Obviously the greener option is to use reuseable nappies but Katie emailed to say:

Did you know that the new disposable nappies are full of ‘swell gel’, it’s the same stuff you get from the garden centre to add to compost to retain moisture and costs around £5 a box.

I have started to re-use my grandson’s nappies, just the wet ones! Rinse them in the shower until all the ‘yellow’ has gone and they don’t smell.

Rip one end and squeeze them into your compost and hey presto, compost that doesn’t dry out. Ideal if you live in an area that has hose pipe bans every summer.

To be honest, I’d be worried about throwing all those petrochemicals into my compost heap because my compost heap is used pretty much entirely for my veg bed but I like the idea – but I could imagine using them at the bottom of flowers tubs in the garden.

Any other suggestions for re-uses? I suspect there will be some overlap with the sanitary towel suggestions but I think the size/shape might lead to some new ideas too.

(Photo by pascal79)

We got some computer hardware bits delivered a few weeks ago and the box was filled out with those inflated cushion things.

When we’ve had them in the past, I’ve always thought “I wonder how I can recycle th- oh, they’re compostable corn starch type plastic. Great!” but this current load is regular plastic so won’t be ending up in my compost heap. They’re still better than polystyrene beads or other old school packaging though.

The plastic seems to be the same as supermarket carrier bags so I suspect they can be recycled in the same places as those.

But what about reuses? They seem to be holding their inflatableness quite well so I think one lot will be used as a bath pillow. Other suggestions?

(Apologies for the bad photo – it turns out it’s quite difficult to photograph things that are clear… If you’ve not familiar with them, they’re essentially inflated plastic bags. The ones we have are about 5x15cm (2x6inches) each and are in rows of 3 or 4 joined along the long edge.)

We’ve had an email from Joanna, asking:

My (soft) X-box dance mat is slightly broken – I think the connection from one of the pads is busted. Any ideas how I can reuse or recycle it?

I’ve only ever seen the solid ones so I don’t know how thick/malleable the soft ones are but if it’s reasonably thin and not as wrinkled like the one in the picture, it might make a cool “rug” for a dance fan’s bedroom or could be used as a fun surface protector on a desk. Anyone with more knowledge of them got any better ideas?

I’d also be interested in hearing if anyone has any suggestions for the solid ones too – I suspect that there will be a lot dumped on the scrap heap (literally) when either the dancer goes off the game or when the console is upgraded and the new pad doesn’t work with the old machine (like happens with joysticks and game pads). Any suggestions?

(Photo by PiaCarrot)

We’ve had another email from our good suggesting friend, [Am]/Delusion:

Me again, I have just managed to find a company that will recycle floppy discs (as well as shred the confidential information) however now that the mass of floppies have gone I am left with several different shaped floppy disk boxes.

Any suggestions on what I could do with them?

I’ve attached a photo of three different styles of boxes i have!

We’ve got a couple of these lying around too and I’ve got one of those divider ones earmarked for that long, long, long awaited day that I get organised – I thought I could use it for recipe cards.

Any other suggestions?

Jen of the tape dispenser suggestion had another query:

Another suggestion is all those old metro cards that I’ve been keeping… I’m not sure what I want to do with them yet. Any suggestions?

I’m such a sucker for keeping old train tickets too – credit-sized bits of card – because like so many things, they seem like they’re really useful. I’ve used them folded up under wobbly chairs/tables in restaurants on occasion but this really isn’t enough to justify keeping as many as I do.

So suggestions?

(Photo by eurok)