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)

Here’s this week’s awesome reducing, reusing & recycling links round-up:

• These leather scrap mushrooms are a great idea for using up scraps & leftover material from bigger leathercraft projects – or recycling bits of leather from old clothes/accessories.
• Kris of Resweater pointed out a very easy tip to extend the life of children’s plastic summer toys & games – tidy them away to reduce the plastic’s sun exposure.
• Friend of Recycle This Alison Bailey Smith emailed to tell us about an art show starting today in Birkenhead on the Wirral (in the north west of England). On display is art made by the local community and professional artists (like Alison) from recycled materials.
• Abbie posted on Simple Green Frugal about how difficult it is to find non-plastic sippy cups — and how an old glass jar can be transformed into a plastic-free(ish) alternative.
• Mrs Green of My Zero Waste is urging us all to take action and improve tetra-pak recycling in our local areas.
• Craftzine linked to this great tutorial for a paper ball garland – a party decorating alternative to the now ubiquitous bunting. Ok, this isn’t a reuse as it is but the scrap paper could easily be used instead of specially bought craft paper – security envelopes would be low-key fun or colourful catalogues/magazines for something brighter.
• Mademoiselle Chaos showed us how she turned an old blown-out umbrella into chunky yarn.

Cor, I worked hard in the garden yesterday – I was ill all last week so was a week behind on everything, and gardens don’t tolerate being a week behind at this time of year, especially since I’m already a couple of months behind on some things!

I think though, aside from a few things for successive planting or winter crops, I’ve planted just about everything I want to try this year – a new garden so lots of experimenting — and lots of empty seed packets in my seed box.

Obviously they’re just paper so could go in our recycling bin but I thought it might be interesting to hear if anyone uses them for anything creative – or to help garden organisation/labelling.

Any suggestions?

(CCA photo by LollyKnit)

(Oooh, alliteration!)

We’ve had a Compost This email from Charlie:

Can I compost those paper fairy cake cases?

I’m presuming the question is about used ones rather than a box of new ones (you’re not going to use them? Freecycle!) and the answer is a big, definite ‘maybe’.

The tiny cases I’ve got in my cupboard seem to be just paper so I’d probably risk those but other ones – particularly muffin cases and ones on bought-in cakes – tend to feel waxier. It might be that they’ve just been treated (supercalendered to make glassine) and are still just paper, but it also might be that they’ve been treated with a plasticizing agent, which may or may not be natural, and so may or may not be something you want in your compost heap. If you’re not sure of the composition of the material, it’s probably best leaving them out.

(If you’re baking at home and your cakes are always going to be eaten in the home, it might be worth getting some reusable cake cases – although they tend to be made from silicone so have a higher initial impact than paper ones.)

Thoughts?

Our new furry food-processing unit is settling in well – she’s curled up in a ball on our office sofa at the moment – and we’ve been enjoying the woodland walks with her now that she can go off lead and tire herself out.

As with the cats, I’m trying to keep the waste produced by her food packaging to a minimum – and also, like with the cats’, it can mostly be recycled – cans, cardboard boxes and the giant paper sacks which are the focus of this post.

I bulk-bought the 15kg bags to save money and reduce packaging – but thought that, like with smaller bags of the same brand, the big bags would be plastic so could be reused as rubble sacks or similar in the garden. They turned out to be paper which is better in some ways – much easier to recycle – but less reusable. Or are they?

They’re a double layer arrangement – brown paper on the inside, shiny printed paper on the outside. The brown paper layer smells somewhat of dry dog food so can’t be reused for things I’d ordinarily reuse brown paper for (packaging items to post etc).

So any ideas?