John and I went out for dinner the other day and someone on the next table to us was eating a big bowl of mussels.

After she’d finished her fishy starter, there was, of course, a big pile of shells left over – which naturally got my recycling juices going.

They’re not realistically compostable in most gardens because they’ll take so very long to break down and may attracted rodents in the meantime – so any suggestions for how they can be reused instead?

Are there any large scale recycling/reusing purposes for them that restaurants might be able to get involved with?

(Photo by lusi)

We went through a baking spell a few months ago and bought a block of margarine to use in our cakes.

When the short-lived obsession ended, we still had a chunk of it left but we’re butter people – and not big spread users anyway – so it’s just sat at the back of the fridge. It’s now well beyond it’s use-by date – but still looks ok.

I don’t think we’d like to risk it in any future cake venture but since it’s certainly not rank or doing anyone any harm in there, we’re reluctant to throw it away just for the sake of it.

Are there any non-culinary uses for it? It’s a fat/oil after all so could it be used for any household tasks?

(Photo by bruno-free)

An email from Leah:

We recently did a buy five bottles get a sixth free thing at our local supermarket but two out of the four reds we’ve opened so far have been awful, undrinkable because they’re so tart and vinegary.

We’re dubious about the other two bottles now but don’t want to waste them – or the two practically full bottles that we tried and hated. Are there any other uses for wine aside from getting sloshed or using it in food?

If they were white wine, I’d maybe suggest keeping them on hand to clean up red wine spills – since that’s supposed to work – but I’m not sure about red. Dying fabric maybe?

Anyone else got any suggestions?

(Photo by woodsy)

We’ve had an email from Jon Arkin:

I bought a big net of garlic from the market at the weekend because it was going cheap. I now know why, half of them have started sprouting.

I’m going to try to use as many as I can but will have to compost the rest – or are there any other non-culinary uses?

You could try planting the sprouting cloves in your garden – give them six months or so and they become new bulbs – but when I did this a few years ago, the resulting bulbs were tiny and not really worth the effort (although this might be because we have a north-facing garden and had a rather lax attitude to watering). And I suspect there may be issues with planting out commercially grown garlic like there is with planting old shop-bought potatoes.

I believe it can also be used to keep insects (and vampires) at bay but don’t know any more about that other than what I’ve learnt from bad 1980s horror films.

So any ideas or more info about the things I’ve mentioned?

(Photo by chidsey)

We went out for a Mexican meal the other day (mmm, mexican food) and while eating a giant pile of guacamole (mmm, guacamole), we had one of those wonderings about what must happen to the many, many leftover avocado stones. From that, our wonderings went onto other fruit stones – what could we do with plum stones, or peach pits?

They could be planted to grow a new fruit plant (although trees from seeds don’t tend to be that productive) or composted (they’d take a good while to break down) but aside from that, are there any fun ways to use them? What do you use fruit stones and pits for?

Avocado stones are usually beautifully smooth so could they be made into (GIANT) beads? Any other suggestions?
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