We’ve had an email from unsteadyocean:

I was just wondering if anyone has suggestions for reusing the cloth bags that bulk rice comes in? I’ve seen suggestions for making them into tote bags but I would love to get more ideas.

Around here, they tend to be plastic-coated cloth or just woven plastic – but either way, ripe for re-using.

So any suggestions?

(Photo by kirsche222)

We’ve had an email from Rob Williams:

I collected silver foil/aluminium foil for a lady at work and she gave it to a charity. She has now retired and I still have a growing pile of foil. Does anyone know of a charity that wants this? I’m told it is a ‘valuable’ commodity.

Our doorstep recycling includes aluminium foil so it can easily be recycled – but as Rob asks, does anyone know of any charities that collect it?

And since we’re all about reusing, while we’re on the topic – any re-use suggestions?

(Related items: we’ve already covered foil pet food trays and foil chocolate/sweet/biscuit wrappers.)

(Photo by nlHarri)

We’ve had another email from Am (aka Delusion):

Ahh yes I’m back with yet another suggestion!

Does any one have any idea how to recycle or reuse them? We have both the nylon and the metal kind of string!

John plays guitar too and I’ve got an old set of metal strings in my “things to do stuff with” box. The thicker strings – which look to be tight coils rather than a single straight ‘string’ – might work for jewellery but I’ve not tried it yet. Anyone else used them to make anything? Or got any other suggestions?

(Photo by CraigPJ)

We’ve had an email from Carine:

I have huge chopsticks left from those Chinese delivery, since we usually don’t use them… fork and knives do better !!!
So what can I do with them.

The first thing I would say would be to ask the take-out place to not include them with your order – reducing is always better than dealing with the waste afterwards. But that obviously doesn’t address the stack Carine already has.

We’re still using some plastic ones we got with a delivery a few years ago and I recently re-used some “disposable” bamboo ones to when creating a mini-greenhouse around a cutting – I put the cutting in an old clear plastic bag and used the chopsticks to keep the bag away from the cutting.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Penny Matthews)

I’ve recently started drinking mixer type drinks in pubs – lime and lemonade, that sort of thing – and because of the heavy cordial involved, I usually get a stirrer or straw in my glass.

I also know a lot of cafés and coffee shops still use plastic stirrers rather than spoons for take-out drinks. So what can be done with them?

The pub ones are usually pretty sturdy plastic – and can be cute like the one in the photo – whereas the hot drinks one tend to be flimsy. Suggestions for either?