We’ve had an email from Andrew Whittington:

These are the industrial carrying bags, usually made from a plastic woven material with four strong carrying handles for a crane or fork lift truck to move large quantities of building materials such as sand and stone. These are being seen more and more delivered to domestic homes, and are seen as a disposable item and the companies are not interested in having them back.

At the moment I have one in the garden and i’m using it as a tempory compost bin until I can make my own, however the plastic is starting to rot into tiny pieces, any other ideas what I can do with it?

I’ve been seeing these about more and more too and would probably go for the compost thing or using the material for hanging basket (etc) lining – but I’m sure the latter doesn’t make best use of the bags and would probably have the same rotting problem. So any ideas?

We’ve had an email from Neil Williams about used car tyres:

I’ve just moved into a new house and when I finally hacked through the nettles at the bottom of the garden, I found a set of old car tyres.

They look like they’ve been there for a good few years so probably aren’t any good for a car now and I know some companies make them into mouse pads and stuff but I was wondering what I can do with them myself.

My dad used to use tyres (AKA tires) as planters for growing veg – a single tyre became an instant raised beds for lettuce or herbs or a few stacked on top of each other became deep bins for potatoes. I guess the stacked ones could also be used as a compost heap too.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by dragon_art)

An email from Melinda Goodick:

In the course of seasons, we have accumulated many inflatable mattresses and beach/pool toys and also sledding tubes from the winter. They were fun, but once they go flat, the fun is gone. What can we do with them besides their intended use?

I’m presuming by “go flat” Melinda means they haven’t got a valve for refilling with air. We’ve also run into similar “what shall we do with this?” issues in the past with inflatables when they’ve split along the seam and the holes too big to realistically puncture repair.

So, ideas?

(Photo by winjohn)

We’ve had an email from Phillip Levenson:

I own a joinery manufacturers and i produce a lot of wood shavings which is mixed softwood and hardwood shavings and some dust i am struggling to dispose of it quicker than i can produce it.

I have a couple of people who take it from me who own horses. Do you know of any other ways of maybe recycling the shavings?

Untreated and unpainted wood can be composted but any reuse ideas?

(Photo by slafko)

We’ve had an email from Christina Biggs, who works for the Wildlife Trust.

I have 27 hard top yellow helmets which are out of date and need replacing according to health and safety regulations.

I run a waste and recycling classroom so ideally I would like to keep some of these on site and turn them into recycled products, I have thought about hanging baskets. What can these be recycled into? Any suggestions?

I was going to say hanging baskets (with a hole drilled in the bottom for drainage) but Christina beat me to it. Given they’re going to be pretty hard plastic, I don’t know how much they can be modified but I wonder if they could be made into fun birdboxes or something. Any other suggestions?

(Photo by brokenarts)