We’ve had another email from our good friend Petra:

I’ve got a question about a silicone baking mat.

I have two of them, but accidentally in both of them there is a cut from a knife or pizza slicer.

Does anyone know of a method to repair these cuts?

I can’t think of something myself and also google doesn’t give any glues. So who knows…

It’s a very good question – silicone cookware seems to be *the* thing in the shops at the moment – mats, trays, cake trays – but I would worry about accidentally slicing it or whatever too.

So does anyone know how you might go about fixing one?

Jessica left a message on the “suggest an item” page:

Hello, I work in a restaurant where we get new menus about every two weeks.

They are nice menus, but have worn edges, maybe, some wear and tear. But we throw these menus out by the hundreds every two weeks. It seems so wasteful to me.

We change them out to meet the company standards of how they should be presented. So what could be some ideas of how we can reuse the menus cause I’m pretty sure they can’t be recycled. Thanks!!

I’m presuming since they “can’t be recycled” that they’re laminated menus or similar – not just paper or card because they would be easier to recycle.

We’ve covered old laminated posters before so if they are laminated, there might be some overlap in potential reuses.

Any menu-specific suggestions though? Given the amount they’re going through, bulk reuses would be best.

From a reduction point of view, I wonder if it’s worth taking it up with the company further upstream – they’re insisting on the menus being changed without considering the green impact. Perhaps it should be up to them to change the menu design to make it longer lasting – or relax their standards. Has anyone had any experience of getting a company to change their policy for the greener – or any advice about what types of menus work best?

I asked this question on Twitter yesterday forgetting I had a blog dedicated to such things ;)

Basically, I want to make some small envelopes/pouches for sharing spare seeds at a seed swap.

I imagine I’ll make them using scrap paper (old envelopes seem a logical place to start but I’m open to other suggestions) but I don’t know how will be best to go about making them.

I usually just use a complete old envelope (one of the bigger-than-A5 ones that the banks use, since that’ll all I really get through the post these days) – but the seeds only take up a tiny amount of space so that’s convenient but excessively bulky. And since I’m giving them away, I’d like them to be a bit neater/fit for purpose if possible.

They need to be reasonably tightly made (since some of the seeds are very small and will fall out of holes) and, if possible, resealable in some way (even if it’s just having enough space at one end to be folded over firmly a few times). Ideally they’ll be water resistant too.

The wonderful Mary Horesh suggested a great how-to for making super cute envelopes out of a square of paper – so that’s one idea. Any other how-to suggestions?

And any ideas/advice about what paper to go for or avoid? I’m imagining anything pulpy like newspaper or cheap book paper will be a no-no because they’ll absorb water rather than resisting it.

Any non-paper options?

We’ve had an email from Aimee:

Do you know if there is any use for out of date chocolate?

I guess it depends quite how out of date it is. Chocolate tends to have a “best before” date (rather than a “use by”) and it is often fine to eat for a good while after that. In my experience, cheap chocolate goes off – tastes funny and gets white spots – far quicker than better quality stuff, so if it was nice chocolate to start with, I would definitely try eating it.

If it is past the enjoyably-edible stage though, I’m not sure what I’d do with it. Chocolate-scented soaps or candles aren’t usually made with chocolate – they either use cocoa butter or a chocolate fragrance – so that’s not an option.

I personally wouldn’t want to compost it – it would compost but I’d worry about it attracting undesirable vermin to the heap in the meantime or would be snaffled by our dog who likes routing around in there (and smells delightful after doing so). Other people may compost it though – especially people with sealed bins and less greedy/nosey dogs.

Can you think of any reuses?

We’ve had an email from Miranda:

Can I recycle an old plastic chopping board? It’s stained and scarred and we don’t want to use it any more.

As far as I can tell, most plastic chopping boards are made from HDPE (resin code 2), which can be recycled and is quite widely collected – but many places that do collect it will only collect it in certain formats (for example, plastic bottles). If HDPE is collected in your area, you could phone the recycling authority to see what they think.

If it was us, I’d probably keep it to reuse in some way – as a cutting mat for crafts or as a surface protector when glueing or something like that.

Any other reusing ideas? Or recycling advice?