Had an email from Christine about electric cars and car batteries:

For a year I drove the Think electric city car before Ford called them all back in for crushing (they ended up in Norway after Greenpeace kicked up a stink) and now I’m on a quest to get them back over here. My husband was a transportation planner in his earlier working life, so he’s trying to get the new owners of Think to talk to the Scottish govt about building them over here from kits. How cool would that be???

Anyway, it made me think – what can you do to recycle [car] batteries of any kind? Or is that a no-go area? I’d love to come up with a workable idea as the batteries are always targeted by the unbelievers when electric cars are touted as green vehicles.

Any suggestions for recycling – or (I suspect a long shot) reusing – them?

Had an email from Tom Beaumont, who has found some out of date condoms in the back of his bathroom cabinet.

I don’t fancy risk using them for their intended purpose for obvious reasons but thought you might be able to come up with some other suggestions!

The first thing that springs to my mind is testing whether the boiled condom over a phone box thing is an urban myth or not – but that’s not terribly practical (because a. it’s pointless really and b. phone boxes are hard to find these days).

Any better suggestions?

(Photo by Wazari)

Had an email from Cadan ap Tomos:

My mother is a knitting fanatic. She knits all the time. Yesterday she had a bag full of wool she didn’t want anymore. She was about to throw them away, until I came and said: “We can recycle that!” and grabbed it out of her hands. Well, actually, she gave it
to me to put in the bin, but i snuck it up to my bedroom instead! So I went to your wonderful website, to find that the item was not there! So, here is the suggestion: How can I reuse or recycle: old wool?

So any suggestions for Cadan? I’m guessing they’re not full balls of wool so ideas for scraps as well as long lengths would be helpful.

(Photo by Noche)

I have a (not terribly developed or serious) conspiracy theory that brand-name lemon juice manufacturers always put a January/February “best before” date on their lemon juice bottles to make everyone buy new lemon juice in time for pancake day each year.

Consequently, I tend to ignore such dates but by this point in the year, when it’s pushing a year after the date on the bottle, I start to get a bit dubious, despite there being half a bottle left over.

I know that lemon juice can be used for a ton of cleaning jobs around the home but have only ever used it for descaling the kettle. Any other cleaning suggestions?

And is there anything else we can do with it in addition to making our home sparkling and lemony?

Since it’s Halloween tomorrow, how about flipping this crazy blog-concept on its head for a change?

Anyone got any good ways to reuse or recycle bits and pieces from around the house to make Halloween costumes?

Recipes for fake blood? Gore? Green ooze?

What about ways to make realistic witches’ warts, zombie-ish decaying flesh or fake spider webs?

Go crazy : )

(Photo by cybersnot)