Had an email from a fellow cat fan Jo White:

Our two cats are developing increasingly sophisticated appetites….they still have canned food but do occasionally like to have the food that comes in small foil trays. I’m loathe to throw them out and I don’t have a garden so re-using them for plant seedlings isn’t a solution unfortunately. Can they be recycled anywhere in the UK?

If they’re just foil, I think they can be recycled along with aluminium foil – is that right? if not, can they be recycled any other way?

And what about reuses? Any non-gardeny suggestions for Jo?

(Photo by Jo)

We’ve had an email from Jesse with a suggestion:

I use a French Press for making coffee in the morning, but I’ve gone through them in the past because they eventually crack.

Well, my most recent one finally cracked because of the dishwasher (my mistake…) but now what do I do with it? I’ve been searching the internet for an idea, and came across your site. any help?

We’ve had this problem in the past too (John being the clumsy dishwasher to blame here) so any suggestions? I guess as different bits will break for different people, suggestions can be for either the plunger bit or the body.

(Photo by Gerbera)

Colleen Christensen has asked:

Is there anything one can do with rancid cooking oil?

(I don’t know how rancid she means by rancid but let’s assume she just means used and therefore slightly icky – say oil or lard from deep frying – rather than full on bleugh.)

I know that commercial fryers can recycle their old oil (for use as biodiesel) but what about domestic chefs who aren’t using anywhere near as much? And what about other uses?

(Photo by float)

I bought a big bag of “reduced for a quick sale” potatoes a few of weeks ago and despite eating a good number of the starchy tubers, there are a few left at the bottom of the bag going quite, quite green.

Potatoes are one of the few things that grow in our clay-y north-facing garden so normally I’d happy plant out old ones and wait for new potatoes to grow in their place but with the weather as it is at the moment, I don’t fancy their chances if it gets suddenly frosty – or my chances of not being blown away and/or drowned while trying to dig a hole for them.

So are there any other things I can do with them instead of planting them out/winging them into the compost bin?

(Photo by lusi)

We got into our biennial toasted-cheese-sandwich obsession last weekend and while we were on top of a kitchen cabinet hunting down the toastie maker last weekend, we found a tub full of old random cheap cutlery.

We’ve acquired these random odds and sods over the years but they were superseded a couple of years ago by cutlery that

1. hangs from a little hook thing because we don’t have any drawers in the kitchen, and
2. doesn’t bend when eat something as solid as, oh, soup.

They’ve mostly got plastic handles but of all different colours and styles from different sets. I suspect the best thing I can do with them, even in their wonky bent state, would be to give them to a charity shop or Freecycle them but thought I’d see if anyone has any cool ideas for other reuses for them first. So suggestions?

(Photo by Gastonmag)