We’ve had an email from Tamara asking:

How can I reuse photo albums that hold up to 300 photos? I have a few as I have created photo books instead. I would like to find another use for the photo albums.

If they’re still in good condition, it might be worth giving them to your local charity shop for someone else to use but I went through a period of decorating my photo albums (because they were dull to start with) and I doubt anyone would want them.

Other reuses then. The most obvious one that springs to mind – but may only be good for flip albums, not big multi-pics-on-a-page ones – is for recipes: write the recipe on a bit of card or paper, slip it into the photo slot and the plastic sleeve will protect it from cooking splatters and greasy fingers while you work. A flip album could also be used as an address book.

Any other suggestions?

(On related topics, we’ve already covered unwanted photos and negatives – check those out for lots of creative ideas!)

(Photo by lusi)

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’d been over to the HQ of Ruby-on-Rails ISP BrightBox and discovered a load of computer parts packaging.

As well as the plastic trays that we featured the other week, there were a number of sheets of cardboard-backed bumpy foam – which is apparently called waffle foam but, if the picture’s not clear, it’s the stuff that people usually use for soundproofing.

These sheets aren’t that big about 15cm by 45cm so you’d need a LOT to do any serious soundproofing and could be kept for future packaging purposes – but I suspect they might have so more fun reuses.

The cardboard on the back limits it to dry/non-fire related things – I guess it could be pulled off but that seems to provide it with a lot of structure.

Any suggestions?

We’ve had another email from our wonderfully suggestive friend [Am]:

Due to a slow day at work on Friday I killed time by tidying out my drawers which seem to be black holes for all sorts for junk. What I discovered were about two dozen biro lids. After saving about nine for the numerous biros I also found in the drawer I was left with a collection of lids.

I don’t want to just throw them out and I know most people don’t even use the lids, once they’re off they never see the pen again.

So, does anyone have any crafty or useful ideas for these or if not, can they be recycled?

I used to use them to accessorise blue-tac desk art or to chew when I was bored. I suspect neither the health and safety people or my dentist would approve of the latter though ;)

Better suggestions then?

(Unlike [Am]’s, my office drawer was surprisingly biro lid free and I couldn’t find a photo of them on my usual stock photo site but hopefully you get the idea ;) )

We’ve had an email from Victoria:

Just found your site and love it. Anyway, I saw your story on broken chairs and it reminded me how my company always throws out office chairs instead of fixing them when something breaks – so annoying! I know it’s probably a health and safety thing but it seems so wasteful. As a minimum, can they be recycled?

I’m not sure – but when our (home) office chair dies, I’ll certainly strip it for parts — it’s a silly big “executive” leather one so I’d salvage that for craft projects, the foam cushions for the stray cat’s house, the wheels for the “random parts” box that always comes in handy and the metal frame could go to one of the many, many scrap collectors who visit our street each week — But I realise that’s not necessarily a workable strategy for workplaces.

So anyone else know about recycling them through established schemes? Or can suggest any other reuses?

(Photo by designkryt)

A few weeks ago I was at the HQ of BrightBox, a Ruby-on-Rails hosting company/ISP, and they’d just taken delivery of a huge new computer server thing (apologies for getting overly technical there).

Anyway, all the hard discs for it (and there were loads) were packaged up separately so there was a mountain of packaging by the time they’d got it all sorted.

As well as tonnes of corrugated cardboard and the foam packaging stuff I’ll feature next week, they got loads of these little solid moulded plastic trays – dummy drives – and needless to say, my first thoughts were “what a waste!” and “how could I recycle them?”

They would be absolutely ideal underneath plant pots if there weren’t two little holes at one end. I guess I could plug them with something and perhaps paint them at the same time to make them nice for under plants – but even as prolific as our spider plants are, I think I’d still be hard pushed to use them all.

So any suggestions?