We’ve had an email from Emma, asking:

How can I recycle the spine from a spiral-bound notebook?

We’ve already covered plastic spines so let’s assume that Emma means the metal ones – because, well, I’ve got a couple lying around from old reporters pads after I’ve recycled the paper part.

A lot of pads are like the plastic ones – almost like teeth of metal (if that makes sense) rather than a spiral – and I suspect they’ll be harder to reuse because they can’t just be uncoiled.

So suggestions?

(Photo by mcconnell6)

We’ve had an email from Chloe:

Legos seem as though they should have infinite uses after they have done their toy duty, and I would love to hear some. I mostly have the chunky toddler type.

I know they could be donated, but a nifty second life for them around the house would be even better. Also, I wonder if they are recyclable? Any thoughts?

I love Lego-as-jewellery – but think that’ll only work with the smaller, regular sort (unless you want a MASSIVE pair of dangling earrings…) – and I think Lego artwork looks really cool on walls – but again, probably only the smaller bricks unless you want a huge (and deep) picture.

So any suggestions for the big Duplo bricks?

(Photo by Sphire)

After writing about the ridged After Eight boxes the other day, it reminded me about something I thought of the other week.

Because John and I are utterly, utterly wild and live a hectic, glamorous lifestyle, the highlight of our Saturday a couple of weekends ago was a trip into Leeds for coffee and freshly made donuts from our two favourite street vendors. My build-up is mocking in tone but we’d seriously looked forward to it for about three days and were GUTTED to find the donut van wasn’t there. We searched all over the city centre in case it had just moved location but no. We had to make do with baklava from the Greek deli in the market instead and as yummy as it was, it wasn’t the same as donuts.

A few minutes later, when I found myself staring into the dark abyss of my coffee cup lamenting the lack of donuts, my eyes were momentarily distracted from my gloom by the cardboard sleeve around the cup. I’m always a fan of reusing cups when possible (we’ve already covered the plastic variety on the site) but not specifically thought about the ridged cardboard sleeves so common on takeout hot drinks these days.

So any suggestions?

I guess one re-use might be as packaging around flat (or cylindrical) items in the post or possibly cushioning under a heavy object (although the ridges might get squished out if the item is too heavy). Any other ideas?

(One idea of course may be to not accept them in the first place – if you drink take-out hot drinks regularly, you could make your own reusable sleeve from a scrap of fabric.)

(Oh, and just to clarify: we don’t go to Starbucks – we go to an independent place – it was just the best picture I could find to illustrate ridged sleeves.)

Andy (previously of the cat litter and bulk building material bag questions) has sent us a clever idea regarding those popular after dinner mints:

Here’s a suggestion form another Greeny site I visit. After Eight sleeves and the box they comes with, now used as a filing box for seeds.

Great idea – the little, slightly-waxed sleeves are perfect envelopes if you have small quantities of seeds – it’s just shame they’re black so not easy to write on to label up which seeds are where (then again, I’ve got a silver pen for writing on black paper knocking around somewhere so that would work).

I imagine the little ridges in the box could also be useful for holding slide collections – if people still have slides in this age of digital cameras and Powerpoint.

Any other suggestions though?

(For those not familiar with the choc’n’mint treat, they’re flat, thin chocolates with a mint creme filling. They come in boxes of about 25-30 and each chocolate is individually wrapped in a gusset of black waxy paper, about 4cm (2inches) square with an open top. The cardboard box is rectangular with (removable) ridged padding inside and the chocolate stand upright in the box, held in place by the ridges.)

We’ve had a bit of an unusual suggestion from Estelle:

I once had these models made of my feet. They used them to generate orthotics for my flat feet. Now I have these cumbersome, heavy plaster-of-paris models sitting around at home… What can one do with them?

I don’t know how heavy they are but maybe paint them for funky bookends or doorstops?

Any other suggestions?