This isn’t a real post just an advert for those who are currently feeling slightly sick after eating too much chocolate this morning.

We covered excessive Easter egg packaging last year but are still keen to hear your ideas and suggestions.

The cardboard can usually be recycled and the foil reused in a number of crafty ways but what about the plastic?

We’ve had an email from Amanda Bowens, asking for ideas on how to reuse or recycle butter wrappers.

The cheapest blocks of butter that I see tend to be wrapped in heavy duty grease-proof paper – so I guess they could be used as you’d use grease-proof paper – but what about the wrappers with the metallic print on the outside? They’re a bit more foil-y than standard paper but not full on foil-a-go-go.

Are they just paper (so can be recycled with the usual paper recycling) or something different?

Any suggestions for reuses?

(Photo by bb_matt)

We’ve had an email from Katy Duvall:

I was cleaning out my cupboards yesterday and found forgotten nearly full bottle of soy sauce. It was so forgotten about that it went out of date nearly two years ago! My boyf thinks we should just bin it but it’s such a big bottle that I’d rather not. Any ideas?

I’m always skeptical of dates on condiments – or rather I forget to check them and find we’ve been using the same jar of mustard for about three years – so if it looked ok, I’d be tempted to use it anyway – but any other suggestions?

I wonder if dark soy can be used for dyeing/staining purposes… At the moment, I can only think of using it to “antique” paper for making ye olde treasure maps but I wonder if it can be used on wood or the like too. Anyone know?

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?

For my birthday last year, my friend Katherine bought me some little organic jams and chutneys in sample size jars. They were yummy. Even the cat agreed.

But now we’ve got the little jam jars left over. We’ve also got a couple of those hotel-breakfast-room ones lying around too.

The glass could be recycled in the usual way but I’d try to re-use them if possible. Any suggestions that could utilise their tiny proportions to full advantage? The range from being about 2cm (an inch) in height and diameter, to the hexagonal ones that Sili is sniffing (about 4cm tall by 2cm wide).