Last week’s post about glowsticks reminded me that we’ve got a torn up high visibility jacket (well, waistcoat) in the cellar. It’s been there for a good few years now – I found it on the top of a wheelie bin in our street after we’d had a period of roadworks and I thought “ooh, I can do something with that” – but never got around to doing anything with it.

Given they tend to be used by people doing hard physical work, I suspect jackets and other high vis clothing gets damaged quite a lot – are there any recycling schemes in place for companies/organisations that go through a lot of them?

On a smaller scale, any suggestions for reuses? Anything that can take advantage of the fluorescent fabric and reflective strips?

We’ve had another email from Louise:

I wear specs and get prescription lenses for my sunglasses. I now have several original ‘lenses’ from sunglasses, which have been replaced with the prescription ones I need. Is there a charity that could use them? They all have UV filters and come from pricey glasses so should be of a good quality. It would be a shame to throw them out and for me they’re just useless clutter.

Even charities who collect prescription spectacles for redistribution overseas don’t collect loose prescription lens so unfortunately I doubt anyone will collect non-prescription ones. I would love to be wrong though – anyone know of any charities collecting them?

And what about complete sunglasses which are no longer required? Do any charities/organisations collect those for redistribution?

What about reuses? If the lenses are quite small, they might make giant but interesting earrings; if they’re really big round ones, they could be the start of a great bug halloween costume :)

Any other suggestions?

As I mentioned last week, we’ve finally, FINALLY, got the keys to our new house and are frantically doing some essential works before we can move in. One not quite essential but desirable thing is for us to fence in the wild bit of the garden – ultimately so we can have chickens* and use the fences to grow things up/along.

One side of the garden was previously dry stone walled but a lot of the stones have been pilfered for use elsewhere in the garden – we’ll try to reconstruct as much of it as we can but I think we’ll have build some sort of fencing for the rest.

John’s dad has suggested using wood from pallets to make simple horizontal-slatted fences. There is also the option of live fencing – growing some sort of hedgerow or bramble bush – but that’ll take time to grow in.

So any suggestions? Having a garden needing this sort of work is new to me so any ideas would be gratefully received!

* the chickens will need pretty high fences or a covered run. We haven’t quite decided what we’ll do with that yet but we’ll try to future-proof the new fences so we can add to them in the future.

(Photo by betacam)

We’ve had an email from Gemma:

I’d like to make something out of my daughter Hayley’s first babygrows and bibs but all the refashioning ideas I can find are from adult clothes. Have you got any suggestions?

Baby clothes probably don’t lend themselves quite as well to keepsake projects as, say, a lace/satin wedding dress but I’m sure they can be put to other reuses. The first idea that springs to mind is a quilt for the baby – the cotton will be super soft so make a nice snuggly cover. They’ll also make great reusable face cloths/wipes.

Aside from crafty solutions, if they’re still in good condition and you’re not too attached to them, of course you should pass them along someone else to use – either through a baby group, a charity shop or through something like the NCT’s nearly new sales.

Any actual refashioning ideas? Or other ideas?

We’ve had an email from Holly:

Our kids’ trampoline has gone rusty so is unsafe for them to use. We can give the metal legs to scrap but what can we do with the mat?

According to Wikipedia, the mats are usually made from canvas or woven Polypropylene. The latter is recyclable – it’s number 5 plastic – so is in theory recyclable wherever number 5 plastic is collected.

As for reuses, a waterproof mat is always handy in the garden – it could be used as a picnic mat or a groundsheet under a tent. Depending on how tight the weave is, it also might be suitable as a dust sheet to protect floors while painting or the like.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by kermer)