We’ve had an email from Karen:

I am new to your site and I really love it!

I do have a suggestion though, I had been cleaning up the bathroom and found old sunscreen lotion bottles, still full. I heard you can’t use them more than a year, because they go bad and won’t work any more. I have used them in the past longer than I was supposed to, but now they are definitely too old. Do you have any suggestions?

I didn’t know that about sun lotion but searching around the web, a lot of people do seem to advise adhering to the product’s expiry date. However, according to a dermatologist quoted on the Mayo Clinic website, it’ll probably be good for three years or until it hits its expiry date – whichever happens sooner. Apparently after that, it loses its effectiveness.

I’m not sure what should be done with it after that – it’s probably not moisturising enough to be used as a general body lotion. One argument would be to buy smaller quantities so you’re not wasting as much – but as they’re usually (always?) in plastic tubes or bottles, there would be a big knock-on plastic waste issue from doing that.

Any ideas? Anyone know of any sunscreen in non-plastic packaging?

We’ve had an email from Sally asking about squeezy hand cream tubes:

Do you know what number plastic hand cream tubes are? The ones with the flip lids. I don’t know whether or not to put them in my recycling bin.

Along with the inconsistency of facilities available, lack of information on packaging is one of my major pet hates when it comes to recycling. I’ve got three different types of face/hand moisturiser in our bathroom cupboard and only one has recycling information on it – it’s number 4 (LDPE). LDPE isn’t as widely recycled as PET/PETE (number 1) or HDPE (number 2) but it is recycled in some areas – my old council Leeds used to pick it up at the kerbside so it’ll be worth checking your local advice to see if you can do the same.

Aside from recycling, any ideas on how the tubes can be reused? I suspect there will be some overlap with squeezable plastic toothpaste tubes but any new suggestions?