We’ve had an email from Sophie:

I bought a big bag of rubbers at the start of school but they were hard and rubbish so I turned them into stamps instead! I drew a design on them then cut it out with an art knife and they work great.

I remember doing something similar with them when I was at school – although it was less artistic/planned and more just me being bored with an compass in French. Another at-school reuse was, of course, flinging them across the classroom and watching them bounce off the walls/desks. I, of course, never did that, ahem.

If you buy a pack of mixed ones, there always seems to be a couple of really hard ones that don’t work very well in there. Aside from the stamps and airbourne weaponry, are there any other reuses for erasers that won’t erase?

(I suspect they’ll be an overlap between this and our previous question about making greenhouses but I thought I’d ask again because they’re a bit different.)

I’m having lots of fun growing stuff in our new garden. The old garden was considerably small and got no (no!) direct sunlight whatsoever, which made growing things a little difficult. Here we get a lot more sun – in different spots throughout the day – and that’s actually been a bit of a problem this summer – my current nursery area (the porch) has been getting a bit too hot for some types of seedlings. Next year, I’d like more nursery space generally too so I thought a cold frame would make sense.

Cold frames are one of those great DIY projects with more people probably building their own out of scrap than buying them new. But I’ve got a bit of builders’ block – unable to think what to use. I’ve got my eye out for old windows or the like, and I nearly yoinked my best friend’s old shower cubicle but it was way too big and would have been problematic to cut down – but aside from that, I can’t think what else I might use for the clear parts. Any suggestions?

As for the frame, my dad built his latest coldframe using the frame of my old childhood bed (a divan, so a ready-made frame), which made me start thinking about other ready-made frames to make it easier for my weak woodworking skillz: we’ve got an old table that could be flipped upside down to provide a solid base and uprights – attaching stuff to them would probably be a lot easier than starting from scratch.

Another idea might be to build a brick frame – we’ve got some salvaged bricks around the places – but I wouldn’t know how to hinge a lid to that. Hinging a lid isn’t vital, just useful though…

Any other suggestions? Any pros/cons to brick or wood frames? What have you done?

We’ve had an email from Martyn:

Can solid pond liners be recycled? If so, where please?

As far as I can see, rigid pond liners tend to be made from fibreglass and as we discovered last time we had a fibreglass item on here, fibreglass can be recycled but isn’t widely done so.

A better idea would be to reuse the pond liner. They apparently have a 20 year lifespan as ponds but after that they, presumably, begin to leak. (No one mentions what happens after that 20 years – I hope it’s start to leak and not explode violently killing everyone in a 50m radius. Because that would be bad.) If you don’t need it as a pond any more, offer it on Freecycle/Freegle to someone who wants one. Or if it’s started to leak and is beyond repair, you (or someone else) might want to use it as a planter or the like.

Any other ideas?

And what about reuse ideas for flexible PVC pond liners that have been damaged or are leaking?

We’ve had an email from Amy:

Hi. Is there ANYTHING I can do with expired meat? I’ve read you can’t compost it but it’s such a waste to throw it away?

Yes, it is a waste! As I’m sure you know, it takes a whole lot of energy to produce a kilogram of meat, to ship it to your local supermarket and refrigerate it there & at your home – so it really would be better to reduce the amount of meat you buy or which goes off on your watch. One thing to remember is that just because the date on the packaging says it’s off, it doesn’t mean it’s actually off – learn what it should smell & look like (in terms of colour/texture) and judge it yourself each time. Don’t take any undue risks but don’t be a slave to the label either.

Of course even the most organised of us make mistakes and things expire from time to time, and Amy is right, it shouldn’t be composted in most compost bins/heaps in case it attracts vermin. (Some sealed units and wormeries advertise that they can compost it though.)

I suspect this might be one that stumps us but any ideas?

I’ve heard some people using little bits of bait to attract fish or animals – but I neither hunt or fish so don’t know if expired meat would be good for that. Anyone know?

While we’ve covered food cans in general before, Danielle emailed asking tuna cans in particular:

i have so many, what can i do with them?

There’s a wide variety of uses for tuna cans:

I know some people use them to make “buddy burner” candles and you can use them as candle holders too – but make sure you put a bit of sand in the bottom first to absorb the heat from the candle rather than it heating the metal.

Some people clean them up and use them as “cookie cutters” for making large biscuits/cookies, and because everything in this house gets commandeered for the purpose sooner or later, I’ve used them as drip saucers under plant pots (pull the label off and leave them silver for an industrial look, paint them to make them look prettier – shiny white or cream gloss gives a pseudo-vintage enamel look).

Since they’re essentially just a small pot with a low centre of gravity, they’re useful for holding small quantities of paint/glue. Or as students have been known to do – use them as makeshift ashtrays.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by TanjaS)