We’ve had an email from Bea:
I’ve always put my horse’s tail and mane clippings on the his manure heap to compost down but I recently wondered if I could use them for something else instead. I’ve heard of horse hair mattresses but don’t think I have enough for that!
According to Wikipedia, horsehair is/has been used “for various purposes, including upholstery, [artists & shaving] brushes, the bows of musical instruments, a hard-wearing fabric called haircloth, and for horsehair plaster, a wallcovering material formerly used in the construction industry and now found only in older buildings. .. [It is also used in] the crafts of horsehair hitching, horsehair braiding, pottery, and in making jewellery items such as bracelets, necklaces, earrings and [hair clips].” I think the latter group is more appropriate to reuses at home – but the former group might provide inspiration on where you could pass it on — for example, if you had a stables and generated a lot of horsehair, a local old-fashioned upholsterer might be interested in it.
You can compost it of course (as Bea has been doing) and some people use it (along with human hair clippings and anything similarly bit-ty) to discourage slugs from delicate.
Any other ideas?
Categories: hobbies, items, sports
Posted by louisa
on 4 July 2011
After a month of frantic renovation (which is nowhere nearly finished but a lot of the dirty work is done), we’re finally moving into our new home today – hurrah!
Until the weekend, we’d been focusing on the renovation stuff – pulling down ugly fake walls, cleaning out sooty chimneys and ripping down plasterboard in preparation for damp-proofing work (the last thing resulted in the discover of a secret new room, it’s sadly unusable without a lot of expensive work so we’re leaving it for now) – and so hadn’t given much thought to the finer points of today’s move, such as working out where all our stuff is going to go.
We’ve got a giant (120cm/4ft square) frameless mirror above our fireplace in the living room here (acquired from a shop changing room refit apparently) and I think it will probably be relocated to above the fireplace in the dining room of the new house – but I think its lack of frame will look odd there.
How can I make a frame using recycled materials and/or repurposing other stuff?
My first thought is to try something make from reclaimed wood because the fireplace’s mantelpiece will be an old building joist – I’m not an expert woodworker but willing to give it a go. Heh, actually, perhaps I should make a frame using my existing craft skills and knit one ;)
Any other suggestions?
Categories: household, items, reverse this
Posted by louisa
on 29 September 2009
We’ve had an email from Lauren, who is year 8 (age 12) in New Zealand.
She explains:
In class we are currently working on science projects. I have chosen to investigate the difference between plaster and fibreglass casts. My project looks at environmental issues and disposals.
Could you please help me with the following questions? Can plaster and fibreglass casts be recycled? What type of product could these be made into?
I meant to feature casts on the site a few months ago when Estelle asked about her plaster feet models but then forgot.
As I mentioned when talking about fibreglass in general in May, it seems that it can be recycled but I couldn’t find any details of schemes or companies doing it.
And apparently plaster can be recycled almost indefinitely – although most places are thinking of it in terms of plasterboard, not orthopedic casts so getting an individual leg pot back into the plaster system might be easier said than done. (Having said that, this page gives instructions on how to reclaim the plaster in casts for kids to reuse making models.)
Anyone know of any schemes to recycle either fibreglass or plaster ones, either through hospitals or for individuals?
Or other reuses for the old casts?
(Photo of a cast removal by central)
Categories: household, items, medical
Posted by louisa
on 1 September 2008
One of my projects for the summer is to redecorate the attic room – partly because we’ll need an office up there soon but mostly because I’ve been intending to decorate it for the best part of six years now and it’s getting beyond a joke.
Given the “yeah, I’ll do it this year” attitude to decorating it for the past two-thirds of a decade, we’ve not been that careful on the carpet up there – it’s covered in soot (from trips under the eaves), paint (from when I knocked over some tester pots when I was thinking of painting it a couple of years ago) and blobs of plaster (from the proposed decorating moment before that). And it’s a impractically pale colour that was put in at least a few years before I moved into the house.
So… a bit of future recycling planning because we haven’t the room to store it – what can I do with an old, slightly manky carpet?
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Categories: household, items
Posted by louisa
on 1 June 2006
