For some reason, our local supermarket has stopped selling lemon juice in sensible containers and only sells it in plastic lemon-shaped bottles now. (Not actually Jif lemons but similar, with a flat bottom.)

We had to buy a couple of those annoying plastic lemons to tide us over until we can get to another shop to buy it in a lovely, recyclable glass bottle.

Admittedly we could squeeze it fresh – we generally need it in small quantities (a tsp or so at a time) – but we could freeze it (in half ice cube amounts, then once frozen, crack them out of the cubes into a baggie to save space) — but after last week’s marmalade & lemon curd making, I’m not sure how much more citrus fruit squeezing my poor hands can take ;) (I will do it though if this lemon juice in plastic lemons situation continues.)

According to the plastic lemon, it can be recycled – but doesn’t give a resin code number so I don’t know what type of plastic it is.

So any reusing or recycling ideas?

(Photo by Paul Hurst under the CCA-SA licence)

We’ve had an email from Tasha:

We are a hairdressing scissors company trying to find a charity we can send old hairdressing scissors too?

If you know of any could you please let me know.

I don’t know of any – does anyone else?

What about charities that collect scrap metal in general? From what I’ve read, hairdressers scissors tend to be make from steel and that’s widely recyclable – does anyone know of any charities that collect steel to raise money from recycling?

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?