We’ve had an email from Andy Whittington about a subject that is close to my own heart (and nose):

We have two new feline housemates, and the accompanying cat litter with waste, does anyone have any idea how I can reuse/recycle this after the solid waste has been removed, and is the sawdust product more eco friendly than the porous stone chip version?

Congratulations on the new additions to your household Andy and welcome to the world of sitting on the floor because they’ve snagged the best chairs and refuse to be moved.

As I say on our sister site Compost This, it’s tempting to compost wood-based litter but poop parasites can cause a problem. Our garden is too small for multiple compost heaps but my mum and dad have a heap they just use for litter and accept that it’ll take ages to break down and not use it on their veg plot.

If the poo is, well, perfectly contained, then it’s less of a problem because it can be disposed of separately and the absorbed urine might actually help your compost heap because it’s nitrogen based. Just be careful to keep the heap balanced with other materials if you want it to breakdown in a reasonable time-frame.

I don’t know for sure about the eco-friendliness of the wood-based versus clay ones (does anyone else?) but I suspect (read: hope) that the former is a waste byproduct of the wood industry. It is also less likely to cause clumping issues for the cats. We’ve also tried recycled paper-based litters – they worked alright, just left the room smelling of damp paper – and if poo-free, could be composted like the wood ones.

Any other thoughts? Anyone know if the clay-based ones be used as aggregate in concrete or anything like that?

(Photo by mzacha)

We’ve had an email from Ang, asking:

What can I make with the wire dippers in the PAAS egg dying kit? I have a whole bag of them.. how can I recycle these?

Maybe offer them to a local school for them to use at Easter?

I’ve never dyed eggs so I don’t know how strong they are but could they be made into little hanging pen pots? Nail/push-pin the hoop to a wall/noticeboard/cubicle and clip pens onto the ring – or stitch a small fabric pouch onto the ring to drop pencils into?

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Barbara Patrick:

I have a whole box of these plastic spiral book binding thingies at my work and no idea what to do with them. I would love some creative crafty suggestions. I live in United States and our currently recycling only takes 1’s & 2’s. Our print shop doesn’t want them. ugh! help!

If they’re still in (re)usable condition, maybe a school (or the like) would be able to use them in their reprographics department? A print shop might worry about them being in less than perfect condition but a school probably wouldn’t be as fussy.

If I had access to one of the whole punching machine things, I’d probably use them for making scrap paper notepads but if not, I suspect that would be a lot of hassle and I’d just use a bulldog clip as I usually do instead.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo supplied by Babs)

Because I run a number of websites as well as generally having been around the whole internet thing for a while, I get a LOT of spam. A ridiculous amount. Thankfully most of it gets caught by my spam filter these days but it does get a bit over-sensitive sometime so I have to go through my spam bin about once a week to check there aren’t any false positives in there. (Handy hint: when doing so, sort by subject – makes it far easier to scan through.)

Anyway, the other day I spotted a message with the subject “joysticks” in my spam bin. Oh!, I thought, what a great Recycle This idea, there must be bazillions of obsolete and broken ones lying around!. Except it wasn’t that, it was a spammer trying to give me stock tips. Sigh.

But still though, what CAN be done with all those old joysticks and console game pads? Jewellery out of the buttons/D-pads perhaps?

(Photo by shikaz)

We’ve covered the nasty cheap plastic good-for-little coat hangers you get given (usually whether you want them or not) at clothes stores but Elizabeth Phelan wants to know about other types:

I have lots of wire hangers and nicer quality plastic hangers (not the ones they give you from the retail stores). Do you know where I can take them to have them recycled or reused?

I’d see if the local charity shops could use the better quality ones and I’d keep some wire ones around the house for those emergency prodding and poking situations that require a sturdy bit of thin wire – but that wouldn’t be suitable for Elizabeth’s “lots”.

So any suggestions? Elizabeth lives in Northern California so location specific recycling points would be great – but if you know somewhere outside that locale, feel free to add it in case it’s of use for someone else.

(Photo by Capgros)