When we get together with our friends, we’re just about the wildest, craziest group of trendy 20-somethings you’re ever likely to meet.

We’re so wild in fact that the other night some of us had MORE THAN ONE LOLLIPOP while we were sat around chatting. (I stuck to one because I don’t want to develop an addiction – it was very nice and orangey though).

By the end of the night, there was a small pile of plastic lolly sticks on the table and I wondered “how can I reuse or recycle them?”

So how can I reuse or recycle them? For those that aren’t as wild as us lollipop-heads, they’re a thin, cylindrical tube of plastic about 6cm (3inches) long and just a couple of millimetres in diameter. I guess they’re similar to plastic Q-tip/cotton bud sticks.

(Photo by Bubbels)

Ok, since you guys were so great coming up with ideas for lettuce last month, here’s a related one: cucumber.

Like with the lettuce, we don’t eat enough salad to get through a whole cucumber before it goes mushy and horrible – we find it pretty hard to even get through a half-cucumber unless we’re on an utter salad binge.

So once we’ve eaten our fill of it, what else can we do with it? There is the cliche cucumber-on-eye thing I guess and I have a suspicion you can use them in face masks – but any more concrete ideas?

(Photo by woodsy)

They probably still look nice and festive today but in a couple of days, they’ll be starting to look a bit past it – so what are the options?

Most local council tips provide Christmas tree recycling these days – take your tree along to your local household waste collection site and they’ll shred it for use as ground cover or the like.

But what if you can’t get it to a tip? Some councils pick them up from your home if you ask for collection but how can they be otherwise used around the home and garden?

We’ve covered tree branches in general in the past but are there any pine tree specific things?

(Beautiful photo by soultga)

Hark the herald angels sing;

“it’s easy with the Recycle This guide!”

(Photo by LuisFico of a very cool tree made from light)

A few weeks ago, someone emailed me to ask for creative ways to re-use old shopping bags. I directed her to the shopping bags post we did last year and told her about my experience of knitting some flimsy bags into a heavy-duty shopping bag: I used large gauge needles and it was surprisingly easy and fun – until I accidentally leaned on one of the (plastic) needles and snapped it clean in half.

Recalling the story and my clumsiness made me realise I still have the odd knitting needles kicking about in my craft box and I wondered, as I frequently do, “how can I reuse or recycle that?”

I could keep it in my stash to use as a spare in the future but I hope I won’t repeat my snap-happy snapping again so won’t need a spare. My needle stash is already quite sizeable (thanks to eBay and raiding my mum’s old needle collection) for the amount of knitting that I do and keeping spares might make it quickly spin out of control.

But what else can I do with the odd ones? Or what about the couple of bent ones I’ve got a little over-eager about a scarf? Some of them are grey plastic while the bent ones are usually grey-painted metal.

(Photo by n0nnahs)