We’ve already covered whole mirror tiles but Claire has asked:

Can a broken mirror go in the glass recycling bin?

I suspect not – most glass banks I’ve seen stipulate they can only take standard bottles and jars, not sheet glass or pyrex or the like.

While there is obviously a safety concern (wear tough gloves, be careful), you could reuse the pieces in crafts and around the home. Like the whole mirror tiles, big pieces made safe could be used to reflect more light around the greenhouse or garden, hand-size pieces could be used for pocket mirrors (I’ve seen pictures of people who’ve used foam or soft modelling clay around the back/edges to make them safer and more durable) and little pieces can be used for mosaics.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Yvonne:

What can we do with a box of old double bed sheets, duvet covers and valances which we don’t use any more because we’ve got a king size bed?

The first thing I’d suggest would be to pass them on – if they’re still in ok condition, give them to a charity/thrift shop or local shelter, or offer them on Freecycle. Bedding, particularly duvet covers, seems to be pretty popular in the charity shops that I go to seem to.

Aside from that, there are a whole lot of reuses for bedding because at the end of the day, it’s just flat lengths of fabric – and usually 100% cotton (or at least cotton-heavy) fabric at that. Rag ruggers often use bed sheets/covers because they’re cheap & available, and the old solution was, after turning the outside edges in, to use them for handkerchiefs.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Allison:

We always have coffee in for visitors but rarely use more than a few spoonfuls of it before it goes out of date. Can I do anything it?

The only reuse I can think of off the top of my head is making ye olde stained paper when I was a kid – possibly not the most useful suggestion unless you really, really like making fake old maps ;)

A quick Google reveals some more useful things – they can be used as a scent in soapmaking, dying fabric or even to develop camera film.

Any other ideas?

After an idea sparked by [Am] last year and added to by Alice last week, I’ve started adding ‘Top Tips’ boxes to the most popular Recycle This pages (the ones with loads of comments) to highlight the best suggestions for reducing, reusing and recycling. It’s pretty time consuming but lots of fun, re-reading all the great suggestions that have come in over the last 3.5 years — you guys are wonderfully creative and inspiring! you’re awesome!

Anyway, while I was doing the old keys one the other day, I saw that the British charity, Guide Dogs for the Blind collect old house keys as a fundraiser – and they collect old coins too.

Like old stamps, certain ones are obviously highly collectable but there must be a lot that aren’t quite so popular – all those bogstandard 5pences and 10pences that were replaced in the 1990s for example.

Any creative or practical suggestions of things that can be done with them? Any other charities that collect them?

I also used to know about half a dozen charities who collect leftover change from overseas excursions but can’t think of any of them right now – anyone know of any?

We’ve had an email from Plum:

We’ve got five bottles of mouthwash in the bathroom cupboard – all tried once but never again because they were vile! I was wondering if you had an idea if they could be used for any household cleaning tasks like brown sauce on brass.

Good question. In my experience, most awful tasting mouthwashes are very alcohol-y and alcohol does have antibacterial/antiseptic qualities — does anyone know if it would be enough for cleaning instead of rubbing alcohol?

If you don’t mind having a minty face, I suspect it could be used as a facial toner – a lot of toners have similar amounts of alcohol in them (although alcohol in toners is very drying – the best skin thing I ever did was switching away to alcohol-free cleaning products).

Any other suggestions?