes but even the charity shops I go to usually have a couple of big card tags on their garments now.)

(And speaking of highstreet shops and their wasteful antics, this story came to light last week but in case you’ve not seen it – H&M have admitted deliberately destroying brand new clothes rather than giving them to charity. Another attempt by big chains to discourage freegans/scavengers and resulting in more senseless waste. Sigh.)

Help! My wellies are leaking! How can I fix them?!

It’s a similar, just slightly more heavy duty, problem to that of my leaky trainers – you need something that will seal the hole but remain flexible (unlike, say, superglue) because it’ll crack when dry. Alice’s waterpoof trouser question might also suggest some mending solutions.

My first thought was puncture repair kit – something suggested a lot to solve my trainer problem – but a quick Google suggests that’s not guaranteed to work. Further in that forum thread, someone mentions that wellington boot repair kits exist – presumably just a heavier duty version than standard bike tyre puncture repair kits.

If it’s only a small leak, a quick bodge not-really-fix would be to put your socked feet into plastic bags before sliding them into your wellies – at least that would keep your feet dry. Depending where the hole/split is, a strip of gaffer tape might also help reduce moisture incursion in the short term until a more permanent fix can take place.

Any other suggestions?

(If you can’t fix them and end up getting a new pair – don’t forget to reuse or recycle your old pair.)

I managed to flick bleach all over one of my favourite t-shirts but I’m not quite ready to give up on it just yet. The shirt has a printed design on it so I can’t bleach and re-dye the whole shirt.

Googling around, I’ve seen some suggestions of disguising the pale dots with permanent marker – the shirt is brown though so I don’t know if I’ll find a pen to match.

The design is a bright cartoon design so I might get away with adding some “noise” to the picture with fabric paint or reverse/normal appliqué.

Failing all that, I guess I could make something else with the fabric/design or since it fits well, take it apart to make a pattern to use to make my own fitted t-shirts in the future. I’d really like to keep it as a tshirt though – any other suggestions?

My youngest got it into his head at Rudolph likes honey (or Winnie the Pooh was pulling the sled too, we haven’t got a straight answer from him about it) and left an open jar on his window sill on Christmas eve. We only found it on Tuesday. Aside from the single fly, it looks OK but no one wants to eat it. Can we compost it?

You can compost it but if I were you, I’d save it to reuse in other ways. Honey is a great beauty aid – mix with oatmeal and water to make a soothing face mask; mix with water and a little cider vinegar for an all-over body moisturiser; with olive oil, it can make a hair condition; and it has anti-fungal qualities too so can be used as an alternative treatment for athlete’s foot.

And apparently you can use it to embalm the dead. If you’re into that sort of thing.

Any other reuses for honey?

My son has recently bought a drum set and we desperately need to sound-proof a room where he can practice. How can we do this using recycled materials?

The old cliché is egg boxes – does that really work though? Waffle foam packaging would probably be slightly better but possibly difficult to source in large enough quantities. I guess egg boxes might be too since the people who tend to have open trays of them – egg sellers or small grocers – tend to reuse them for their original purpose. If egg boxes work, would shaped foam sheets used for packaging round fruit be an alternative?

My boyfriend John, who is a drummer too (although one that doesn’t care too much for soundproofing), has suggested carpet as something good at muffling and easy to source in large pieces. He also suggested cork tiles – the air in the cork structure aids sound deadening apparently.

Another thing I’d add although it’s not really a reuse/recycle thing is, if possible, try placing the drum kit in different parts of the room/house. Some sounds – footsteps, creaking floorboards, John jiggling his legs – really travel around our house but only from/to certain spots. I suspect it’s a joists/floor board thing but don’t know any more than just suggesting trial and error – anyone know why it’s like that?

Any other suggestions?

