We’ve had an email from Nina:

What can I do with leftover pickled beetroot vinegar? We did the pickling ourselves in July and it seems a waste to throw the vinegar down the drain just two months later because we’ve eaten the beetroots – but we can’t use it for cleaning because it would dye everything pink!

Man, I love vinegar. Is there anything more delicious and versatile? But I agree the pink staining thing could be a bit of a problem here.

There are possible some cleaning things it could do where a pink stain or whatever wouldn’t be a problem – like removing rust from metals before painting – and studies have shown its worth as a herbicide.

Any other suggestions?

Here’s one I thought we’d covered (because it’s on Compost This) but apparently not: catalogues.

We got an IKEA catalogue through the post the other day – not one that we’d requested (because we wouldn’t do that) but just one spammed through the letterbox like a pizza menu. 180 pages of heavily printed paper that we’ll never use, sigh.

(I got, understandably, narked about the waste since presumably everyone on our street/estate got one but then John pointed out that it’s IKEA, home of semi-disposable furniture and random plastic things, so a few catalogues are probably not adding much to their overall footprint. But still.)

So obviously it could go straight into the recycling bin but what are the other options? Any decoupage suggestions or other paper craft stuff?

In a similar vein to Ecoist’s bags from old movie posters, BannerBags makes, well, bags out of old banners. Specifically, PVC banners (the sort that hang on lampposts etc) and the tarpaulins used on the sides of trucks.

At the moment, they’re concentrating on making bags out of banners used to advertise the Capital of Culture stuff in Liverpool – some of them quite obviously tied in (like the one above) but others are more subtle (like those below).

They’ve got a number of different designs available – flight bags (above), laptop/messengers (the Anglican Cathedral one below) and bowlers (like the hand one) – but are apparently open to suggestions if you fancy something else.

On a related topic, we’re off to Liverpool tomorrow for the launch event of the Recycle Into Art week of workshops – should be fun :)

We’ve had an email from Clare which is a kinda reverse this thing and a kinda ‘how can I recycle?’ thing:

My boyfriend has a huge collection of shot glasses in various shapes and sizes (he’s not a great drinker, so I don’t know where they came from!) I thought some of them would make great spice jars — but I need some lids for them.

Wine bottle corks are too small. I thought about begging Champagne corks from a local posh restaurant, soaking them to restore their tubular shape and carving them to fit. But I’m a danger to myself and those around me when using a scalpel.

Does anyone have any other ideas for making lids to fit shot glasses in a variety of shapes?

So … any ideas? I can’t think of anything other than those plastic lids you get for open tin cans – and they’d be too big and too ugly to use here.

Or any other suggestions for what Clare can do with the many shot glasses?

We’ve had an email from Kate:

i want to make a pair of slippers for my boyfriend for his birthday. he’s really into green stuff and i’m broke (back at uni!) so i thought i’d make them but don’t know where to start. any ideas?!

After making booties for our niece Mia a few years ago, I got excited about making supersized booties for us but never got around to it, and that’s more knitting than recycling anyway (unless you’ve reclaimed the wool). (On that topic, I also have this “dorm boots” pattern in my “growing and eating and making” bookmarks folder from when I was looking for a pattern for Mia.)

Away from knitting, you can make them out of towels or misc woollen fabric (like a blanket or an old jumper).

John also made himself some “outside slippers” from a pair of old comfortable but battered trainers – we wear socks around the house but he needed something he could slip-on for running out to the bin or going into the sometimes-damp cellar. He just chopped the back out of the shoes to make mules and sewed up the rough edge.

Any other suggestions? Or hints on how to get started?

(Photo by prototype7)