Righty, we’re back in Blighty now and if I have to leave the house today, it’ll be a disappointment. We arrived back home about 10:30pm last night after an elaborate performance of airport security theatre, and boy, were the cats glad to see us again. It’s freezing cold here today but I don’t mind because I’ve got three furry hot water bottles attached to me :)

Anyway, this recycling thing. As well as noticing the great procedures in place for recycling glass bottles in Madrid, we also noticed a great love for lotteries in the city – every official office had a queue 90 miles long outside it (at all times of the day, every day) and there were lots of street vendors selling scratchcards too. Of course, because I’m a recycling nerd, I started to wonder what the options are with recycling scratchcards.

Once all the scratchy stuff has been scratched off and hopes dashed again, they’re just normal cardboard – right? So they can be recycled with other card – right?

If they’ve still got a lot of the scratchy stuff on them, can they be recycled? It’s typically latex based apparently.

Any fun reuses for them? Anyone doing any crafts with them? Gift tags perhaps?

Hi! Sorry about the lack of posts over the last few days – we’re in Madrid at a technical conference/holiday — I had hoped to update from the airport on Wednesday and from here yesterday but the internet didn’t allow it. Naughty internet.

Most people here rave about the Prado and the tapas but because I’m a recycling nerd, I’ve been spotting the numerous recycling bins around the place, and raving to my travel buddies about how the glass drinks bottles seem to be collected regularly from bars by the supplier for direct cleaning/reuse rather than the more labour intensive generic glass recycling. !Excelente!

So anyway, suitcases. When I was packing our bags on Tuesday night, I found one of our wheelie suitcase is now 50% less wheelie – one of the wheels must have broken off on a previous trip/during our house move. If we can find another wheel around the right size, we’ll probably try to fix it because otherwise the suitcase is perfectly fine but what else can we do with it now it’s a bit annoying for travelling?

I’ve seen pretty, old clam-shell suitcases uses to make pet beds and we’re actually looking out for an old trunk/hat box to use as a wood basket near our new woodburning stove – but the one that’s broken is of the generic modern type, which might look retro and interesting in fifty years time but now if we use it for anything on display, it’ll just look like we’ve not unpacked from a trip. The cats are magnetically drawn to half-packed suitcases though so I doubt they’d complain.

Other suggestions?

I guess a related question is what do you do with suitcases when you’re not travelling? Do you and your friends/family reduce the amount needed by sharing? Are there any places that rent out suitcases to stop everyone having to buy and store their own? Do you use them for other storage around the home? Or do they sit empty in a far-away cupboard?

(Normal service should resume from Tuesday. :) )

Our woodburning stove – one of the things we’d been obsessing about since we saw the house for the first time in March – was finally fitted last week and boy, it’s nice. It’s a small one – for heating a single room rather than the whole house – but we spend most of our evenings in that single room so it’s fine, in fact it’s better than wastefully heating the whole house (either with a bigger stove or with central heating, as we used to do). The stove is also certified for use in a smoke controlled zone – we got a certified one not to blindly follow the rules but because it means they burn more efficiently with less emissions.

John’s dad is one of those people who knows whenever a tree is being cut down within a 10 mile radius so we’ve already got a big stack of logs – some seasoned and ready to burn, others fresh cut so will have to left to dry. They’re currently stacked on an old pallet (to lift them off the ground) and covered in a tarp but with all the wind and rain we’ve been having lately, that doesn’t seem to be enough, and anyway it’s not exactly convenient where it is at the moment so we’re thinking we’ll build a better wood store nearer the house.

I’ve not had to build one before but I imagine there are two ways of doing it – a top opening trunk or more of a workbench, with a solid top and either doors or a flexible plastic cover to the open front.

For making the former, I’m think we’d probably be best off making a frame out of timber then covering the side/making the hinged lid out of any flat pieces of wood to hand (for example, John’s dad has some salvaged old fence panels to hand and also some old school table tops), while for the latter, I’d probably look out for an old kitchen counter top for the surface — it would make a nice potting bench too. Any other suggestions or advice?

What about repurposing existing items of furniture? I guess a standalone wardrobe would work or a dresser – although they’d have to be painted/treated to protect them from the elements. Any other ideas?

We’ve had an email from frequent commenter Caroline:

I love your site and am always on there looking up new ideas. You have me rescuing other people’s umbrella’s from bins and saving all sorts of stuff that I previously would have thrown away. And sometimes I add my ideas but this time I am stumped.

Someone (knowing I like to reuse things) gave me a bag of yellowed cloth napkins. Some have the odd spot on that looks like the napkin served it’s duty but most just seem to have turned yellow all over. How can I reuse them? I could use them for rags but I save lots of other scraps for that. They are a sort of damask satiny material so not sure if they would dye? Could I bleach them? Would love to hear any ideas you have for reusing them.

The bleaching/dyeing question depends on what type of fabric they are – it’s best for napkins to be cotton to allow for furious washing/boiling out stains but of course that doesn’t mean that they all are. How Stuff Works has a pretty comprehensive guide to removing yellow stains from fabric but again, it depends on what type of fabric it is. Apparently the best way to identify fabric is to see how they burn – while it might be worth burning one to allow you to work with the rest, does anyone have any less destructive suggestions for finding out what fabric they are?

Any suggestions for reusing them – as things other than rags – in their current condition? I imagine the yellow is not uniform enough to pretend they’re supposed to be that colour – but any suggestions where the colour doesn’t matter?

(Oh and off topic but what the hey, frequent commenter and friend of Recycle This, Three Beautiful Things‘s Clare got married on Saturday – congrats to Clare & Nick, and I hope you have a wonderful life together. :))

We’ve had an email from Catherine:

I can compost out of date fruit juice right?

Right! Fruit juice can go straight into the compost heap – just be careful not to make the compost heap/bin too soggy (it needs to be damp, not too wet or too dry, to optimise the composting process).

Before you throw it on there though, make sure it’s really gone off – don’t trust dates on packaging and don’t forget the difference between “use by”, “sell by” and “best before”. All the fruit juice cartons we’ve got to hand – both the refrigerated stuff and the non-refrigerated ones – have best before dates on them (and guidelines about how soon to drink it after opening), not use by.

Since I’m not a fan of fruit either in whole or juiced form, I can’t think of too many reuse ideas – but I’m sure Recycle This’s awesome readers will be able to come up with something — can more acidic juices (pineapple juice, for example) be used for cleaning as you would with lemon juice?

(One thought I did have was to freeze the juice before it goes off if you don’t think you’ll be able to use it in time – freeze it in ice cube trays rather than in its native container so it’s easier to reuse in small amounts.)