What do you re-use?

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What do you re-use?
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Downsizer Forum Index -> Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

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Green Rosie

Joined: 13 May 2007
Posts: 10498
Location: Calvados, France

Posted: Sat Jan 16, 10 7:34 pm Post subject:
Excellent idea - I could hang that off the overhead drying rack

T.G

Joined: 13 Sep 2009
Posts: 7280
Location: Somewhere you're not

Posted: Sun Jan 17, 10 3:48 pm Post subject:

[quote="Midland Spinner"]
I collect newspaper from a friend at work who gets a paper - we use it for lighting the fire, check
Jam jars (obviously!) check
We had a Chinese take away about 18 months ago and the plastic trays are excellent for holding the laundry soap & washing balls next to the sink in the futility room. check - but more frequent
Cat food or bean tins occasionally get used for washing paint - bean tins for holes in lawn for putting green
Loo roll inners for seed planting - check
I keep padded envelopes for later re-use, Check - using a small bit of sticky tape you can stick it on and remove it it removes the writing (sometimes with a small amount of paper)without damaging the envelope too much. and reuse bubblewrap

Also turn envelopes that come pre-addressed but for something you won't be sending for inside out and re-use

I also buy one particular brand of peanut butter purely as they come in plastic pots with screw lids so are safer than jam jars to use for storing nails screws clips etc in

Ginkotree

Joined: 26 Jun 2008
Posts: 2956
Location: south west wales

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 10 6:30 pm Post subject:

fabric conditioner bottles from yonks ago have lasted for feed scoops if you cut them at the right angle
orange peel for fire lighter
a huge amount of the farm is made from recycled stuff that folk bring here...THANKYOU

doors..work surfaces...
the compost loos are made from an old side board...mahogany, very posh..and an old bed ...oak I think..
I am lucky to have the room to take stuff from folk, use them or store,,,then when people need bits of furniture I let them have it...

I took all the wood from a man who collected it, so much there was no room for his children in the house..very sad...and he was going to be evicted...he was happy that it is all recycled down to the last bit with all sorts of uses...and the very last..to keep warm.the girls were happy to have thier rooms back..

Material to make quilts.

OOh its endless....and I am definately Recycled after all my treatments

Nell Merionwen

Joined: 02 Jun 2008
Posts: 16300
Location: Beautiful Derbyshire

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 10 6:56 pm Post subject:
I get quite excited if I aquire a large cardbord box....the chickens will get a new nest box plastic bags, card, string, what ever I can. I also wash out freezer bags...why would someone not?

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 10 7:07 pm Post subject:

Helen M wrote:

I also wash out freezer bags...why would someone not?

Because they are dead cheap and life is too bl**dy short

Midland Spinner

Joined: 13 Jan 2009
Posts: 2931
Location: Under a green roof

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 8:29 am Post subject:

The.Grange wrote:

I keep padded envelopes for later re-use, Check - using a small bit of sticky tape you can stick it on and remove it it removes the writing (sometimes with a small amount of paper)without damaging the envelope too much.

Oh good tip!

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 9:48 am Post subject:

Midland Spinner wrote:

Someone please stop me if I get to that stage

There is apparently a recognised mental illness of excessive hoarding.
Really bad cases won't even throw away their own bodily fluids.

I seem to be having a phase of being given old cookers. I'm on the third in the space of a month.
They're held together with loads of self tapping screws which anyone knows are endlessly useful, and I'm sure there is a use for all those switches and metal plates.

The actual ovens are now going to be recycling bins or something like.

Not yet stripped the third one if anyone needs a cooker...

Bulgarianlily

Joined: 01 Jun 2008
Posts: 1667
Location: South West Mountains of Bulgaria

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 9:55 am Post subject:
I find the shiny drums from old dryers exciting. But that is enough confessions for one day!

Bebo

Joined: 21 May 2007
Posts: 12590
Location: East Sussex

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 9:56 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

Midland Spinner wrote:

Someone please stop me if I get to that stage

There is apparently a recognised mental illness of excessive hoarding.

My OH used to work for a London Borough and several times was given the task of helping the environmental health team with sorting out council accommodation that had been occupied by someone with this problem. On one occassion they had to clear out a property that an elderly gentleman had been living in for years. His daily routine was to go out and scavenge items for bins, take them back, wrap them individually in newspaper and store them away. He'd been doing this for years. Every room in the house was full from floor to ceiling. He was living and sleeping in an armchair in his hallway with a camp stove to cook on and a bucket as a toilet.

Erikht

Joined: 08 Feb 2005
Posts: 3358

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 10:39 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

There is apparently a recognised mental illness of excessive hoarding. Really bad cases won't even throw away their own bodily fluids.

If I ever took up tanning, those would be useful.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 12:30 pm Post subject:

Erikht wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:

There is apparently a recognised mental illness of excessive hoarding. Really bad cases won't even throw away their own bodily fluids.

If I ever took up tanning, those would be useful.

But you'd stink - better to save up for a fortnight in Spain

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 1:18 pm Post subject:

Erikht wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:

There is apparently a recognised mental illness of excessive hoarding. Really bad cases won't even throw away their own bodily fluids.

If I ever took up tanning, those would be useful.

Yes, but saving it up just in case is going a bit far I think.
If supplies are that much of a problem, team up with a porta-loo firm.

gardening-girl

Joined: 25 Feb 2009
Posts: 6024
Location: Somerset.

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 10:16 pm Post subject:
We had to mend a tumble drier today, using bits from another one.The glass door panel makes a very good bowl

vegplot

Joined: 19 Apr 2007
Posts: 21301
Location: Bethesda, Gwynedd

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 10:53 pm Post subject:
Brass .357 magnum cases which are reloaded many time before being recycled as scrap and recovered lead from the back stop made into new bullets.

Bodrighy

Joined: 15 Aug 2008
Posts: 2157
Location: Near Devizes

Posted: Thu Feb 11, 10 11:55 pm Post subject:

We hang our washed bags on a cord on the back door. We use shreddded paper for packaging along with scrounged bubble wrap and I make my own boxes from old ones cut down to size. Centres from paper towels etc are useful for packaging things like crochet hooks etc. My main problem is wood. We have a wood burner but every timne we get any wood I am there with a serious problem, sorting out what is useful for turning and what is for burning. Now I have started making dolls furniture and miniatures it is a really big problem. Fortunately managed to acquire 2 calor gas heaters from Freecycle so don't need so much wood

Pete

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