• Leethal‘s Lee Meredith made herself some cute yarn cubbies out of old coffee cans – and has written up a how-to if you want to give it a go yourself. (More coffee can ideas…)
• Got lots of keepsake t-shirts you want to upcycle but delicate quilting isn’t really your thing? Turn them into an oversized floor cushion/chair instead.
• Or use other old tshirts to make light spring hats for babies or toddlers – Lu Bird Baby thoughtfully includes girl and boy variations in her tutorial.
• Mrs Green from My Zero Waste is trying to grow her own cleaning sponges this summer.
• Also growing related, inverted growing is a great space saver – and a great way of using up buckets or tubs which have damaged bottoms. Johngineer has put together a wonderfully thorough tutorial on how to turn a normal planter into a hanging one for inverted growing.
• And finally, speed up growth from cuttings without chemicals – make your own rooting hormone using willow branches.

I had an email from Melanie the other week:

My name is Melanie and I work for an events company so have promo gifts! We have quite a few nylon rucksacks that we would like to recycle but don’t know where we would take them! Can you please let me know if you can help?

We’ve covered reuses for single broken backpacks before but this query is more of a recycling-en-masse one.

Depending on how many is “quite a few”, try offering them on your local Freecycle/Freegle group or offering them to a local scrap store — the latter might not be in a position to use them themselves but they have great contacts with local schools, charities and playgroups who might be able to use them.

If it’s not possible to pass them on for reuse (for example, because they’re damaged stock or because the company who paid for them in the first place would object), you’ll probably be able to find a textile recycling company who would take them. (Depending on the company, they might only take very large quantities of textiles but you might be able to find an intermediary – for example, charity shops are often paid by weight for their bags of “rags”, items they can’t sell themselves.)

Any other suggestions?

When we moved into our new house last autumn, we got a new bed.

Despite our love of slumber, our last bed was awful – the cheapest double I could find when I needed a bed in a hurry back in 2002. It was small, uncomfortable and had been repaired so many times, I think by the end it was made out entirely of glue and hope, not badly laminated wood.

When we moved here, we decided to do things right – after looking at the options in all the big bed shops and online, we ended up commissioning a local furniture maker to make us a bed frame instead*. He made it out of reclaimed wood (yay recycling!) and to a chunky design of our choosing. When he came to assemble it, he gave us a little tool which we might have to use to tighten some bolts — in twenty years time. It’s the best, most solid bed I’ve ever met and we’re very happy with it.

Why am I telling this story in a post about sheets & bed linen? Well, because we decided that after getting the bed frame right, we were going to get the rest of our bed experience spot on too. Like with the bed itself, we decided to buy good quality items that would last us for years and years, instead of cheap things that would fall apart – a key part of “reducing”. I spent ages tracking down & more money than I would normally do on bed linen to get top quality 100% cotton duvet covers. And you know what? Both have ripped already.

We think one of them got ripped on our cat Carbon’s last day – sadly, I can imagine him using the duvet to claw his way onto the bed, or using his claws to drag himself around the space once he was up there. There is a straight tear in it about four inches long, and some smaller tears & L-shaped tears in other spots too. The other duvet cover? I’ve no idea how that got ripped. I just found an L-shaped tear in it – about four inches on either side – when I was washing it the other day. Whatever happened though, it needs fixing.

So what is the best way to repair these supposed-to-last-years duvet covers? Will something like iron-on mending tape work? Or would good old-fashioned sewing be better – and if so, any stitch/method recommendations? Or would patching them be a better route in the long run? Any advice on doing that neatly and smoothly?

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by uvo_design)

We’ve had an email from Gordon:

I am looking for a company that recycles or reuses used safety boots and shoes. They are predominantly leather with a steel toe cap and rubber or manmade sole. As a [huge multinational] company you can imagine we have quite a few and at present they go to landfill.

Do you know of any businesses that would be interested?

I suspect like happens with hard hats, they’re having to be replaced for health & safety reasons – they’ve become too worn/damaged to wear in a dangerous industrial environment.

If these boots have been retired for safety reasons, further reuse by someone else is largely out of the question – they might be fine for someone to use for light DIY or gardening etc but I wonder if there would be a liability issue if a company was to pass them on for that sort of thing…

It’s pretty easy to find a textile recycling/reclamation company but harder to find down ones that explicitly ask for leather, let alone safety footwear. Anyone know any companies that specifically deal with these types of boots or leather in general?

Any other suggestions?

Lynette left a comment on another post asking:

Does anyone know how I can recycle man-made fabrics that are beyond wearing, not appropriate for ‘rag’ etc. People have suggested charity shops, but they wouldn’t want such items. Council 3rd world bins ask for only wearable clothes, so this is becoming a problem. I buy all second hand clothes but have to avoid wool as I am married to a staunch vegan.

As I replied to the comment, I think it depends on the item of clothing/type of fabric – a man-made fleece jacket is going to have different reuses to a viscose camisole or nylon tights. From Lynette’s mention of wool, I’m guessing she’s thinking about fake woollies – polyester or acrylic jumpers/cardigans and coats etc.

If the fabric is a reasonably heavy weight, a lot of the insulating ideas for fleeces would apply. If you’re handy with a needle & thread then you might be able to upcycle the decent parts of the garment into something else – a smaller version of the clothes for a child or a dog.

I also wouldn’t be too sure about charity shops not wanting them – talk to the staff (the stock sorting staff, not necessarily the counter staff) at your local shop and see if they collect items for a “rag man” — textile reclamation companies often have deals with charity shops to take their scraps, and pay the charity shop some money based on weight. Clothes and items not fit for reuse in their current state can be shredded to use as filling, or depending on the fabric, the fibres reclaimed and respun.

Any other suggestions?