We’ve had an email from Jess:

Is there anything I can do with onion skins instead of just throwing them in the compost? I remember reading about using them to dye eggs at one point but I don’t want to dye eggs! Any other ideas?

Ours always go straight in the compost – usually because I’m getting into a panic about making the rest of the onion-based meal (burning! where’s the stock!? argh, we’re out of cheese! etc etc) – but I like the idea of doing something more with them too.

Apparently you can use them for dyeing other wool or cotton based things and not just eggs, but cotton stuff doesn’t tend to be very colour-fast so maybe use it for artwork or hardly-washed soft furnishings instead of your new favourite tshirt.

Is there anything else that can be done with them? Other practical or crafty suggestions? Or culinary ones (I have half a memory of them being good for reducing the taste of burnt stews…?)?

(Photo by grafbea)

If you thought my fingernail question was icky a few weeks ago, you might want to look away now.

We’ve had an email from Anne, who says “my suggestion is dog poop!”:

I don’t have a fenced yard, so I walk my dog, so I have lots of little bags of dog poop. I’m told it’s not ok to use in a vegetable garden–maybe a flower garden? any other ideas?

The vegetable thing (or compost heap for use of vegetable garden thing) is because poop from carnivores or omnivores can contain harmful organisms that aren’t destroyed during the standard composting process. (Some hot composting systems claim to be able to do it but I’m not 100% convinced.)

To be on the safe side, I probably wouldn’t want to include it in compost to be used anywhere – because the neighbourhood kids go through phases of digging in our garden and they’re not opposed to eating while doing so, and also I’m not organised enough to keep track of what’s a poo-bed and what isn’t, so would probably end up planting carrots in poo-central or something.

But that does beg the question: can anything be done with it instead of just winging it into the landfill? Any suggestions to minimise the landfill impact (biodegradable bags?)?

(Photo by Minita – I went with a picture of a cute (albeit sad) dog instead of its poo. I thought most people would prefer that. Plus, John and I just played a caption contest thing with it: “you mean I have to stop pooping until someone comes up with an answer?” etc :) )

We’ve had an email from Wen Rou (from Chile!):

Hi, I’ve got a box with cans of expired beer, how can I recycle it? The empty cans I’ll take them to the recycling center. I can just throw the beer away, just wondering if anything useful can be made with it.

If you’ve got a snail & slug-infested garden, the most obvious suggestion is to use it for beer traps to catch those slippery suckers. From what I’ve seen, they’re not fussy whether it’s lager, ale, in date, premium or the cheapest nastiest stuff sold in our supermarket for 88p for four cans (John tried the latter and said it tasted like bitter, gone-off water).

Beer is also supposed to be good for hair – mix with water as a final-rinse aid. It apparently leaves it silky and shiny – but I don’t know whether that needs a yeasty ale-type beer or whether a lager will do. (Anyone know?)

Any other suggestions for either this expired beer or other related stuff, like the sediment-y bit at the bottom of bottles/barrels?

(Stock photo by macleod)

We’ve had an email from Nina:

What can I do with leftover pickled beetroot vinegar? We did the pickling ourselves in July and it seems a waste to throw the vinegar down the drain just two months later because we’ve eaten the beetroots – but we can’t use it for cleaning because it would dye everything pink!

Man, I love vinegar. Is there anything more delicious and versatile? But I agree the pink staining thing could be a bit of a problem here.

There are possible some cleaning things it could do where a pink stain or whatever wouldn’t be a problem – like removing rust from metals before painting – and studies have shown its worth as a herbicide.

Any other suggestions?

It’s our third Easter here on Recycle This so this is just a quick post harking back to previous Easter-ish posts:

• How can I reuse or recycle … excessive Easter egg packaging? (2006)
• How can I reuse or recycle … excessive Easter egg packaging? (2007)
• How can I reuse or recycle … shiny chocolate wrappers?
• How can I reuse or recycle … wire egg dippers?

(Photo by LotusHead)