We’ve had an email from Bree, asking:

How can I recycle/reuse the multitude of little allen wrenches I have acquired with my IKEA furniture? I have a pile of them!

It’s a shame they’re not opt-in to begin with – because we’ve got a number kicking around too – but I guess that doesn’t fit with their everything-you-need-in-one-standard-pack concept.

Obviously one or two of them can go into your tool box for other jobs but that’s not going to use up that pile (how many reserve allen keys does a person really need?). We actually tend to tape the leftover allen key to the back/underside of the piece of furniture it arrived with so if we need to disassemble it in a hurry, but that’s only happened once so is probably a bit excessive.

So how about reuses? I imagine they’d be pretty good for keeping with your shoe cleaning kit – for digging stuff out between ridges in the soles of trainers – but that’s only one. Any other suggestions?

(I’ve contacted IKEA about this by the way, to see if they’ve got any schemes or plans to go opt-in — no response yet though. UPDATE: see my comment below.)