Mmm, orange squash. I go through a litre of it a week. I just can’t get enough of the water, orange fruit from concentrate (12%), Glucose-fructose syrup, sugar, citric acid, acidity regulator (Sodium Citrate), Preservatives (Potassium Sorbate, Sodium Metabisulphite), Sweeteners (Aspartame, Saccharin), Flavourings, Stabliser (E466), Vitamins (Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, B6, B12) and Colour (Beta-Carotene). Plus, a source of Phenylalanine? Mmmm-mmm.

The plastic bottles though, they’re not so tasty. I realise we’ve already brainstormed plastic milk bottles and water bottles but anything specially in mind for these babies, given they’re bigger and tougher?

A few years ago, a neighbour of ours decided to make it ‘snow’ in her front garden by spreading from packing foam all over the place. Then, thoughtfully, she didn’t brush it up after Christmas and instead left it to get blown by the wind until the whole street was covered.

I bring this up now because we found half a dozen of the little gems in the compost heap yesterday and it enraged me anew.

So any suggestions what my neighbour could have done with the foam instead of “decorating” our street?

(Photo by Daino_16)

Another suggestion from Em:

Thanks for the light bulb ideas – really great.

Cheers, Em

We use them until they’re dead too and I worry about reusing them if they’re food gacky – but any suggestions anyway, particularly if the gack level is low?

(Oh, and I’ve also had an email from a chap called Antony who wants to find a company that makes cardboard boxes from recycled cardboard – if anyone has any ideas, leave a comment below or email me and I’ll forward along the message)

Now that the lovely internet is here for our every need, I can’t remember the last time I used a phone book. But still, every year or so we get phone books, Yellow Pages, Thompson directories…

They sit on our shelf for a little while, gathering dust and taking up space, then, during one of his many ill-timed cleaning frenzies, John will suddenly want to get rid of them and won’t rest until they’re out of the house or at least relocated to somewhere not in his frenzy path.

So any ideas on how we could reuse or recycle them? What do you do with them?

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I find it strange how attached I get to a couple of bits of cloth and a bunch of straps. Some bras I’ve worn to absolute death – until the underwire had been sown back in countless times and the elastic in the cloth is decidedly inelastic – and then I’ve been sad that they’re gone (turquoise bra – still miss you, sigh).

Other bras I own I’ve worn a good number of times but now they don’t fit – mostly because I’ve put on weight but also because I was less fussy about how well they fitted in the past so have a heap of bras that looked nice at one point but were completely the wrong size to begin with (purple lacy one, looking at you here).

Either way, the result is I’ve got a stack of bras that I can’t wear any more but that aren’t good enough quality to give away to a charity shop or the like.

Any ideas what I can do with them? Suggestions for what to do with any of their component parts (underwires, straps, fasteners, the cups themselves…) are welcome too.