I am a fan of biscuits (aka cookies). I have written of my love of biscuits. I am eating a biscuit while writing this. I do try to make my own biscuits but we eat store-bought ones too – and that obviously means packaging waste.

My favourite shop-bought ones are McVitie’s dark choc digestives so I contacted United Biscuits (who make McVities and a number of other brands) recently about their film-y packaging. They got back to me immediately – which is great compared to most companies – but the news isn’t particular good:

“Packs are made from polypropylene, which is not biodegradable. However, it is recyclable, although I am advised that whilst there are facilities to accommodate this elsewhere, there are currently none in the UK. We are working with the government agencies to try and develop suitable collection in the UK.

Having said that, a lot of work is currently taking place in the packaging community to develop films from sustainable bio sources such as corn. Development of these films may result in biodegradable and compostable films suitable for packaging our products.

The silver layer present in some of our packaging, is a microscopic layer of aluminium used as a barrier to prevent the migration of oxygen into the pack. This increases the shelf life of the product from several days to several months.

We use many hundreds of tonnes of film every year and are very concerned not only by the environment but also by the fact that plastics are derived from a non-renewable resource, crude oil.

Our packaging experts are working with the country’s leading producers to find replacements that are safe, cost effective and environmentally friendly as far as possible.”

Sigh.

So they say it can’t be recycled – what are the other options? Aside from making more at home, I’m careful to bulk buy possible (keeping the excess air-tight to avoid spoilage) but not buy their multipacks, which are the regular packs in an additional plastic pack.

Are there any reuses for polypropylene film? Anyone know of any other recycling avenues to explore?

• With Halloween approaching, check out this fab tutorial on making mini skull lanterns out of little plastic bottles – she says “milk bottles” but from a British POV, they look more like little yoghurt drink bottles. Either way though, ace!
• SueAnn on Lil Bird Told Me has posted a great idea to make old carrier bags easier & neater to storage/carry around – fold them into triangles. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this since I do it obsessively with every crisp packet I see!
• Have gloves magically disappeared from your winter warmer collection over the summer? If so, you could use the remaining odd ones to make a cute animal plushie toy! Dinner for Mousci has a how-to.
• I love these chunky beads made from old cereal boxes – very fun!
• Finally, in case you didn’t see it, friend of Recycle This Petra made a clothes peg airer thing out of “some electricity pipe, an old iron coat hanger, some rope and pegs” – I want to make my own too now!

(Photo by Care for DollarStoreCrafts)

Recycle This regular Lizzie has asked:

Any suggestions for Nesquik tubs? I think Nesquik is probably the greenest solution to my chocolate milkshake addiction , but what, oh what can I do with the bright-yellow rectangular-ish tubs?

Google informs me that there are several types of Nesquik tub but the Nesquik website has a picture of this sort – curved plastic oblongs – so I’m going to go with that — hopefully Lizzie means this sort.

I would imagine they’d reseal pretty well – in order to protect the contents between milkshakes – so they could be reused as a container for other dry goods. If I had one right now, I’d use it for rice as we’ve got a too-big-for-me-to-hold sack of it or to keep opened packets of flour or sugar dry and air tight.

Assuming the label peels off and you’re left with a plain yellow tub, the fun colour also lends itself to be used as storage in a kid’s room – I suspect it’ll be just too small for most pencils/felt tip pens, but crayons would fit in it as would small figures/toys.

Any other reuses spring to mind?

As for actually recycling it, I can’t find out online what type of plastic the tubs are made from – anyone know?

(Btw, on the Nesquik website, “mums” and “dads” have separate sections: the mums section is about nutrition and convincing your kids to drink milk because “we know it’s good for them” while the “dads” bit is about having fun, spending time with your kids and being nostalgic for the Nesquik taste. Sigh.)

The other week when I asked how people make their home baked goods last longer, Dani suggested using little packets of silica gel crystals to a biscuit jar to draw the moisture away from the munchables. (I’ve heard rice can be used in the same way.)

Dani’s comment got me thinking about other ways that those little sachets of silica gel could be reused. Dani gets hers from bottles of vitamins but they are often included with other things too – I’ve had them in shoes or leather bags/purses, or thrown in with deliveries of dried food items.

Care should be taken when reusing these pouches – because silica gel crystals can cause irritation to the repository and digestive tracts – but their moisture absorbing qualities are very useful: they can absorb up to 40% of its own weight in water vapour.

Looking around the web, people suggest using them to protect sensitive items from getting damp: important papers, seeds, camera/electronic equipment – even jewellery (the moisture adds to tarnish on silver). You can also use silica gel crystals to as cat litter – but I imagine you’d need a helluva lot of these little sachets to fill a tray.

What else can you do with them?

Following on from the discussion we had the other week about whether people would prefer less packaging or more packaging that was easier to reuse/recycle, I’ve been wondering: have you ever stopped buying something because of its packaging?

One of the purposes of packaging is to attract us to buy the product over all the other options on the shelf – but has a company’s packaging decision actually turned you away from the item?

Perhaps they use shrink wrap plastic unnecessarily, or perhaps they swapped from something easily recyclable to something almost impossible to recycle (eg Kitkat moving from foil & paper to shiny plastic), or perhaps it was like the joint of beef which is potentially going to cost Sainsburys a lot of money next month – just too much of everything.

What’s put you off?