We’ve had an email from [Am]:

My partner and I have been wracking our brains trying to find a use for the plastic dental floss packaging. The part that holds the floss and has a little blade at the top.

I’ve looked for company websites to see if they can be returned and used to no avail!

I’ve just popped our pack open to see what the deal is with them – it flipped open really easily but I have forced it in the past during a previous curious moment. Because it flipped open easily and inside is just a spool, I guess you could refill the spool and use it for other things – but aside from cotton, I can’t think of anything else that would work. And I suspect it would be more hassle to refill the spool with cotton rather than just using it of the reel itself.

Has anyone else go any other suggestions for refilling the spool? Or other uses for the packaging?

(Photo by carlohh)

We’ve had an email from Amanda Bowens, asking for ideas on how to reuse or recycle butter wrappers.

The cheapest blocks of butter that I see tend to be wrapped in heavy duty grease-proof paper – so I guess they could be used as you’d use grease-proof paper – but what about the wrappers with the metallic print on the outside? They’re a bit more foil-y than standard paper but not full on foil-a-go-go.

Are they just paper (so can be recycled with the usual paper recycling) or something different?

Any suggestions for reuses?

(Photo by bb_matt)

I’ve just started making my own jewellery and have been ordering various bits and pieces, earring findings and whatnot, over the internet – resulting in a slew of padded envelopes plopping onto our doormat.

We’ve already addressed normal envelopes and bubble wrap, but what about the jiffy envelopes that combine the two?

I’ll keep some around to reuse for their intended purpose – but has anyone got any ingenious ideas for using up the rest, taking full advantage of their padding and envelope-ness?

(Original photo by lusi)

It’s really starting to feel like spring here and I’ve been sorting out the garden in short bursts over the last week as well as repotting some houseplants for their shortly-to-commence mad growth spurt.

Our compost bin compost tends to have big chunks of material in it so I just dig it into the beds and use shop-bought compost for the houseplants. As I can only carry the small sacks of it back from the shops, I quickly end up with a number of the compost’s plastic bags lying around the garden – they’re quite a heavy yet flexible, opaque plastic and the inside is usually black. They’re pretty strong but do tear if treated too roughly and/or pokily.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve used them to line hanging baskets (black-side out) and collected random plastic pots in them to stop said pots ending up blown all over the street but I’d love to hear it if anyone has any more ideas for reuses.

We’ve already covered a number of Valentine’s Day type things:

• Dried fresh flowers – such as roses
• Greetings cards
• Wrapping paper

And while we’ve thought about the wrapping on individual chocolates, we haven’t thought about the chocolate boxes themselves.

Some of them – particularly the high end, Valentine’s Day ish ones – are quite pretty and I’ve used them in the past for storing letters and the like. But what about other reuses? Have

Some boxes have formed plastic to hold the individual chocolates – like cake packaging – so it would be great if anyone had recycling ideas for those too.

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