Had an email from Brian Hunting:

I’ve got an office waste paper bin, the wire framed sort, that’s gone rusty. After it left rust stains on the carpet my wife banned it from the house.

I thought about making it into a hanging basket for the garden but think it’ll be too deep as is and I don’t know if I’ll be able to cut it down without losing its shape. I wondered if your readers had any better suggestions instead.

So then?

(Original photo by brokenarts)

I was sorting through a kitchen cupboard the other day and found three half bottles of food colouring from the days when I used to make colourful icing for cakes (mmm, sugar and E numbers).

All three – the faux-primary colours of red, yellow and blue – have gone past the “best before” date on their lids but even not taking that into consideration, I’m unlikely to use them for their intended purpose in the near future since I’ve stopped baking that type of cake and I get my E numbers through large quantities of orange squash these days.

So what else can I use them for? I’m tempted to try them for dying fabric but suspect the colour would just run with water – is that the case? What about other use as other dyes such as in paint?

We’ve had an email from Christina Albertsen:

My colleages and I throw away loads of used staples every day where we work, and I was just wondering if there’s a way of recycling them somehow!

If you have any ideas (apart from buying one of those stapless staplers, which I will be doing) that would be great!

They seem so small but I remember reading in a book a few years ago that a colossal amount of steel is used to make staples. Unfortunately I can’t find the book just at the moment so I can’t find the exact figure but it was a very big number for what seem to be small and insignificant bits of bent metal.

The book recommended using paper clips or treasury tags instead since they’re reusable – and of course there is Christina’s stapleless stapler idea – but aside from that, as Christina asks, are there any ways to recycle (or reuse) staples once they’ve been squished?

When I was a kid, I used to make chains of them for fun but it was fiddly and they had sharp ends so couldn’t be used for much – or could they?

Had an email from Rani:

I’ve saved up the stems of old qtips (cut off the used cotton part) and now have a bunch of little paper sticks.

I’m planning to make a picture frame out of them but would like other more practical ideas before I do something decorative.

I’ve thought about this before too – we try to buy the paper sticked ones but sometimes can only get plastic ones (boo) – at least the paper ones will compost.

So any suggestions for little paper or plastic sticks?

(Photo by solneman2)

A couple of months ago, John read something about how poisonous Teflon is when it gets scratched and starts flaking – and immediately our two old frying pans were cast from the pan cupboard onto, well, the dining table where they’ve sat for the in-between weeks waiting for me to take a photo of them for use on here. I’m not the promptest girl in the world.

Researching it now, I can’t find anything to support the poisonous claim – most sources say flakes will pass through the body without being absorbed but super-heated (237°C – the sort of hot hot heat you might use to fry up a thick steak) Teflon can give off dangerous fumes (particularly for birds in the vicinity – so no more letting the budgie cook up bacon unsupervised).

Either way though, these frying pans are a pain to cook with in their current state given they’re half non-stick, half-stick. So any suggestions for bringing them back to life? (Is wire-wooling off the remain Teflon an idea?)

And failing that, reuses? recycling suggestions?