I always thought wooden transport pallets were one of those things that were reused ad infinitum – or at least until they fall apart – because of those “pallets wanted” signs around industrial-type estates near motorway or, say, the docks in Liverpool (somewhere we frequent more than most people because ooh! cool industrial stuff!). But lately, I’ve started to see them dumped around various places, suggesting it’s not worth people’s bother to take them to one of those “wanted” place.

(Tsk, people, eh? The worst is the dozen or so I saw dumped down the road from us last night – one road down from a household waste site. I guess they either didn’t want to wait for it to open, didn’t want to have to pay to leave them there or didn’t want to find somewhere to take them for reuse even though they clearly had a truck to get them there in the first place. Grr.)

Anyway, reusing them. John’s dad reclaimed the wood from a couple of old pallets to make a fence for his brother’s garden. I’ve also heard about cleaner, nicer ones being spruced up a bit (sanded to remove the roughest bits and varnished) to make a futon base.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Gastonmag)

We’ve covered wood-based cat litter before but we’ve had a rather unusual email from Simon and I thought it was worth returning to the topic:

I’m e-mailing from an independent animal sanctuary in Northern Ireland.

We have about 100 cats here all using wood chip litter and would probably skip at least 100 litres a week. Do you know a way of turning the used litter (poo-free!) into burning fuel, and would that be more environmentally friendly than oil? I’ve experimented trying to compact it into short pieces of sewage pipe, but the problem is keeping the litter in one block.

To give you an idea, we would spend about £2000 a quarter during the winter on heating kennels and catteries electrically.

I’d be grateful for any suggestions, even if it’s to say “For Christ’s sake, what are you thinking man?” as it feels like we could be using this used litter for producing heat.

I tempted to say “For Christ’s sake, what are you thinking man?” just for the humour but I can see where he’s going with this. I guess it would be particularly galling if you had a biomass boiler or stove for heating: throwing away all those wood chips only to buy different ones back for burning.

This is basically an appeal for help/information/tips anything that might get Simon started on his way or conversely warn him off the plan if it’s unsound.

Anyone know if this is viable? As Simon says, the litter is poo-free but I presume it’s been wee-ed on – would that cause any problems for burning?

Any suggestions on how to make logs stick together or make pellets?

I hear that biomass boilers/stoves are quite expensive to install – anyone had any experience with this? Anything special Simon needs to consider?

On the “how can I make a bookshelf out of recycled stuff” post a couple of weeks ago, one of our lovely regular readers Alice suggested we should do more posts that way around – how can you do/make something out by recycling or reusing old junk.

I’ve added the idea to our suggestions request page but haven’t had any emails about it just yet, so am posting one from/for me instead.

We’re lucky that we have pretty decent doorstep recycling in Leeds – we’ve got a green wheelie bin for plastic (1 and 4), paper, cardboard, tins/cans etc – but it doesn’t include glass or tetrapak.

Our nearest bottle bank is frustratingly a drive away (why there isn’t one on our low-car-ownership estate is beyond me) so we usually collect up a fair stash and combine it with another trip in that direction. But this means we more often than not have a large amount of glass jars and bottles in our tiny front garden – which is both untidy and a potential safety hazard. The tetrapak stuff is safer but the collection spot even further away so we go there even less.

We need a way to keep this stuff out of the way – and dry: we had a set of plastic drawers out there at one point but they just filled with manky water every time it rained (well, fresh water than quickly turned manky).

So we need a recycling bin/shed thing to hold this stuff in and I’d much rather make one than buy anything. It can’t be too big because we’ve not got that much room and it needs to be reasonably easy to empty too.

Aside from looking out for an old bin (which are few and far between now since everyone’s had council wheelie ones for ages), any suggestions for things to make it from? I’m not particularly handy but willing to give things a go. Any tips on how to keep it from filling with rain or with ever curious cats?

We’ve had an email from Alice who wants to turn this whole crazy thing on its head:

Instead of an item that I want to recycle, I’m actually working backwards here – does anyone know what kind of waste could be used to build a sturdy bookcase?

A few ideas spring to mind from previous posts – namely snowboards (and I guess skateboards would be similar), hollowcore doors – and old hollowed out televisions. There is also a suggestion on making shelves out of old books but I suspect that’s more decorative than sturdy.

If you’re interested in an industrial look, you could use stacked metal food cans (or decorated old paint can) between the shelves – and depending how you do it, they could be used for secret storage too – or skip-diving might turn up some breeze blocks or the like (it might get heavy quickly but red house bricks would look cool).

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by GiniMiniGi)

We’ve had an email from Mary asking about recycling hollow core doors.

I always see doors of one sort or another in skips around here but Mary has come up with an idea for an old one of hers – but needs a little help:

I would like to make a rattan or seagrass headboard for my king size bed by covering an old hollow core door, maybe I can use old matchstick blinds, or I’ll buy some mats, any ideas? I’d also need some kind of edging.

I really like big headboards like that so it sounds like a great idea. Mats would probably be a bit more flexible and may bend around edges – eliminating the need for separate edging – but I do like the idea of “bamboo” blinds – it seems like it would be less rough to lean against.

Any help for Mary?

Or any other ideas about what could be done with an old hollow door?