Rosie has emailed:

My partner brought home 3 brand new fibre glass baths (minus handles) which were going to be thrown in the skip. Any suggestions for use and does anyone want them?

That’s just the type of thing I’d want to bring home too – they seem so useful (and so new!) that I’d struggle to resist ;)

They’re bigger than a lot of the things we feature on here so I think the reuses are going to be limited, unless you have a lot of space. Old baths are regularly reused by people with horses or livestock in a field as drinkers, or buried by people wanting a quick and basic pond. I know also some people with large gardens/allotments use them as deep “no dig” raised beds or for containing crops that have a tendency to be invasive (like mint). I’ve also long been interested in aquaponics – I wonder if a bathtub could be used for the water bit of that…

Away from animals and growing, I sometimes play the “what I would do if I had loads of workshop space” game (all crafters do that, right?) and one of the things that would probably feature on my list is a really big dye bath so I could dye long lengths of fabric etc in one go. It’s a will-never-happen thing for me, but I’d probably find a bathtub if I ever did have the space.

If you don’t have room or the need for those type of reuses, someone on your local Freecycle/Freegle group might want them instead. Due to so many people having bath renovations these days, there are a lot of old baths knocking around – but it certainly doesn’t hurt to offer them on there.

Any other suggestions for Rosie either for reusing/recycling ideas or for ways to pass it along?

Good friend of Recycle This and The Really Good Life, Su, has got a question for us:

Bicycle panniers – mine have a really useful stretchy mesh pocket on the outside, unfortunately now more hole than mesh. Any ideas on repairing them? The actual pannier part is absolutely fine.

The summer before last, I bought some mens’ shorts for myself and since I don’t have things down there in need of containment, I removed the “netting” layer – that wouldn’t have been pretty but would have fit the bill perfectly – stretchy white mesh. (I ended up using it in the greenhouse to store bulbs.) Can anyone think of anything else in the same vein to reuse instead? Heavy (so they won’t run) nylon tights maybe?

Another idea which is less reusing/recycling but still repairing: could you crochet a flat mesh from a plastic twine using a variant on a string bag patten? I used to make a version of this bag from all sorts of different yarns when we were short of shopping bags – makes up very quickly because it’s so much hole :)

Any other ideas?

(Photo by arifm)

Good friend of Recycle This Petra has been in touch again:

Here I am again with another item that you hopefully find interesting enough to put on your website.

Still cleaning my cupboards :-) , I now found several out-of-date bottles of contact lens liquid. It’s the storage and insertion liquid, not the soapy cleaning stuff, although it says that it can also be used for cleaning. I can’t find any ingredients, except that it contains certain additives for conservation.

Does anyone know if there’s anything I can do with it. I don’t wear my lenses any more due to too dry eyes, so this is what is left.

As I’m a glasses wearer, I’ve not had enough experience with the liquid to know what it could be used for – I do know that those solutions are sometimes just saline, but I don’t know if that’s the case with Petra’s stash.

Has anyone else had leftover contact lens solution? What did you do with it? Once they’re out of date, can they be used for other not-so-critical things? And if so, what?

As it’s such an unknown area to me, I’d love to hear your ideas for this!

We’ve had an email from Bala:

Can an aftershave which is nearly 3 years old be used as a car freshner??

This sent me down two research routes: 1) do aftershaves/colognes/perfumes expire? and 2) how to make a car air freshener. In answer to the first question, general not: they might lose their top notes or the scent distort in other ways after around five years but otherwise the alcohol will preserve it pretty well, especially if the bottle is pretty full (so there has been less exposure to the air). Some might separate slightly but at three years old, it should be fine.

As for making the freshner, Planet Green suggests a dangly scrap fabric/scrap cardboard/fabric sandwich, but I worry about the suggestion to soak the fabric with the scent – I would have though a few spritzes, refreshed regularly, would probably suffice in a closed car (a little scent goes a long way!).

Anyone got any ideas for making other types of freshner?

Or any other ideas for reusing or recycling old aftershave/cologne?

Kathleen has emailed to ask about an ironing board cover/pad:

There just has to be something I can do with this……it’s way too big to toss!

Ironing..? board..? what is this thing of which you speak? You mean some people don’t have perpetually creased clothes? Amazing! :D

We do have an ironing board but it gets used more for stuff like fusing plastic than it does for actual clothes — if I had a spare or old ironing board cover, I’d keep one for potentially leaky crafts like melting plastic and one for clothes.

As for repurposing it, if it’s a fabric one with a quilted/heavily padded section, could it be made into an oven mitt? I’d imagine they’d have similar heat absorbing qualities. At one time my mum had a thinner silvery one – could that be used for lining/insulating a lunch cool bag? Would that work?

Any other ideas or suggestions?