Christine Thompson got in touch recently to tell us how much she loves the site (in return, I love those emails :) ) and since she’s a primary school teacher, we chatted about the great primary-school themed suggestions people had come up with for school milk cartons.

She added that she’s made pirate ships out of taller tetrapak juice cartons with the triangular top, Victorian ladies out of “curvy” plastic bottles and:

I also made brilliant ‘Three Wise Men’ from Actimel bottles (saved them for months so everyone could have three!), little craft ball for head and lots of old Christmas paper for robes.

I thought that sounded like an excellent idea so let it inspire today’s post: what else can be done with those little Actimel/Yakult/’probiotic’-yoghurt-drink type bottles?

The suggestion–tastic Am (aka Delusion) has been in contact again:

Me again! The company I work at has just got rid of a number of software sets. The CD discs are shredded and recycled as it’s confidential waste however the DVD style boxes are not taken.

Is there anything they can be used for? I have used a few to replace damaged DVD cases I have but other than that, I’m a little stumped! If they can’t be reused, how about recycled?

I suspect a lot of the suggestions – like giving them to your local library – will have been covered in the CD case post from last year – but any DVD-case specific suggestions?

(Photo by heltje)

We’ve had a clever suggestion from Shabnam:

This might be an obvious one: but use old maps as wrapping paper! I just used some for to friends who loved it.

Photos posted on my blog.

Good idea, Shabnam! I’ve also seen them used as feature wallpaper. Any other suggestions?

(Photo by singhajay)

We’ve had an email from Jen & Dave, asking:

We recently moved into a new house that was COVERED in ivy. We’ve pulled most of it off for the sake of the masonry but haven’t got space to compost it all since it takes so long to break down. Any ideas what we can do with the rest?

Sticking to the composting line, your local council tip might have a garden waste area but depending on how they compost it, it might cause regrowth problems there as it does in garden compost heaps.

If it had been later in the year, you could use it for decorating Christmas wreaths etc.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Rybson)

We’ve had an email from Angelica asking about how she can recycle mobile phone chargers.

Some charities/companies that take old mobiles accept the chargers too since they’ll re-sell working phones to the developing world (for example in the UK, Help the Aged) but this isn’t the case with every phone recycling scheme. It might be worth checking with the ones that do take chargers if they take chargers by themselves.

Another idea might be to offer it on your local Freecycle group in case anyone in your area needs a replacement or wants a spare.

Any other ideas?

(Photo by canoncan)