As previous posts may have indicated, I have rather a sweet tooth and from time to time, treat myself with cake or biscuit related products.

When we buy them, we don’t fool around and usually get full sized cakes or at least loaf-shaped ones but sometimes we get fiddly, little individual ones like this pack of Viennese Swirls. Mmm, swirly.

The Swirls came in a cardboard box then inside that, nestled in a formed plastic nest. The plastic is really thin and flimsy but still… Any suggestions?

John and I are breakfast cereal-fanatics at the moment and are munching our way through box after box of pre-sweetened, chocolate-flavour flavoured puffed nonsense (me) and dull, wholewheat goodness (him).

Most of our favourite cereals come in plastic bags within glossy-printed cardboard boxes so we’re left with a lot of rubbish at the end of each pack.

When I was small, cereal boxes were regularly harvested for their card but I don’t do as much cutting and sticking for fun now – and when I do need some non-corrugated card, cat food boxes tend to be sturdier (if slightly smelling of fish and ash).

As with most paper products, they will compost down but some people worry about the full colour printed designs – some inks are toxic and will leech chemicals into the compost.

Any reusing or recycling for the card sides or the boxes as a whole?

(Photo by simbncn)

Most of the time, we buy loose veg – less packaging, get to choose exact which items we want and how many etc etc. But every now and then, usually when we go shopping last thing and there is no choice at all, we have to buy it pre-packed.

The most common offender is courgettes but I couldn’t find a picture of courgettes on a tray and we’ve got loose ones at the moment so I can’t take a picture myself. So here’s a picture of sausages on a similar tray, just imagine the sausages are courgettes. Ok.

So here we have our courgettes on trays. They’re narrow, shallow trays, either make of cushioning foam or flimsy plastic and we don’t know what to do with them. They’re not deep enough to use as kitchen top compost collection receptacles (we use mushroom boxes for this purpose when cooking or for collecting tea bags/leaves each day) but the plastic ones especially are too flimsy to be used under plant pots.

Any suggestions?

(Photo by fritz018)

A suggestion from Heather:

I’m so bad. Every day, I buy those prepacked sandwiches rather than making my own. Sometimes I go to Pret and buy cardboard and cellophane wrapped ones, and sometimes I go to the yummy bakery up the road and get them just wrapped in cellophone but most of the time, sigh, I have to get those standard pre-packaged sandwiches in the triangular plastic wastefulness. I do feel bad while I eat them and not just because the sandwiches are bland and tasteless yet just cost me £2. What can I do with the packaging when I’m done with it?

(Photo by Asterisco, c/o sxc.hu)

Last Friday, before setting forth on an expedition that would involve standing in the sun and shouting for a long time, we decided to gather all the water bottles in the house and refill them to take along.

We’re not fans of bottled water and only buy bottles when we’re in a bind, so it was quite surprising to see how many we had accumulated around the house.

We only need so many for reusing as water bottles* for over the summer so what can we do with the rest? What are your favourite reusing or recycling ideas?

* refilling old bottles, I should add, is strictly forbidden, according to notes on the labels of the bigger brands. So don’t do it! don’t! ;)
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