Top Tips

Ever feel bad about chucking stuff out? Put aside ten minutes and look through www.greenusesforwaste.co.uk. Highly recommended!

Most paper recycling collections won't take envelopes, so what do you do with them? We've had a couple of ideas...

Got lots of seeds spare from your garden? Want to swap them for other seeds?

You know all the "non addressed" junk mail that is delivered by the postman? Well if you write to this address requesting the deliveries to be stopped, they are supposed to stop.

Many people have suggested uses for old CDs but if you get stuck, you can recycle them at the Hazel Court household waste site.

It's a shame that most plastic food packing like trays and pots can't be recycled very easily. But at least it's very easy to reuse it! When washed out carefully, food trays can be used as plant pot bases, and small pots come in very handy for putting bits and bobs in. These are only a couple of suggestions, and you can probably think of many more. Why not keep an eye out for useful looking packaging when buying things?

Bananas have a lot of potash in, so if you're planting something that has a special need for it (like tomatoes or roses) bury banana-skins in the soil before planting. (Editor's Note: This is another one I haven't tried. If you're a gardening expert, please let us know your thoughts on this.)

1. If your slugs' favourite nosh is in a planter, smear a ring of Vaseline around it about 1/2way up: slugs can't grip a vertical slippery surface. 2. Slugs taste with their feet, and they hate coffee! Coffee-grounds dropped tactically around vulnerable plants will help keep slugs away. 3. Put out beer-traps in the spring, to keep the numbers down right from the start. The happy victims and the beer can be emptied onto the compost heap.

Quite a few people across York have wood-burning stoves at home, and they'd be happy to have decent quality unpainted timber and tree bits. (But not chipboard or MDF!) If you don't know anyone with a woodburning stove, why not try advertising your scrap wood on York Freecycle?

Cardboard is compostable - corrogated cardboard and egg-boxes are the best, they even have the advantage of helping your compost 'breathe'. Cardboard food packaging can also go on: all the dyes used are vegetable-based and non-toxic. But watch out for foil-lined packaging!

Disposable barbecues are great! They're less than two quid from the supermarket and they don't take up lots of space in your shed. But "disposable"? Never! Just get a 97p barbeque wire brush from the same supermarket and with 2 minutes work you can clean the cooking grille ready to be used again. And again. And again. And if ever the aluminium tray gets knackered beyond use - recycle it!

Fed up with plastic milk bottles? Investigate whether you can have your milk delivered. (The Co-Op and G&A Lonsdale do doorstep deliveries in York.)

Autumn leaves rot much more slowly than normal compost stuff. They can be left to rot in a sack (or a bin-liner with holes in) along with a few lawn-clippings, in a lightly-used bit of the garden (under a hedge, behind the compost bin/shed/greenhouse...) It may take over a year, but the resulting mixture can be used just like compost.

Nettles can pull minerals from the soil that other plants find it hard to access. If you need a liquid feed for the lawn you can fill a bucket with freshly-cut nettles, cover with water and leave for 2 weeks. The resulting 'concentrate' needs to be diluted with about 12 times as much water, then just water the lawn with it.

Extreme compost enthusiasts add seaweed to their compost heap, to give their compost extra minerals. What you do is just fill a bucket with loose bits when you next go to the seaside. (Editor's Note: Does this really work? If you know anything on this one then please contact us!)