We’ve covered on VHS cassettes before but now Suzy has emailed asking about their now redundant solid cases:

I have some old vhs tape cases. The cases are made of a plastic shell to hold the video that is glued to a cardboard outer layer with the artwork printed on it.

Is it possible to recycle this plastic? I don’t see any recycling symbols but I’d hate to just throw them away!

There must be thousands and thousands of these things kicked about as people dumped their old videos. So any suggestions for recycling or reusing them?

(Photo by Suzy – thanks Suzy!)

We’ve had an email from Sue Taylor:

We’ve just moved to a much smaller retirement flat and we have hundreds of old holiday snaps and photos that none of the family want… You know the sort of thing, me in the pool, him in the pool, me on beach, him on beach etc etc yawn yawn…

Can they be recycled and if so who do I send them to?

We’ve got similar piles of photos – I’m quite the snapper, but not a very good one, and so have heaps and heaps of utterly blurred shots of cats quickly moving out of shot or ones of a sheep/band on a mountain/stage about two nautical miles away from me from the days before we went digital.

So any suggestions? I realise there are loads of potential craft projects for favourite photos but what about those ones that aren’t particularly favourites?

(Photo of photos by twasa)

I was clearing out my jewellery box the other day and found a pile of really cheap stud earrings from the days before I realised anything less than stainless steel or sterling silver made my ears erupt in an explosion of pus and itchiness.

Because I’ve worn them all on at least a couple of occasions, I don’t know if they can be passed on to other people to wear as earrings – particularly because my reaction tends to have messed up the polish etc.

Some of them are quite cute so could be used – maybe – as push pins on a noticeboard – since we don’t have that many things that need noticeboarding, I wonder if anyone has any other suggestions.

Suggestions for the scroll (the back bit) are welcome too – I’d keep them as spares if it wasn’t for the aforementioned pus and itchiness.

I’ve just started making my own jewellery and have been ordering various bits and pieces, earring findings and whatnot, over the internet – resulting in a slew of padded envelopes plopping onto our doormat.

We’ve already addressed normal envelopes and bubble wrap, but what about the jiffy envelopes that combine the two?

I’ll keep some around to reuse for their intended purpose – but has anyone got any ingenious ideas for using up the rest, taking full advantage of their padding and envelope-ness?

(Original photo by lusi)

We’ve had an email from Andrea:

Sometimes I buy assortment packs of adhesive bandages (we call them Band Aids whether they’re Band Aid brand or not) and when I’m through with all the regular ones I’m left with the small round spot ones. I haven’t figured out why that size and shape exists to begin with.

Is there any use for them?

My guess would be that they’re for people who have to inject themselves regularly but since I have a complete and utter needle phobia, I’ve got a pile of them here too. I’ve recently started buying own brand plasters that are just different rectangle shapes but have a number of random shaped ones left over from previous boxes – those little circle ones, and the (for want of a better description) butterfly shaped ones particularly.

So any suggestions for alternative uses?

(Photo of a standard shaped plaster by monique72)