We’ve had an email from Paul Smith asking:

I’m really interested in how one would recycle a yoga mat? One of the old school, pvc based ones, not the eco friendly one (which I have now).

If Paul means the type of mat I think he means, they’re a long thin piece of foam, about 6ft long and 2ft wide (185cm by 66cm ish) and about half an inch (1cm) thick. Depending on the requirements and the thickness/flexibility of the foam, they can either be rolled up like a camping bedroll or are left flat (the ones at my uni gym were like that).

So any suggestions for reuses? Or are there any recycling options if somewhere (like a gym) was getting rid of them in bulk?

Paul doesn’t say what condition his yoga mat is in – some of the ones at the uni were bashed to smeg at the sides and going thin where they’d been doubled up – so re-use suggestions for falling apart ones would be good too, just in case.

(Photo by bharat – I couldn’t find a picture without a ball in it too, so just imagine that’s not there :) )

A friend’s mum was having an old bedding clear-out recently and I snagged some 1970s pillow cases in the process.

I made one of the pillowcases into two cotton bags – a shopping bag and a smaller one for when we just need to carry a few items – but don’t know what to do with the other two.

At the end of the day, they’re just (mostly) cotton pieces of fabric but like with the shopping bags, it would be nice to take advantage of the fact they’re a retro-pretty fabric, strong yet light and already have strong seams sown into most of the sides.

So any other suggestions for reuses?

(Photo by brainloc)

Had an email from Brian Hunting:

I’ve got an office waste paper bin, the wire framed sort, that’s gone rusty. After it left rust stains on the carpet my wife banned it from the house.

I thought about making it into a hanging basket for the garden but think it’ll be too deep as is and I don’t know if I’ll be able to cut it down without losing its shape. I wondered if your readers had any better suggestions instead.

So then?

(Original photo by brokenarts)

I was sorting through a kitchen cupboard the other day and found three half bottles of food colouring from the days when I used to make colourful icing for cakes (mmm, sugar and E numbers).

All three – the faux-primary colours of red, yellow and blue – have gone past the “best before” date on their lids but even not taking that into consideration, I’m unlikely to use them for their intended purpose in the near future since I’ve stopped baking that type of cake and I get my E numbers through large quantities of orange squash these days.

So what else can I use them for? I’m tempted to try them for dying fabric but suspect the colour would just run with water – is that the case? What about other use as other dyes such as in paint?

We’ve had an email from Christina Albertsen:

My colleages and I throw away loads of used staples every day where we work, and I was just wondering if there’s a way of recycling them somehow!

If you have any ideas (apart from buying one of those stapless staplers, which I will be doing) that would be great!

They seem so small but I remember reading in a book a few years ago that a colossal amount of steel is used to make staples. Unfortunately I can’t find the book just at the moment so I can’t find the exact figure but it was a very big number for what seem to be small and insignificant bits of bent metal.

The book recommended using paper clips or treasury tags instead since they’re reusable – and of course there is Christina’s stapleless stapler idea – but aside from that, as Christina asks, are there any ways to recycle (or reuse) staples once they’ve been squished?

When I was a kid, I used to make chains of them for fun but it was fiddly and they had sharp ends so couldn’t be used for much – or could they?