We’ve had an email from Sally Harrop, asking for ideas for recycling or reusing “normal” telephones:

By which I mean land line telephones. I have an ordinary handset and an old battery driven cordless phone (which must have dodgy innards) neither of which work now.

We are inundated by requests for old mobiles, usually because someone is making a buck somewhere, but I can’t find anything about recycling/safe disposal of not-mobile phones (except for large quantities – tonnes – from offices). Any ideas?

(Photo by Jay_kumar)

We’ve had an email from Nichola:

My husband works in a cinema and has brought home a heap of old movie posters for me to recycle into something else. But what? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Given Nichola had a link to the wonderful Etsy in her email signature, the first ideas I had were crafty – borrowing Ecoist‘s idea of making them into handbags or wallets or making some fun art by weaving strips of different posters together. Any more crafty ideas?

Or what about more practical ones?

(Photo by AliciaYeah)

After the disposable razor post the other week, I decided to make a concerted effort to avoid using them in the future and stick to using my rechargeable electric razor instead – and then, of course, said electric razor died.

I don’t know if the battery just stopped holding charge or if something mechanical went wrong with it suddenly but either way, it’s now an ex-razor.

Any suggestions for ways I can recycle or reuse the razor itself – presumably a battery as well as the actual shaving bit – or the related charger? With the growing popularity of rechargeable batteries in electronic devices, I suspect there is a growing mountain of electrical adaptors with proprietary connectors that are no longer needed once the device has died or is replaced because it’s the wrong shade of chrome for this week’s fashion. So any ideas what to do with them?

We’ve had an email from John B:

I was recently bought some beer which came in stone/clay bottles. Having now drunk all the beer I am looking for something to do with the bottles. I wanted to reuse them for home brew but I am unable to get the corks back in as my corking machine only works with wine bottles.

The only thing I can think of is to break them up for crocks in plant pots but this seems like a waste of all their bottliness. Any suggestions?

We’ve had an email from [Am]:

My partner and I have been wracking our brains trying to find a use for the plastic dental floss packaging. The part that holds the floss and has a little blade at the top.

I’ve looked for company websites to see if they can be returned and used to no avail!

I’ve just popped our pack open to see what the deal is with them – it flipped open really easily but I have forced it in the past during a previous curious moment. Because it flipped open easily and inside is just a spool, I guess you could refill the spool and use it for other things – but aside from cotton, I can’t think of anything else that would work. And I suspect it would be more hassle to refill the spool with cotton rather than just using it of the reel itself.

Has anyone else go any other suggestions for refilling the spool? Or other uses for the packaging?

(Photo by carlohh)