How can I reuse or recycle brine?

Published November 13th, 2009 in food, household | 8 Comments »

Finishing up our week of water themed posts, here’s a culinary question – what can I do with leftover brine?

I had some awesome olives the other day – sharp and tasty – and the leftover brine smelled herby and was a lovely purple colour – a really developed flavour. It seemed a waste to throw it away but I thought it might be a little too salty to use in other cooking.

You guys impressed me with your multiple uses for post-pickle vinegar – is there anything similar for brine?

How can I reuse or recycle rainwater?

Published November 11th, 2009 in garden, household, items, water | 5 Comments »

Continuing our week of water themed posts, we’ve had an email from Chris:

Being a good green hippy, I’ve got two waterbutts in my garden, which I use to collect water for my garden. But now it’s winter my garden doesn’t need watering and the butts are nearly full even though it’s only November. I imagine I could use all the water now and they’d fill up again within a couple of weeks. Can you or your readers make any suggestions?

One answer might be to plumb in the water butts to feed your households non-drinking water needs such as toilet flushing and perhaps even laundry – not just for this time of year, but for use all year around when you’ve got the water to supply it. I really want to set up a greywater system, including rainwater, to feed the toilet cistern if nothing else but I suspect it would too problematic in this awkwardly tall house as the water would have to be stored two storeys below the bathroom – but if we have another toilet put in lower down in the house, I’ll definitely look into it.

I remember someone telling me at some point that rainwater is also good for cleaning windows as it typically has less mineral deposits in it than tap water (so will leave less residue) – but Googling doesn’t seem to confirm or deny that — anyone know?

Staying outside, you could use the water if you need to clean paths of stuck-on leaf mulch or cleaning out the greenhouse ready to shut it down for winter.

Any other suggestions?

How can I reuse or recycle water from washing out paintbrushes?

Published November 9th, 2009 in household, items, water | 3 Comments »

We had a water week – a week of water themed posts – in honour of World Water Day back in March but I’ve had a run of water-related questions recently so I thought we’d have another wet week. “Water Week 2: This time it’s personal damp.”

A couple of weeks ago, Tyler asked a question on a random old post:

What should I do with the water I use to wash of my paint brushes?

It’s a good question because it uses a surprisingly large amount of water to get paintbrushes clean – and even more if you’ve been using a roller for large scale decorating.

Can anything be done with the very, very watered down paint – particularly the first rinse which is really quite paint-y?

Do you have any tips for reducing the amount of water used to clean them? I try to squeeze out as much paint as possible before washing – old newspaper works well as a wrapping material but quickly gets soaked, plastic bags is less absorbent but you’ll be able to squeeze it for longer.

(Picture by basheertome)

How can I reuse or recycle paintbrushes?

Published December 15th, 2008 in household, items | 7 Comments »

We’ve had an email from Sharon:

We’ve got a ton of old paintbrushes. They’ve gone stiff and hard. Any suggestions?

If the brushes have gone hard because they weren’t cleaned properly, you might still be able to revive them by giving them a good clean with turps or the like. Failing that, or if they were clean to start with, apparently a ten minute soak in some hot white vinegar can revive ones used for water-based paints (soak it then wash it out with soap and warm water and leave to air dry).

Even if you don’t get them back to perfect softness needed for a nice, smooth paint job, once clean, they can be used for cleaning hard-to-reach areas around the house or on a car’s dashboard – in fact a little stiffness might help them getting into tiny nooks and crannies easier.

Charities that collect leftover paint for redistribution in the community also might be interested in them.

Any other suggestions?

What’s greener – harsh chemicals or throw-away culture?

Published May 5th, 2006 in items | 7 Comments »

We feel the same about interior decoration as we do about cleaning: our desire for a clean and well-painted house is marginally outweighed by our desire not to actually clean or paint our house. We’re the type of people that live in half-decorated rooms for months and months on end (our personal best is the living room which took 18months to “finish” – finish in inverted commas because, another 18 months on, we still haven’t sorted out the flooring or painted the radiator yet).

Anyway, in a very unlike us moment, we decided to paint the kitchen last weekend. When we’re done, we washed the emulsion brushes out with water but hit a dilemma with the gloss brushes: is it better to wash them out turps (or some turps substitute as was the actual case) and then pour the resulting painty-turps down the drain or, since they were cheap brushes to start with, just throw them away?

Obviously, throwaway culture is bad – because so much effort went into making the brushes in the first place and then transporting them to us via a DIY emporium – but is pouring a whole bunch of chemicals down the drain any better?

I’m always inclined towards the throwaway option because even after endless time with a tub of turps, I find it so hard to get the brushes re-usable clean again that I end up throwing them away in the end anyway – but THROWAWAY CULTURE, BAAAAAAD! So you see my dilemma.

Since both of those seem pretty bad options, are there any alternatives that we should be considering instead?

(Photo by levi szekeres, c/o sxc.hu)