Last week’s post about super thick rope made me think about climbing ropes.

For safety reasons, they have to be replaced regularly – I read someone suggest they are replaced when the outer layer gets to a level of fuzziness comparable to a wool blanket or if they’ve sustained a fall – but that doesn’t mean they can’t still be used for other non-life-risking purposes.

Because they’re a thin but strong, lightweight rope, they’ll be great for a huge number of practical purposes around the home and garden – supporting tree branches, tying down roof racks, generally tying, um, things to other things…

But can they actually be recycled? They’re usually polyamide/nylon but are there any particular places that collect them for recycling?

And has anyone made any fun things with them? I wonder if they could be coiled up to make a fun basket or something… Any ideas?

We’ve had an email from Carolyn asking what she can do with some plastic buckets that have “split at the bottom”.

The first ideas that spring to mind take advantage of the fact it’s now not water tight – use it as a garden planter or an upside down planter next summer. You might even have to add more holes to it to allow adequate drainage or for more shoots to poke through.

You can also very easily use it as a caddy too – but patch the split/hole with something like duct tape so stop the split spreading any further and to stop little things falling out. You could use it for holding brushes/tools while you’re up a ladder, for fruit/veg collection or for dumping weeds in while working around the garden (saving multiple trips to the compost bin).

I’m sure there are lots of other uses around the garden too – what do you do with them?

There is a lot of chatter in the US and the UK at the moment about putting a “tax” on plastic carrier bags to stop shops giving them out willy-nilly.

There is already a charge in place in Ireland and I read something the other day that explained while the amount of carrier bags given out by shops has dropped dramatically, the number of bin liners and garbage bags sold has increased because so many people used to reuse the carriers in the bin. That makes it feel like less of a victory – and it’s not exactly a huge victory to start with.

The thought of buying something to use to aid throwing stuff away seems really counter-intuitive to my brain but without using bin liners or the like, we’re constantly having to scrub out our kitchen bin with pretty harsh chemicals – we’re not big wasters, we compost as much as we can and most packaging we get is recyclable, so usually the only things that end up in there are pretty yacky.

So is there a line between disposable plastic bags and endless bleachy scrubbing? I thought about newspapers – a sheet as a throwaway liner would probably be fine for all but the wettest stuff – but since we don’t buy them either, that’s not an option really – what is?

We’ve had a little (1ftx3ft) greenhouse in our garden for about five years now – it started off as an actual greenhouse for growing things in but quickly became the cats’ favourite hang-out and the winter home of the local stray cat, so we dropped the growing things pretence and it’s now kitted out with old sofa cushions for the ultimate cat luxury.

It’s a simple – cheap – thing: hollow metal tubes and two shelves, covered by a shaped plastic sheet, with a zipped door flap at the front. The main problem we’ve had is when one cat is in the greenhouse, it’s not uncommon for a second cat to sleep on the roof – and under the heat of the sun/weight of the cat, the roof sags and eventually rips. That’s happened twice now and we’ve repaired it for as long as possible, then ordered new covers off the internetz – still not ideal though.

I’ve looked into buying little glass/solid plastic paned ones but they’re pretty rare compared to large ones and seem really expensive for the size of them. We’ve not got room for a big greenhouse but it would be great to make one that could be used by both the cats and our growing needs.

I know some people make them with old windows and they’ll depend on exactly what type of windows are at hand but anyone got any suggestions/advice? What other types of materials could I use? Does it have to be clear-clear or is reasonably translucent enough? What shape would be best – square? sloped roof? round? polytunnel-ish? biodome?

We’ve had an email from Sue:

I’d be grateful if you could help me. I am trying to find somewhere to take an old motorbike helmet for recycling – I have googled but the only useful suggestion I could find was to take it to an old ambulance station for them to use to practice taking off dummies! I live in London but am willing to post it somewhere to be put to good use.

I’m presuming the helmet is damaged in some way that it wouldn’t be safe for use on a motorbike any more – if it is ok, just no longer wanted, it could go on Freecycle/eBay for re-use for its intended purpose. UPDATE: Ok, turns out they shouldn’t really be used secondhand (see comments).

What if it is damaged/potentially compromised though? I love the ambulance station idea or using it as an educational aid in other ways – anyone know of any initiatives/organisations that could use it?

Are there any creative reuses for them? I wonder if they could be turned into themed furniture/houseware for a motorbike fan – I have half a memory of seeing one turned into a lamp but can’t find anything about that now. The only thing I can find is a link to an artist who builds on them to make scary alien/fantasy creature heads – which isn’t the same things at all ;)