We’ve had an email from Hannah:

What can I do with old flip flops?

I’m presuming Hannah means the cheap foam ones that are omnipresent in the summer but sadly disappear into the dark, dusty backs of cupboards as soon as autumn arrives, never to re-emerge.

Because, toe-thong aside, they’re pretty much just foam shapes, a lot of the suggestions for foam drink holders and foam swim float will apply here too such as floor protectors under furniture legs, cut up/carved for foam stamps, or used as knitwear blocking boards or boards for macrame. If they’re not too, um, footy, they could maybe also be used as a fun noticeboard – a few pairs walking along the wall would be super-fun :)

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had a message on the Suggestions page from Jing:

Help! I have a beanbag which has flattened over the years and so I want to know a) what recycled stuff to refill fill it with and b) what to do with the useless little squished styrofoam bits.

Craft suggestions, if there are any, might be helpful for other people but please can I have suggestions that don’t mean I have to handle the styrofoam; I have a deep and ridiculous fear of the stuff and can’t bear touching it, looking at it, or the squeaky noise it makes when handled. Odd, I know, but as fears go it’s pretty harmless.

Yes, the feel and sound of the styrofoam balls is pretty ick-worthy – but those little foam things are surely useful for something…

In the (admittedly not many) flattened beanbags I’ve seen, the flattening tends to be one of two problems: either the bag has lost some filler or, particularly in the case of more structured footstool-esque beanbags, the fabric has lost its tautness and gone floppy. It doesn’t tend to be the filler that’s the problem – because the balls are so springy and tiny. Adding some more filler or reducing the size of the beanbag would solve the first problem, but the latter would need a new cover – essentially making a new beanbag for the old filler.

As for other uses, I’ve used beanbag filler for juggling balls but the styrofoam stuff doesn’t really have the right weight to it to be used on its own in there. It would be ok in (well sealed) soft toys though.

Some people use it in potting soil to aerate it – instead of perlite – but there are pollution/chemical leakage issues with that so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Any other suggestions? Any suggestions on recycled things that could be used in the place of more shop-bought filler?

We’ve had another suggestion from Leigh of the scarves and name-tags. She wonders what she can do with

those hideous foam things that are supposed to keep drinks cold.

I have like 8 of them but i never drink pop or beer.

They’re one of those annoying promotional things like bottle openers which tend to appear in your possession before you have a chance to say “no, thanks” to the person giving them out.

I’d keep one or two around to use for their insulating properties – keeping a bottle of water in your bag cold (and not leaking condensation everywhere) or if they’re big enough, using around too-hot coffee cups. But what can Leigh do with the rest?

Any ideas?

We’ve had an email from Dan:

Hi. I saw your page about laminate floor and I wondered if you knew what I could do with the foam underlay. We bought a giant roll but only used half of it. What can we do with the rest?

As with the flooring itself, eBay or Freecycle might be the easiest options if you just want to get rid of it.

Aside from that though, I guess it could be used in the same was as thin foam sheeting or foam shelf liners from supermarkets – as packaging, insulation around pipes or for making wine bottle/can sleeves to keep them cool.

Any other suggestions?

Lyndall, of March’s bread tag query, has got a couple more “how can I recycle this?”es for us. Firstly, following on from Monday’s high heeled shoe question:

does anyone have any bright ideas about recycling old crocs? mine now have holes in the bottom of them! would love to get them resoled if possible, but have not looked into this as yet and it’s generally not cheap.

It looks like Crocs themselves have a recycling scheme – old shoes are grounded up to make up (20% of) new ‘SolesUnited’ shoes for distribution in developing countries — but it seems only for US people at the moment (or people who are willing to pay the postage for their old shoes to reach the US). (They also have spare part schemes for replacing broken straps or rivets, which wouldn’t solve Lyndall’s worn-sole problem but might help save a few pairs from being dumped.)

So any other suggestions? I guess the good old standby of gardening shoes is out if they’re leaky but I suspect the lightness of the foam might be useful for something.

(Photo by sugarbeatl)