We’ve had an email from Rebecca:

I have a grill I no longer need, but it’s a bit grotty so I don’t think I could sell it on. It looks like this –>

Are there any facilities for recycling items like this? It seems a waste to bin it, but it’s difficult to clean so we couldn’t get it into a resaleable state.

In the UK, it will be covered by the WEEE Directive so the place you bought it from might take it back – or if nothing else, there should be an electricals spot at your local “household waste sorting site” (ie, the local tip), where they’ll get disposed of properly.

If it still works though, it would be a shame to scrap it just because it’s a bit grotty. If you don’t think you can sell it, try giving it away on Freecycle instead – someone might be grateful for it in whatever state it is in – particularly if they have a non-food use for it. The only non-food use that springs to mind instantly is for making shrinky-dinks but I bet someone with some electrical knowledge could use the heating element/timer for something fancy and useful.

Any other ideas?

We’ve had an email from Lisa, asking:

How can I reuse laundry detergent and fabric softener bottles?

I have a bunch piling up by my washing machine – the ones you pour, not with a spout on the side.

We’ve bulk bought fabric softener in the past and I’ve decanted it into a old, small bottle to make it easier to use – the giant bulk bottle could be stored out of the way in the cellar and the little bottle just refilled once a month. You can do the same thing with big boxes of powder – with handles, those pouring bottles are far easier to carry and use than a big box. They are also moisture tight so if the bottle is dry when you pour in the powder in the first place, it’s less likely to cake than in a cardboard box.

That’s only two bottles though – so what else can you do with them? Carolien Adriaansche makes them into cute creatures and many of the bottles that I see are nice colours or even pearlised, so you could use the plastic to make things like bold jewellery.

Any other suggestions?

Helms has asked:

How can I recycle my baby’s sippy cup? The no-spill cups that young children use before learning to drink out of a “grown up’s” cup.

Well, whenever I see those cups, I always wipe at the Ribena down my tshirt and think “I should get one of those!” – so that’s one answer: give them to clumsy adults ;)

Aside from that, if they’re still in a good condition then I’m sure they’d be welcomed by charity shops – or organisations like the National Childbirth Trust (NCT), which have “nearly new” sales for new parents to pick up bargains.

As for actual recycling, it would depend on what they’re made out of. Most I’ve seen are plastic and if it’s obvious what type of plastic they’re made from, then you might be able to recycle them with your normal plastic waste. Searching around now though, I see that there is also a growing trend to have them made from stainless steel with plastic handles – and mixed material items can a nightmare to recycle.

Any other suggestions?

• For more baby related items, see Recycle This’s guide to Recycling and Reusing Baby Stuff

Over on the suggestions page, the Eternal*Voyageur asked:

What could I do with those nice Camembert cheese boxes ?

They’re cute little wooden things and in our kitchen, most wooden boxes ended up reused as tea-bag caddies (we have a lot of teabags) – but I suspect these guys may be a little too … cheesy/ammonia-y for that.

Any suggestions for how to freshen up the boxes once the cheese has been eaten?

And what about other reuses?

(Photo by pdphoto

We’ve had a message from Roxi on our old yoghurt pots post, saying:

I have been wondering what I can use a big yogurt can for. I can’t seem to find anything that I need storing in a container like that, so does anyone have any ideas?

The phrase “a big yogurt can” confuses me as I’ve never seen yoghurt for sale in cans – I’m presuming she means the bigger plastic tubs (please correct me if I’m wrong) because while we’ve covered those little yoghurt pots and the triangular ones, we’ve not covered the big ones.

The pots I’m thinking of are about 18-20cm (7-8inches) tall and 8cm (3inches) in diameter at the top. There are some other ones that are similar but a bit more squat. Like other yoghurt pots though, they tend to be made of a flexible, not-too-heavyweight plastic and have a plastic lid – or a foil lid with sometimes a plastic lid to go on top of that for resealing.

The ones with the resealable lids are ripe for reusing as storage in the kitchen because they’re resealable – but the plastic isn’t *that* sturdy so it doesn’t feel like a permanent container.

So any specific reuse suggestions for in the kitchen or elsewhere? And what about pots missing that resealable lid?