I was just filling up a glass with water when suddenly it decided to violently smash itself against the sink. I don’t know why. Perhaps it thought its life wasn’t worth living because it was half empty rather than half full or something.

Anyway, now I have a broken glass.

We’ve covered broken crockery before but I would worry about using the glass pieces in the bottom of a plantpot or around the garden because they’re so sharp and slivery.

So what can I do with it instead? I know you can’t recycle Pyrex and sheet glass in bottle banks but what about drinking glasses? It was a very basic, non-patterned clear glass – can they be recycled?

For my birthday last year, my friend Katherine bought me some little organic jams and chutneys in sample size jars. They were yummy. Even the cat agreed.

But now we’ve got the little jam jars left over. We’ve also got a couple of those hotel-breakfast-room ones lying around too.

The glass could be recycled in the usual way but I’d try to re-use them if possible. Any suggestions that could utilise their tiny proportions to full advantage? The range from being about 2cm (an inch) in height and diameter, to the hexagonal ones that Sili is sniffing (about 4cm tall by 2cm wide).

Some weeks, for example if we’re in the mood for cereal, we use up all the milk pretty much the instant we buy it but other weeks, it sits there, only being used on the rare occasion that someone drinks a cup of black tea then eventually goes off.

So in those wasteful weeks, what can we do with it when it’s on the turn? I mean, in the post-fresh, pre-cheese-ish stage.

Any ideas?

A suggestion from vweiss:

What can I do to reuse the little mini-wine bottles? I keep collecting them…hate to throw them even in the recycle bin as they seem practical to use for something?! They are so cute. There must be a creative use for them.

I don’t know whether vweiss means those half-wine bottles (which usually have a screw lid) – if so, that can probably be included with the previous narrow-necked bottles post – or the collectable miniatures, like the ones you get in overpriced mini-bars, but let’s presume the latter.

So any suggestions?

(Photo by wax115)

Since jars and the like are kept out for reuse, our glass recycling bin is mostly filled with narrow-necked bottles: olive oil bottles, balsamic vinegar ones, organic squash bottles and if any wine or bottled beer drinkers have been around, those bottles too.

They don’t seem as easily reuseable as wide necked jars or bottles, and the oil ones are a pain to clean out thoroughly (or they are for me at least) – some of them have those “easy pour” tops in which make it even harder. But still, I’m reluctant to recycle them – mostly because there isn’t doorstep recycling for glass around here and it’s a chore to take them to the glass banks at the tip.

So any ideas to save me that tip-trip?

(Photo by levi_sz, c/o sxc.hu)