We’ve had an email from “fay bee”, saying:

I had some ankle-high sheepskin boots (australian “Ugg boots”) that are now past their prime. I’ve cut the soles off and now I have 2 pieces of lovely sheepskin (long and thin).

What can I do with them?

Given the wool lining, you couldn’t really use them like, say, old scraps of thin leather to make a purse or wallet but depending on the dimensions and condition of the pieces – and how crafty you feel, you might be able to turn them into a lovely warm pair of mittens or something — anyone know of any good sites that could help get her started?

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Iain Porter in which he tells us about the wonder of banana boxes from supermarkets for moving houses:

Supermarkets appear to be more than happy to give away boxes. I made a trip each morning of our packing and got about 20 Banana Boxes – big enough without becoming too heavy, rectangular for neat storage, with optional lids – perfect.

Indeed they are – last time I moved house (about eight years ago now, cor! that’s ages!) I used them and we used another load when helping a friend move earlier this year. With the lids, they’re really quite strong so ideal when the movees are booklovers like we are or when they need to be stacked for storage during transit.

But when, about two years after moving in, I finally finished unpacking all my books, I didn’t really know how to reuse the boxes so just recycled the cardboard – but Iain has an idea for that too:

Rather than buy stylish new boxes from Ikea for storing jumpers etc., we covered the banana boxes with nice recycled paper for cheaper, friendlier, and even nicer results!

(And because there are ventilation holes in the side, the clothes etc. shouldn’t get as musty or moldy as they would in a more sealed box.)

I’d tempted to get some for use on top of our wardrobes for our out-of-season clothes and might decorate them with the same wallpaper and paint as the bedroom for camouflage-a-go-go.

Any more ideas for ways to reuse them?

As I’m sure many of you great, tuned-in, turned-on people know, Etsy is wonderful – loads of homemade crafts available from a range of sellers in one very easy to search/browse place. Now the UK has its own version – Folksy.

It’s only in beta at the moment so there isn’t a huge amount of stuff on there yet – but it’s nice for us Brits to easily be able buy items from more local craftsters and not have to pay (in financial and environmental terms) for getting stuff flown in from the US.

Like Etsy, it’s not exclusively for recycled stuff but DIY crafters often drift that way – and if you search “recycled“, you’ll see there are already some things on there.

Definitely something to keep an eye.

We’ve had an email from Derek asking about large scale recycling:

hello. i work in heavy industry and we use thousands of pairs of work gloves, most are thrown away when torn, but a lot are thrown away when covered in substances like oil or just dirt. could you tell me if these gloves could be cleaned and recycled or cleaned and used for other purposes.

I don’t know for sure but I suspect the fabric of all the gloves, whether torn or not, could be reclaimed – shredded up to make insulation if nothing else. Anyone know for sure?

Any other ideas about recycling – or reusing them on a large scale?

(Photo by Penny Matthews)

We’ve had an email from Janelle for our new reverse Recycle This section:

hi. i’d love to have a go at making a shopping bag out of recycled plastic but don’t know where to start. any ideas?

I’ve knitted carrier bags into a new bag before now – except I picked thicker than normal bags which were a PAIN. Aside from that though, it was pretty straight forward – I just garter-stitched a strip as wide and twice as long as I wanted the finished bag to be, then folded it in half and sewed up the sides. The (short) handles were made in the same way, just handle-sized dimensions instead. It looked more rugged than it felt though – but I think my knitting/sewing skills were to blame for that.

I love the bags woven from old packaging and am planning to give that a go once I get my million other projects out of the way – anyone got any hints or tips on how to get started? Or what types of packaging to use?

Away from plastic, I’ve made a few shopping bags from old/charity-shop pillow case – either standard tote ones (using the bag part of the pillowcase) or slightly bigger one I made with a little help from the cats the other week (it’s great and seems far stronger because of the wider strap).

Other materials: Ecoist, amongst other people, also makes bags from old movie posters; I’ve seen bags made from old bamboo blinds/placemats (the wood stained a fun colour and fabric used for the gusset); the tops of jeans make good rucksack-type bags (built-in pockets!); and I’m tempted to play with making a wallet or possibly clutch bag using drink cans – the cans cut into strips then woven into a flat sheet (easier than reweaving them into a can again…).

Any other suggestions?

(Photo of a non-recycled but colourful & shiny bag by paiviti)