(My! doesn’t that sound like a smutty euphemism? :) )

We’ve had an email from Alicia:

Because a leak caused damp, all the metal stuff in my kitchen cupboard went rusty while I was on holiday. Didn’t think that could happen but it has! There is a square grater, a colander and a seive. Can I do anything with them?

I’ve de-rusted a cast iron griddle pan and we regularly have to de-rust our less-than-perfectly-seasoned wok but I imagine it might be harder work to restore holey things like that – anyone got any advice on repairing them and protecting them so they don’t continue to rust?

I’ve seen all three used as fun light fittings (eg this Instructable uses a colander as a ceiling light shade). If you don’t want them rusty, you could sand them back to get rid of the flakiness and paint them to protect it from future rust and give it a new look.

Failing all that, they’re some sort of metal so can be recycled in the metal scrap bin at your local tip/waste collection site.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve got a couple of sieves that I’ve had for years. If I remember rightly, I bought a pack of three of them at the 50p shop in Liverpool before inflation hit and the 50p shop turned into a Poundland-esque effort.

Needless to say, they weren’t the finest quality sieves to start with and after years of use, they’re not going to be winning any “best sieve in the world” contests.

They’re flimsy plastic and the edges of the sieve seem to be permanently gacked up with flour/water glue as well as tea stains from being used as a tea strainer so they’re not really suitable for culinary uses any more.

But what can we do with them instead? They’re a bit fine for using in the garden for getting the stones out of soil but I’m sure there must be other possibilities. Any suggestions?