We’ve had an email from Dom, saying:

I just rescued a set of dining room chairs from a skip. With a bit of a sand and coat of paint, two of them will be fine for use in my kitchen but the other two are broken. The supports under the seat have broken on one and the frame of the back on the other. Any suggestions?

Like with broken electronics and the like, I’d suggest giving fixing them a go because, at the end of the day, you’re not unlikely to break them any further and if you do, you won’t really have lost much (start with a broken chair, end with a broken chair) but might have learnt something along the way which will help you next time. (Or, if you know someone who likes fixing stuff, see if they’ll do it since they might be able to get them as good as new.)

We have a rickety old chair in the bathroom for throwing our clothes on – broken ones might be sufficient for that type of job – and we have a bizarre, stylised metal-frame one (which we inherited when we bought the house) in the garden and put plants on the seat: they’ve got room to trail and to climb and are out of the evil clutches of slugs too.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by _H_)

We’ve had an email from Andy Whittington about a subject that is close to my own heart (and nose):

We have two new feline housemates, and the accompanying cat litter with waste, does anyone have any idea how I can reuse/recycle this after the solid waste has been removed, and is the sawdust product more eco friendly than the porous stone chip version?

Congratulations on the new additions to your household Andy and welcome to the world of sitting on the floor because they’ve snagged the best chairs and refuse to be moved.

As I say on our sister site Compost This, it’s tempting to compost wood-based litter but poop parasites can cause a problem. Our garden is too small for multiple compost heaps but my mum and dad have a heap they just use for litter and accept that it’ll take ages to break down and not use it on their veg plot.

If the poo is, well, perfectly contained, then it’s less of a problem because it can be disposed of separately and the absorbed urine might actually help your compost heap because it’s nitrogen based. Just be careful to keep the heap balanced with other materials if you want it to breakdown in a reasonable time-frame.

I don’t know for sure about the eco-friendliness of the wood-based versus clay ones (does anyone else?) but I suspect (read: hope) that the former is a waste byproduct of the wood industry. It is also less likely to cause clumping issues for the cats. We’ve also tried recycled paper-based litters – they worked alright, just left the room smelling of damp paper – and if poo-free, could be composted like the wood ones.

Any other thoughts? Anyone know if the clay-based ones be used as aggregate in concrete or anything like that?

(Photo by mzacha)

We’ve had an email from Sam:

I’ve just cut down a tree in my backyard. I’ll compost the leafy bits but the branches would take far too long to rot. What can I do with them? I thought about getting one of those chipper things but they’re expensive so do you have any other suggestions?

You could maybe rent a wood shredder – and see if any friends or anyone else in the neighbourhood has stuff to chop up and would be willing to share the cost – but it might cost more than you’re willing to spend.

If there are some reasonably straight and not too thick branches, you could use them as plant supports in the garden or if they’re quite flexible, make them a trellis for plants to climb up.

Any other suggestions?

(Photo by Louchiere)

We’ve had an email from Phillip Levenson:

I own a joinery manufacturers and i produce a lot of wood shavings which is mixed softwood and hardwood shavings and some dust i am struggling to dispose of it quicker than i can produce it.

I have a couple of people who take it from me who own horses. Do you know of any other ways of maybe recycling the shavings?

Untreated and unpainted wood can be composted but any reuse ideas?

(Photo by slafko)

Cor, it’s a bit on the warm side, isn’t it?

Aside from an excellent storm last night, it’s been silly-hot (for the UK at least) and sticky. I have very much enjoyed hiding in the house and only venturing out in the evening when it’s all a bit more civilised. My house-bound activities have been:

• peeling myself off the leather sofa (ick)
• cursing my overheating laptop
• and eating ice lollies.

Therefore I now have:

• a rug over the sofa
• a pad between my knee and the laptop
• and a big pile of ice lolly sticks.

My first thought for the sticks was keeping them for labelling up next year’s veg plot but since I have already have a stack of the plastic ones to use up, any other suggestions would be great!