I’m lucky because, working from home, I can take a plant-watering break pretty much whenever I or they need it – but I thought it was worth asking for people who have to leave their veggies baking in their greenhouse all day without a comfort break.

Above ground sprinkler type things (like the one in the picture) are apparently very inefficient at watering veggies – too much of the water evaporates on the surface before it has a chance to get down to the roots.

I’ve heard of people using holey old garden hose as a makeshift drip irrigation system but that seems like it might be a little hard to manage the flow – in my mind, the question has a second part that didn’t fit in the headline up there: “how can I make a reused or recycled irrigation system that doesn’t waste too much water?”

Any ideas?

(It’s also important to consider preventative water-loss measures – mulching and the like – which cut down on the amount of water lost to evaporation — what’s your favourite reuse/recycle for that sort of thing?)

We’ve had an email from Kelly, asking about reusing a “Swiffer” handle:

I’m sick of having to buy Swiffer cloths so am swapping to a regular brush and mop instead. What can I do with an old Swiffer then?

Disposable branded cloths aren’t the only option for using with Swiffers and the like – there are lots of homemade alternative options, often reusing and recycling old fabric from clothes, which can be washed and reused like any household cloth.

Looking at the pictures on Google, they’re look like a pole with a flat bit on the end so I imagine could be used for various other cleaning purposes – gazing at our filthy window here, I could imagine using it to dry water stains off the glass.

The pole away from the base could be useful by itself – I remember an old thrifty decorating tip was to use wooden broom handles instead of curtain poles, I’m not sure if the Swiffer pole would work for that but maybe it would… Could the base be used as a sandpaper block when you want to lightly sand a large area?

Any other suggestions?

I’ll let you guess what we had for dinner last night ;)

We were packing away the papers afterwards and John commented on how much paper was going to waste – it was quite a lot, with spots of grease soaked through to the out-most layer.

Our friend George thinks it’s wonderful for lighting fires/stoves but given it’s almost midsummer, it’s not exactly stove lighting weather.

It would compost – I’m always wary about adding anything fishy/meaty to our compost bin though in case it attracts vermin. (The oil used at our local fish’n’chip place is vegetable oil but it must smell of a bit of fish because the cats love the papers, even when the food has gone.)

Any other reuses?

From a reduce point of view, I could take along a reusable container and ask them to use that instead – the people at our local place are great, so I’m sure they would do it. Any advice on what type of container to use? A completely sealed one might make everything a bit sweaty on the way home. A reusable box with a towel/cloth on top?

(In case this is very much a UK-centric question, I’ll explain a bit: when we get our stereotypical fish ‘n’ chips, they usually come wrapped in paper. It’s typically a “greaseproof” sheet or pocket underneath the food, then all wrapped in a few big sheets of cheap paper. This used to be newspaper but now it tends to be purpose-bought white paper (often blank newsprint). Some places use expanded foam clam shells or waxed cardboard boxes but the majority of dedicated fish’n’chip places, in the north at least, still use paper.)

(CCA photo by jem)

Our good friend Tim posted this question on Twitter yesterday:

Anyone have good craft ideas for a synthetic England Flag? There may be lots of them on the streets or landfills soon

There certainly will be! A4-ish size car ones, towel sized ones, super-sized ones… a whole lot of squeaky synthetic white fabric with a red cross on it — all of which will be instantly discarded as soon as the team are knocked out. (I’m speaking from experience about the disappearing – the photo was taken on our old estate by John during the last World Cup and they all disappeared the day after the losing match.)

Of course it would be great if everyone reduced – didn’t buy as many (if any) or kept them to reuse for future events rather than buying new each time but that doesn’t seem to happen.

So any reusing, upcycling and recycling suggestions?

• We get a lot of tutorials on making random old textiles into bags or aprons – but this is the other way around: use a cute old apron as an instant cafe-style kitchen curtain. I also love Ki’s use of an old paint roller as a kitchen roll holder.
• Courtney of the Greenists linked to this TED Talk by Treehugger’s Graham Hill about becoming a weekday vegetarian.
• Crafting a Green World on how to upcycle plain tiles into pretty coasters.
• I’m a sucker for not throwing away those last couple of yards of yarn at the end of a ball/project – and here is a very mini project to use them up.
• Speaking of using up scraps, Sandra of sawdustandpaperscraps make a very nice pinstripe picture frame using scraps of wood.
• And finally use an old hardback book and a dull pad of paper to make a more hardwearing and fun notepad.