How can I reuse or recycle … take-away menus?

If you draw Venn diagram-esque circles around concentrations of take-away/delivery places in Leeds, we live where three of the circles would overlap. We get thousands of menus through the door and despite being pizza fiends, we only ever even glance at a select few of them – the rest go straight in the recycling bin.

We can’t compost the menus as they tend to be glossy, colour-prints but we prefer to use stuff around the home where possible before just sending it off to be recycled.

Any suggestions?

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11 Responses to “How can I reuse or recycle … take-away menus?”


  1. Very, very colourful papier mache? (ps i dont know how to spell it!)

  2. korpsaw says:

    Dried oysters drilled and stung look greataround your neck at the prom….cheap styles, amazing freedom

  3. M Bootle says:

    If they have pictures of the food on them, you could cut out the pictures for your kids to use in their make-believe games.

  4. dancing girl says:

    To reduce the amount of these flooding into your home, place a (NO JUNK MAIL) sign on your letterbox.

    If that does not work try (ABSOLUTELY NO JUNK MAIL “This means you”)

    I have had a lot of success with the first type of sign. It means my house has much less clutter.

    The last thing we need is an enticement to eat more junk food.

    • Tom says:

      dancing girl wrote:

      To reduce the amount of these flooding into your home, place a (NO JUNK MAIL) sign on your letterbox.
      If that does not work try (ABSOLUTELY NO JUNK MAIL “This means you”)
      I have had a lot of success with the first type of sign. It means my house has much less clutter.
      The last thing we need is an enticement to eat more junk food.

      A quirky way of stopping unwanted junk mail is to write to them and tell them you are removing their ‘Implied right of access’.

      An implied right of access is the assumption that you allow access to your property to people such as the postman or charity collectors etc. Having a path from the street to your door or even just having a letterbox implies the right of access from the street to the door/letterbox.

      Once the implied right is withdrawn, that person/organisation or their agents (i.e. leaflet droppers) are committing trespass is they do walk up your path. Civil trespass, but still trespass. Might be worth a letter just to see what their response would be.

      • Robert says:

        Tom wrote:

        A quirky way of stopping unwanted junk mail is to write to them and tell them you are removing their ‘Implied right of access’.
        An implied right of access is the assumption that you allow access to your property to people such as the postman or charity collectors etc. Having a path from the street to your door or even just having a letterbox implies the right of access from the street to the door/letterbox.

        I just wrote about someone who sends back junk mail with a warning that any further deliveries will be prosecuted under the Environmental Protection Act… See The Offence of Leaving Litter :)

  5. louisa says:

    I’ve just found another use for these flyers – cleaning up the chunky bits of cat vomit.

    We usually use old newspaper (or pages from an old phone book) and grab the chunks with that but if the upchuck is soggy, it just soaks straight through. These menus tend to be glossy and good quality paper so I can use them as a little reasonably water-proof shovel.

    -louisa

  6. Isabel says:

    Give to a school to have students practice reading and math or for creating a make believe restaurant.

  7. frugalfox says:

    I have a friend who used takeout menus to wallpaper her kitchen. Looked great!

  8. Shannon says:

    I started saving all my rubbish more than nine months ago. When you don’t throw it out, you think a lot more before taking things in the first place. I know I am stubborn, but I would give the menus right back to the restaurants, and keep doing it until they get the picture. Preferably I would give them back in the middle of a big dinner rush and have a long chat with the person who took it. It’s cruel, but eventually, they will quit.


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