• Now the rush to the holidays is out of the way, it’s a perfect time to catch up with fixing and mending stuff around the home and those dozens of jumpers snagged by cats over the first properly chilly bit of the season (… just me?). The Craft blog recently had a roundup of some fab repair projects to get fixing juices flowing.
• MJ over at Making Do with the Not So New posted about a great scheme someone has set up in her area – community give and take chests. Perfect for things not suitable for a charity shop (such as food or once-used bottles of bathroom supplies) or things too small to warrant a Freecycle/Freegle posting.
• MJ also linked to webecca’s yarn winder (swifts) tutorials – made re-using random household objects such as clothes pegs and coathangers.
• Crafting a Green World’s Becky linked to a video tutorial on making cute little handbags from the covers of old, damaged hardback books.
• Craftstylish’s Cal has written a great how-to on replacing a coat lining to breath new life into a tattered vintage coat. The same idea can also be extended to making a coat that bit warmer for winter.
• Finally, reuse old drinking straws and expanded foam packaging to make handy storage for seed beads. It would work for actual seeds too – easy to sprinkle them out at planting time.

(Photo by Diane Gilleland for Craft)

Do you know what number plastic hand cream tubes are? The ones with the flip lids. I don’t know whether or not to put them in my recycling bin.

Along with the inconsistency of facilities available, lack of information on packaging is one of my major pet hates when it comes to recycling. I’ve got three different types of face/hand moisturiser in our bathroom cupboard and only one has recycling information on it – it’s number 4 (LDPE). LDPE isn’t as widely recycled as PET/PETE (number 1) or HDPE (number 2) but it is recycled in some areas – my old council Leeds used to pick it up at the kerbside so it’ll be worth checking your local advice to see if you can do the same.

Aside from recycling, any ideas on how the tubes can be reused? I suspect there will be some overlap with squeezable plastic toothpaste tubes but any new suggestions?

Looking back at 2009, it’s been a cracking year for Recycle This – I’ve posted 204 articles and you wonderful people have left more than 3450 comments! We’ve also nearly doubled the amount of “unique visitors” to the site over the last year too – hopefully a sign that more and more people are keen to reuse and recycle more things, more often.

I finally got around to redesigning the site in May – something I’d been meaning to do for ages – which I think/hope has made it easier for people to find the most common items and related articles. We’ve also introduced a few new features, How can I reduce this? and How can I repair this? – I hope to push those ideas a lot further in the next few months so if you have any suggestions of things you want to reduce/repair, do get in touch and we’ll brainstorm some ideas for you.

Which brings me neatly onto what I intended to be the focus for this post – what are your reducing, reusing and recycling goals in 2010?

Personally, I’m going to continue working on cutting back my addiction to cheap clothes – everyone’s suggestions have been very useful, thanks so much guys – and I’m hoping to bulk cook more to stop us reaching for, for example, supermarket pizzas when we need to eat quickly or packaging-heavy biscuits when we need a snack. I’m also hoping to reuse a lot of packaging in our new garden and I’m going to set up dedicated bins for things we can’t doorstep recycle to make it easier for us to recycle them elsewhere. What are you going to do?

See you in the new decade!

I know for legal reasons etc you might not be able to mention the product name, but every year the ambassador spoils my family with masses of trays of various sized ferrero rocher boxes. I am just looking for suggestions of what these could be used for.

They seem a waste to just bin, obviously, but i have about 5 and all i can think of is some form of cultivation tray. The boxes are sturdy but don’t particularly seal well, i was going to use one as a sandwich box, but they don’t fasten well.

Any tips on how to make an easily accessible hinge and locking mechanism for these would be great.

As Roger says, the flat single layer ones would be useful as seed trays – or underneath seed trays/planters to stop water draining all over the place. They’re a good shape for using as sprouting trays but my experience of them is that they tend to shatter quite easily if you try to cut into them/drill holes in them so drainage might be an issue.

I remember having one of the smaller/taller ones as a misc bits box as a kid and they would be useful for similar general misc storage as an adult too – they’d be perfect for nails, screws & random bits for the DIYer or buttons & beads for the crafter – they’re clear so it would be super easy to find things.

Any other suggestions?