This isn’t a real post just an advert for those who are currently feeling slightly sick after eating too much chocolate this morning.

We covered excessive Easter egg packaging last year but are still keen to hear your ideas and suggestions.

The cardboard can usually be recycled and the foil reused in a number of crafty ways but what about the plastic?

We’ve had an email from Christina Biggs, who works for the Wildlife Trust.

I have 27 hard top yellow helmets which are out of date and need replacing according to health and safety regulations.

I run a waste and recycling classroom so ideally I would like to keep some of these on site and turn them into recycled products, I have thought about hanging baskets. What can these be recycled into? Any suggestions?

I was going to say hanging baskets (with a hole drilled in the bottom for drainage) but Christina beat me to it. Given they’re going to be pretty hard plastic, I don’t know how much they can be modified but I wonder if they could be made into fun birdboxes or something. Any other suggestions?

(Photo by brokenarts)

I was clearing out my jewellery box the other day and found a pile of really cheap stud earrings from the days before I realised anything less than stainless steel or sterling silver made my ears erupt in an explosion of pus and itchiness.

Because I’ve worn them all on at least a couple of occasions, I don’t know if they can be passed on to other people to wear as earrings – particularly because my reaction tends to have messed up the polish etc.

Some of them are quite cute so could be used – maybe – as push pins on a noticeboard – since we don’t have that many things that need noticeboarding, I wonder if anyone has any other suggestions.

Suggestions for the scroll (the back bit) are welcome too – I’d keep them as spares if it wasn’t for the aforementioned pus and itchiness.

We’ve had an email from Amanda Bowens, asking for ideas on how to reuse or recycle butter wrappers.

The cheapest blocks of butter that I see tend to be wrapped in heavy duty grease-proof paper – so I guess they could be used as you’d use grease-proof paper – but what about the wrappers with the metallic print on the outside? They’re a bit more foil-y than standard paper but not full on foil-a-go-go.

Are they just paper (so can be recycled with the usual paper recycling) or something different?

Any suggestions for reuses?

(Photo by bb_matt)

I’ve just started making my own jewellery and have been ordering various bits and pieces, earring findings and whatnot, over the internet – resulting in a slew of padded envelopes plopping onto our doormat.

We’ve already addressed normal envelopes and bubble wrap, but what about the jiffy envelopes that combine the two?

I’ll keep some around to reuse for their intended purpose – but has anyone got any ingenious ideas for using up the rest, taking full advantage of their padding and envelope-ness?

(Original photo by lusi)