We’ve had an email from Cassondra asking:

How can I reuse/recycle clorox wipes containers?

I hadn’t heard of Clorox wipes but my friend Google tells me they’re the same type of dispensing containers used for many types of wipes (baby wipes, screen cleaning wipes, etc). Like with all disposable wipes, the first thing I’d say is reduce your use of them if you can. Use a washable/reusable cloth instead – either a standard dishcloth or a specially designed cloth for use with just water, no additional chemicals needed.

But to answer the question in hand, chances are, you can recycle the container with your standard plastic recycling. I’m not 100% sure about Clorox ones but most of the ones I’ve come into contact with and checked have been made from polyethylene (PE) plastic, which is widely recyclable.

As for reuses, without any modification at all, they’re good string, twine or yarn dispensers in the garden or for crafts – the container protects the yarn from the elements/cat-attack and you just pull it out as you need it. You probably won’t need more than a couple of those though so any other ideas?

My friend Katherine is getting a new kitchen soon and I’ve unofficially bagsied her (wood or woodish) kitchen cupboard doors – for reusing for other stuff rather than just putting in our kitchen.

Lots of still-in-good-condition kitchen cabinets are given away from Freecycle/Freegle or sold on eBay – a quick and cheap way to revamp a kitchen. But what else can be done with them?

Alison Bailey Smith recently ran a “de-junk re-junk” project with local artists around the Wirral – and that included work on old kitchen doors. I’ve also seen a few different cupboard doors revamped into pretty serving trays – although I can only find one picture at the moment.

I’d imagined I’d use Katherine’s cupboard doors in the garden – if there is a full cupboard frame, I’ll use it as storage space on the wall near by greenhouse/where my potting bench will be. Depending on what the doors are made from and if there is enough that are a similar size, they might be suitable for making planters (my current obsession!). If they’re not quite strong enough for that, I might use some to make a broody/quarantine coop for our chickens in case we ever need one.

Any other ideas for things to do with them?

Over on the Suggest an Item page, Nicole has said:

I’ve had two straighteners/flat irons (to straighten hair) die on me. Is there a way to recycle these other than tossing them?

As a minimum, they should be collected for electronic/electric waste recycling – either at your local tip/”household waste recycling centre” or through an in-store take-back scheme (they take your old item when you buy something new from them) – all shops which sell small electrical goods (including phone shops & department stores) should in theory have a WEEE recycling scheme. Things taken for WEEE recycling are stripped down and their metals reclaimed, so it is worth doing.

But are there any reuses for them? As anyone who knows me/has seen a photo of me will know, my frizzy head is not exactly familiar with hair straighteners so I’m not sure I know enough about how they work to be able to suggest other reuses. Anyone got any ideas?

At some point in the long forgotten past, I bought a room dividing screen thing. I think the idea was that we would use it to shelter off the messy desk whenever we had guests staying over in our spare room/office in our old house but to the best of my knowledge we never used it because it got in the way and none of our guests cared.

It’s a metal frame which originally had plain cream fabric panels tied onto it. I’m not sure where the fabric panels are now but they can easily be replaced. The three metal sections come apart easily. It’s about 6ft/180cm tall – I couldn’t fit it all in my camera frame without including my untidy desk, my caked-on-mud wellies and the equally filthy dog ;)

So any ideas what I can do with it?

I could, of course, reinvent it as a room divider – some pretty reclaimed/vintage fabric to make it a feature. While we still have an untidy section of our used-for-storage spare room in our new house, I’m still not sure our guests will care and it’ll just get in the way for us the rest of the time. I could use it for a similar purpose in the garden – using weather-resistant fabric or plastic for the panels instead – but again, I think it will get in the way.

Any other ideas?

We’re in the middle of having our bathroom replaced. It’s been a nightmare, never again etc etc – but it has had some upsides. For example, after I mentioned to the main plumber that I’d reuse the side of the old shower enclosure to make a cold frame or something, he brought me six old wooden-framed windows from the house he’s renovating. (He only lives down the road and I’m hoping he’ll remember us whenever he has further juicy “rubbish” or scrap wood.)

The windows are each about 1ft/30cm wide by 3ft/90cm tall, and will make cloches or a better cold frame (since the shower enclosure was opaque plastic and would be a pain to resize/frame). Well, the four clear glass ones will be good for that, this question is about the other two:

They’re rather pretty, don’t you think? As you’d probably expect, the colours are a lot brighter when there is light coming through them rather than when they’re on the ground – the flowers are deep pinky-red and the darker band is a lovely purple.

It seems a shame to just use them to shelter veg seedlings but I can’t think what else to use them for. They’re only a single glaze and we’ve got relatively new double glazed windows in the house so we won’t want to use it as a window in here. I’m not against passing it on again to someone who would use it for it’s original purpose but I’m wondering if you lovely people have any other suggestions for things I could use it for instead.

Restore the frame and hang one on the wall as a strange but fun decoration? Or hinge one on the front of a made-to-measure 15cm/6ins deep box to use as a wall-mounted part-display/part-storage cupboard?

Any other ideas?