We’ve had an email from Sara R, asking:

What can I do with plastic forks? I always used to carry a proper one in my bag so I didn’t have to pick one up when I got a pasta pot for lunch but now the forks are inside the pot so I can’t refuse them. I’ve now got a stack of little forks that I don’t know what to do with. I reuse or recycle the pot itself but I don’t know about the forks.

Wikipedia informs me that plastic cutlery is usually Polystyrene – type 6 plastic – and that can’t usually be recycled easily so I guess we’re looking at reuses.

I guess they could be melted/moulded into jewellery or some of the other suggestions we had for metal cutlery but any plastic specific ideas?

(Photo by asolario)

Christmas and all that seems a distant memory now but we’ve had an email from Alison, saying:

We took our decorations down last week and some of the long chains broke. They’re the shiny foil type – can they be recycled?

Now I’m not sure whether they’re actually made from foil – I suspect it is more likely to be plastic but I’m not sure. Anyone know?

If they are made from plastic or are even just part plastic, I doubt you’ll be able to recycle them with your normal foil/cans/metals recycling so any reuse suggestions?

When I was a kid and our decorations used to get too scratty to use in the living room etc, I used to snag them to use in my bedroom instead so maybe keep them for kids to use next year – or shorter lengths could also be used to decorate a cubicle or the like at work.

You could also take advantage of the fact they’re light and for want of a better word, fluffy, and use them for protective packaging when sending items through the post or around presents in gift boxes.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by bugdog)

We’ve had an email from Emmie, asking:

How can I recycle used highlighters? I am a med student and go through these very quickly…

I bet you do, Emmie. I wasn’t anything as hard working as a med student and I still went through them by the dozen when I was at uni…

So any suggestions?

(I’ve included felt tip pens in the post too because they’re essentially just the same thing – a plastic shell with a shaped fibre tip.)

(Photo by adamci)

Just before Christmas, Ruth sent us an email asking “how can I recycle these?” and attached this photo of some rather creepy dolls and assorted other figures.

The obvious answer for any toy in good condition is donate it to a charity shop or charity for another child to enjoy – but I know from personal experience dolls quite often don’t make it out of a childhood in good enough condition to donate.

Perhaps they’ve had an extreme haircut to many, lost a limp in a freak hoover accident or learned an important lesson about tattoo permanency after having “make love not war” biroed in huge letters up their soft rubber legs (sorry Sindy, you looked so much more of a hippie than those overly groomed Barbies).

So I join Ruth in asking, what can be done with those type of dolls?

We’ve had an email from Ann:

Hello – we regularly receive medications shipped to us in a foam cooler, packed in plastic-wrapped foam cold packs (with some sort of liquid embedded). It’s easy to recycle the little cooler at the recycling center, but I wonder about the cold packs, since they contain the liquid. I hate to send them to the landfill. Any suggestions? Thanks.

I can’t find any pictures illustrating what Ann means but she assures me they’re “they’re liquid filled packs with a spongey, foam material inside too”.

If they’re suitable, I’d be tempted to keep one or two coolers and cold packs for using on picnics or the like – but that’s only one or two and by the sounds of it, Ann needs a more long-term solution.

So any ideas?

UPDATE: Ann’s sent me a link to the packs on the manufacturer’s website and said she’s going to contact them to see what they suggest – and hopefully she’ll feedback to us if she hears anything :)