We’ve had an email from Chelsea, who has very nicely been pimping this site to her family:

I told my mom about this site and she asked if there was anything about coffee cans. She saves all the ones she has, and just uses them for storing nails and such. Any better ideas?

In the UK, most coffee tends to come in either jars or bags but we’ve got some old Illy cans knocking around from before John discovered our fab local coffee supplier, the Just Coffee People (if you’re in Leeds, you should really try it – coffee fans tell me it’s great from there and we also heart the tea – and if you read the about page you’ll see it’s a great Social Firm too. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes..). The Illy cans either came with a screw top lid or a rubber cap, depending on the size of the can, so have way more reuses than a standard more-difficult-to-reseal food can.

Like Chelsea’s mum, we use them for nails etc in the cellar, storing other teas & coffees in the kitchen, a pen pot in the office upstairs and I’ve got two in front of me in the living room right now working as money boxes for our spare change. I’ve also used the screw on lids as saucers under plant pots – they’re silver and quite deep so look fun.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve had an email from Chris, saying:

I searched the archives, but didn’t find any mention of what to do with breadmaker pans. Mine had the teflon coating peeling off, so I got a new one. I am looking into where to find a scrap metal place, but any other suggestions would be appreciated…

As I might have mentioned before, we have rather eager scrap metal collectors around here so if it was us, we’d probably just have to think about getting rid of it and a telepathic scrap metaler would appear on our doorstep a second later. I suspect our local tip (household waste collection site) also has a scrap metal bin.

But we’re all about reuses here so anyone got any other suggestions? Most breadmaker pans I’ve seen have an annoying extrusion on the bottom (where the mechanics click in) and a short stick thing in the middle on the inside (where you put the turning blades) so they don’t automatically lend themselves to the usual plant pot etc options.

Thoughts?

We’ve covered the standard food size ones, but what can be done with little tin cans?

John gave a talk at the Manchester Free Software group last month and afterwards we all adjourned to a nearby pub where we found these little nuts cans on our table.

As I’d just been talking about this website to a couple of people, we decided to do a group-think on how we could re-use them but the best we could come up with was a mobile equivalent of a tin-can ‘telephone’ (because they’re more portable).

With a couple of holes punched in the bottom, they’d make cute little plant pots – but only for very little plants – so any other suggestions?

(The cans are about 4cm in diameter and 5cm in height, quite a solid metal and I think they originally had a paper lid so the rim at the top is quite dull, unlike most opened cans.)

We’ve had an email from Victoria, saying:

My grandfather has moved out of the house and left a very large collection of used razor blades. For what reason he never seemed to throw them out and just let them pile up in a bathroom cabinet. Can this item be recycled?

I’m presuming Victoria means safety razor type blades – not fully disposable razors or straight blades.

If they’re just metal (without plastic casing) then I suspect they can be recycled in the same way as other steel (most household waste sites have special containers for scrap metal) but what about reuses?

(Photo by iannai)

We’ve had an email from Carla, saying:

I’ve recently developed an obsession with sardines and my green bin is now full of cans! Is there anything I can do with them?

We’ve already covered standard food cans but most of the ideas take advantage of those cans’ cylindrical nature and height.

The shallow nature of sardine cans might make them useful for under small plant pots (but watch out for rust) or for candles – both to catch drips of tall ones or a mould/dish for making new ones.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by stroinski)