We’ve had an email from Rona:

My daughter turned 13 last week and got some of those helium balloons from members of the family to celebrate her new teenage status. They’re slowly going down now and we don’t know what to do with them when they’re done. Can the foil be recycled like tin foil?

I suspect (but could very easily be wrong) that it’s more like shiny plastic than actual foil so recycling like that is probably out of the question – but does anyone know otherwise?

I used to like keeping that sort of thing but didn’t do anything creative with them – just folded them up in a box. Does anyone have any crafty ideas for using them?

Or what about normal balloons? Any practical or craft-y reuses for them?

(Photo by crayzwalz)

We’ve had an email from Gary, saying:

I have found a few leftover babies’ dummies and dummy cases whilst doing some tidying in the kitchen.

Rather than throwing them away I wondered if there was any way to reuse or recycle them.

Good suggestion, Gary. There must be millions of those things lying around in households around the country.

The only thing I can think to do with them is to give them to teenagers who want “ironic” jewellery :) But any other suggestions?

DOWNTIME INFO: Just in case anyone noticed, we’ve been down for six hours this afternoon – our entire (huge) hosting service went down because of the floods. Everything looks to be up again now and hopefully they’ve got giant sandbags on standby for next time.

(Photo by xymonau)

We’ve had an email from Kate Parsons with a clever idea for using the bottoms of fizzy drink bottles:

I use the bottom 3 or 4 inches of a 2 litre plastic coke bottle to make drawer tidies at work for all my paper clips, staples, etc. You can keep them in place by stapling them together or with a blob of blutack on the bottom!

A great idea and it made me realise that while we’ve covered a large range of different types of plastic bottles (eg, milk, squash, shower gel, shampoo, miniatures ones, pump action ones, and water, water cooler and hot water ones), we’ve not looked at pop bottles – and their blobby-shaped bottoms – in particular.

So any specific uses for the bottoms of those bottles? Anything else the separate compartments can be used for? Suggestions for any size bottle are fine.

So we’ve covered cigarette packets and ashtrays but what about the related flame devices?

I realise the most obvious answer to this – like with disposable razors – is don’t use them – use a refillable one instead. But, for one reason or another, a lot of people can’t/won’t do that so end using disposable ones.

So what can be done with them?

Assuming it can be separated from the metal mechanism, can the plastic be recycled? Anyone know what number it is or does it vary?

And what about the mechanism itself – any reuses for that? Or the lighter as a whole?

(Photo by pulp-o)

We’ve had an email from Katerina. She’s been busy posting lots of useful comments around the site lately – including on the pump action spray page – but she’s got a suggestion that’s just a little different from that:

My boyfriend has an eczema and he uses a lot of emollient, creams and liquid soap that comes in pump dispensers, some specialised emollients come from pharmacist in VERY big bottles with pumps. As you can imagine – he goes through a lot of them, and I think of the ways to re-use them.

I keep dreaming of how good would it be to be able to have stations in pharmacies and supermarkets to re-fill your pump dispensers (but obviously – this is too much to ask for).

The two organic shops near us allow you to refill Ecover pump bottles in store with more of the liquid soap/washing-up liquid – but I don’t know if you’d be able to refill other random bottles.

So any other suggestions?

(Photo by nyuszika)