orangeterra left a comment on the “Suggest An Item” page:

What can I do with my old Birkenstock sandals? They’re a combo of rubbery foam soles, cork footbed, and leather straps. Because they take the shape of my feet, I doubt they’d be good hand-me-downs, but I hate to toss them.

Birkenstock has a page about their green production/distribution policies and advice on repairing/maintenance suggestions to prolong the life of the sandals. Birkenstock USA also links to shoe redistribution charity Soles4Souls.

Depending on which bit of orangeterra’s sandals has give way, they might benefit from a little repair – get a few more months out of them with new soles – or if the sole is good but the rest ruined/broken, they might be suitable for turning into slippers.

Any other suggestions? Or recycling links?

We’ve had an email from Bruce:

I’ve got a large amount of chicken wire leftover after conducting some work in my garden. The biggest 1ft by 2ft, the rest smaller. Can I recycle them in my can bin?

While it certainly could be recycled as scrap metal, it might cause problems further down the can recycling line if you add it to your recycling bin, particularly if your recycling is sorted by machinery. If that bin is your only way of getting it into the recycling system, it might be worth contacting the recycling people at your local council and seeing what they advise (every council is different). Other than that, roaming scrap metal collectors are becoming more common again and most tips/household waste and recycling centres have scrap metal bins.

What about reuses? If you’ve got room to store it, it could be used for patching holes in the future and I know many sculptors use it to make wire frames for their work too. Other suggestions?

(Photo by Elné Burgers

The Guardian’s Leo Hickman wrote an article yesterday about 3D glasses – how the current trend for jumping-out-at-you big screen action is causing a lot of waste: even with reusing and reconditioning schemes in place, around 7million pairs will be recycled into “plastic pellets” this year – and that’s not including the ones people have taken home.

We’ve only seen a few things in 3D – at the IMAX in Bradford – and we’ve always left the glasses there afterwards. But if we had taken them home (and if there wasn’t anywhere obvious for recycling, that’s what we’d have done), how could we have reused them?

The ones we’ve worn have been stylistic wonders – quirky-shaped plastic frames, which look particularly great over my normal specs…

• Craftzine linked to Christopher Paul’s painted plates – giving chintzy old plates a new lease of life (presumably just as artwork but still). A very fun idea!
• The Greenists ran a tutorial by Mudnessa on turning wide leg jeans into skinny ones – perfect if you fancy a change.
• Alison pointed us in the direction of this news story about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill – how hairdressers and transvestites are recycling stuff together to help soak up the oil
• Leo sent us an email to alert us to the RSPB’s second-hand binocular collection scheme – if you’ve got any old binoculars, telescopes or tripods lying around your house, you can donate them to the RSPB and they’ll use them in a conservation or educational project.
• And Joris sent us an email about Gumdropbins – fun bins to collect chewing gum – which are made from old chewing gum.
• It should be a bit late in the year for this type of thing but since the heating’s off & I’m thinking summery thoughts, the nights can still get pretty chilly – and that’s when hot water bottles with super snuggy recycled covers are just perfect.
• Finally, Alex from Just Cook It has been blogging about cooking with nettles recently – and the recipes sound fantastic. A great way to “reuse” those weeds from the garden!

Cor, I worked hard in the garden yesterday – I was ill all last week so was a week behind on everything, and gardens don’t tolerate being a week behind at this time of year, especially since I’m already a couple of months behind on some things!

I think though, aside from a few things for successive planting or winter crops, I’ve planted just about everything I want to try this year – a new garden so lots of experimenting — and lots of empty seed packets in my seed box.

Obviously they’re just paper so could go in our recycling bin but I thought it might be interesting to hear if anyone uses them for anything creative – or to help garden organisation/labelling.

Any suggestions?

(CCA photo by LollyKnit)