We were walking in the woods down the road the other day when we got a bit overexcited – there was a plastic sledge in the undergrowth under a holly bush! We’re far too grown-up to buy a sledge for us to play with but a found one? weeeeeee!

When we pulled it out, we found why it was under there – the plastic runners had snapped off and there were just holes the length of the sledge in their place. Cue two disappointed faces. We left it where it was because we were on the outward swing of our walk and forgot to pick it up on the way back – but we might go pick it up again if we can thing of a good reuse for it.

The plastic looked too thin/brittle to warrant a repair job to be reused as a sledge but that doesn’t mean it has to head for landfill.

The first reuse idea that springs to mind is the ubiquitous planter – I can always use new planters. The holes were only about 1cm across – some crocks or a bit of liner would stop the soil falling out but provide adequate drainage – but I’d be a little cautious about growing food in there because it’s unlikely to be decent quality plastic and may leach all sorts of stuff into the soil.

What else could I do with it instead?

We’ve had an email from (not my) John:

What can be done with Smint boxes? Anything?

Smint packets are sealed plastic dispensers, which according to the Smint website can’t be opened and refilled to “assure the maximum hygiene for our product”. That makes them infinitely less easy to reuse as, say, Tic Tac boxes, which can be opened and refilled easily.

Does anyone know if there is a way to open & refill Smint boxes? If you can get into them, like Tic Tac boxes, they’d be useful for storing and dispensing all sorts of small items like beads, seeds or air rifle pellets. If you can’t get into them though, I’m stuck for reuses. Anyone else got any ideas?

The best thing would probably be to avoid them in the first place – the all important “reduce”. There are lots of mints available in paper packaging – a much lower footprint.

Any other thoughts?

After last month’s straw placemats and coasters post, I got thinking about plastic “disposable” tablecloths – the type people buy as a cheap way to decorate their table for children’s (and other) parties.

They’re usually thin sheets of plastic, either brightly coloured or covered with character pictures – so they seem like ideal candidates for upcycling — any specific ideas?

They’re also good as table/floor/everything covers for during messy crafts sessions – or use a no sew poncho pattern to turn them into splash-proof ponchos for very messy art activities!

Of course, it would be better to reduce in the first place – buy multi-purpose washable textiles or easy-clean oilcloth ones. Or if you don’t want a bunch of 5 year olds to ruin your best linen, cover tables with cheap blank newsprint/sugar paper and let the kids decorate it themselves — the best bits can be cut out and kept as a memento and the rest can go into your paper recycling.

As for actually recycling plastic ones, they’re usually made from HDPE (resin code 2) like carrier bags – so can be recycled alongside shopping bags.

Any other ideas for reusing and upcycling them?

Continuing in our Green Halloween series…

Along with masks and costumes, the shops are full of Halloween decorations at the moment too. Plastic skulls & skeletons, plastic pumpkins, plastic spiders & bats, plastic ghosts & ghouls … lots of plastic.

As with the masks, it’s far greener (and more fun!) to make decorations from scratch rather than relying on stuff that’s mass produced on the other side of the world. There are loads of make your own Halloween decorations how-tos out there (for example, these ten different ideas…). But still, lots of people turn to shop bought stuff.

Any suggestions for ways to reuse or recycle these bits and bobs? Plastic pumpkin/cauldron plant pots?

Or how to repurpose/upcycle things to use them all year around – as decorations or for other purposes?

One idea I saw was using skull ice cube trays as soap moulds – while they intend the finished article to be a Halloween party favour/trick or treat gift, why restrict the fun to just this event? I say fun skull soaps all year around!

Another idea for a bigger, harder plastic skull – drill/poke pencil size holes around the cranium and use it as a fun pen/pencil pot – like Pinhead from the Hellraiser films, but with brightly coloured felt tips.

Anyone using Halloween decorations or party favours to make spooky costume jewellery?

Any other ideas?

With Halloween at the weekend, the shops are full masks and costumes at the moment.

To keep this blog reasonably rant free, I shalln’t go into my feelings for a) the sudden importing of Halloween as a large scale holiday and b) the rise of shop-bought fancy dress outfits and costumes (isn’t half the fun making it yourself and it being a laugh rather than perfect replica?). Whether I like it or not, Halloween is big business nowadays and that means that come next Monday morning, there will be a lot of masks facing brief visit to the dustbin on their way to landfill.

The cheapest sort are face-only flimsy plastic, held on with a thin piece of elastic. They’re seemingly intended for one time use before tearing at a weak spot. The more expensive specific-character ones are often latex or thicker plastic.

Of course, there is an obvious “reduce”: don’t buy them in the first place or keep it and use it again in the future – but people rarely go as the same thing year after year. But what about reuses or recycling ideas?

Has anyone remodelled an old mask to use for something else? I teach drama one evening a week and wanted some masks in the summer to use as a basis for making Japanese Noh masks – I didn’t need them in the end but having something already modelled around a face shape would have been useful then.

Or what about using them for moulds for something? I’m not sure the plastic of the cheap ones would be strong enough for repeated uses but you might be able to use them for something… any ideas?

I doubt many theatre groups would want the a raft load of horror masks unless they were doing a halloween spectacular – and they might be too scary/too adult for schools to want them – can anyone think of anywhere else that might need some en masse?

(Photo by creativedc)