We’ve had an email from Aimee:

Do you know if there is any use for out of date chocolate?

I guess it depends quite how out of date it is. Chocolate tends to have a “best before” date (rather than a “use by”) and it is often fine to eat for a good while after that. In my experience, cheap chocolate goes off – tastes funny and gets white spots – far quicker than better quality stuff, so if it was nice chocolate to start with, I would definitely try eating it.

If it is past the enjoyably-edible stage though, I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Chocolate-scented soaps or candles aren’t usually made with chocolate – they either use cocoa butter or a chocolate fragrance – so that’s not an option.

I personally wouldn’t want to compost it – it would compost but I’d worry about it attracting undesirable vermin to the heap in the meantime or would be snaffled by our dog who likes routing around in there (and smells delightful after doing so). Other people may compost it though – especially people with sealed bins and less greedy/nosey dogs.

Can you think of any reuses?

After seeing Judith Williamson’s wonderful jewellery made from old sweet tins the other week, I’ve been thinking about what else could be done with them. T’is approaching the season for big tins of chocolates and biscuits after all.

Since they’re well sealing metal tins, they’re great for using for stuff that needs to be kept dry – a sewing kit, next year’s seeds stash, spices, flour, first aid kits/emergency kits, spare nuts & bolts in the garage… What do you store in them?

But do you use them for anything more exciting? Like Judith, have you use them to make anything fun?

Andy (previously of the cat litter and bulk building material bag questions) has sent us a clever idea regarding those popular after dinner mints:

Here’s a suggestion form another Greeny site I visit. After Eight sleeves and the box they comes with, now used as a filing box for seeds.

Great idea – the little, slightly-waxed sleeves are perfect envelopes if you have small quantities of seeds – it’s just shame they’re black so not easy to write on to label up which seeds are where (then again, I’ve got a silver pen for writing on black paper knocking around somewhere so that would work).

I imagine the little ridges in the box could also be useful for holding slide collections – if people still have slides in this age of digital cameras and Powerpoint.

Any other suggestions though?

(For those not familiar with the choc’n’mint treat, they’re flat, thin chocolates with a mint creme filling. They come in boxes of about 25-30 and each chocolate is individually wrapped in a gusset of black waxy paper, about 4cm (2inches) square with an open top. The cardboard box is rectangular with (removable) ridged padding inside and the chocolate stand upright in the box, held in place by the ridges.)