John did a talk at LUGRadio Live the weekend before last and decided he wanted some cue cards to help him keep track of what he was speaking about. Looking around the house for something cue-card shaped, he found a stack of business cards from his last-but-one place of employment – and then another stack from the place he worked previous to that.

The last-but-one place did a full run of 1000 cards for him without asking whether he wanted them (no) – and he didn’t give out a single card. He estimates he gave out about 10 cards for the previous place but no one ever used them to contact him. What a wonderful waste.

The cards were the perfect size for the talk – discrete but easy to handle – but since he hasn’t got another talk planned for a while, what else can be done with his old business cards?

(Photo by brokenarts)

We’ve had an email from Jasmin:

I shred bank statements, receipts etc but our local authority doesn’t accept shredded paper in the recycling bin. I don’t have a garden so composting isn’t easy either, does anyone have any other suggestions?

I’ve seen shredded paper used as packaging to protect breakable items in the post so that’s one idea – but any more reusing or recycling suggestions? What do you do with it?

(Photo by winjohn)

We’ve had an email from Sally Harrop, asking for ideas for recycling or reusing “normal” telephones:

By which I mean land line telephones. I have an ordinary handset and an old battery driven cordless phone (which must have dodgy innards) neither of which work now.

We are inundated by requests for old mobiles, usually because someone is making a buck somewhere, but I can’t find anything about recycling/safe disposal of not-mobile phones (except for large quantities – tonnes – from offices). Any ideas?

(Photo by Jay_kumar)

I’ve just started making my own jewellery and have been ordering various bits and pieces, earring findings and whatnot, over the internet – resulting in a slew of padded envelopes plopping onto our doormat.

We’ve already addressed normal envelopes and bubble wrap, but what about the jiffy envelopes that combine the two?

I’ll keep some around to reuse for their intended purpose – but has anyone got any ingenious ideas for using up the rest, taking full advantage of their padding and envelope-ness?

(Original photo by lusi)

We’ve looked a little toilet tubes and giant big tubes in the past but what about ones more in the middle of the size range?

I got sent a (freebie promotional) tshirt from the US a couple of weeks ago and for some reason they decided to send it in a solid cardboard poster tube instead of an envelope or postal bag.

Said tube has sat around the living room ever since with a “how can I be reused?” question mark hanging over its head. It’s a solid cardboard tube, about 50cm long (20″) with plastic caps at each end (one of them with a lip to make it easy to take out).

Now, thanks to one of our friend’s newly-discovered love of expensive whisky, it’s also now been joined by a similar whisky bottle tube – slightly lighter cardboard but similar plastic caps.

I’ve kept them to this point for reuse if I need to send anything small poster-ish through the post but that’s quite unlikely – so any other suggestions?