So - not only recycling to be frugal, but for re-using too :) At the moment, I get my milk in big 2 litre plastic bottles. It's the only organic milk my milkman can get, and as it's fairly local, from just over the border in Somerset, it ticks a lot of boxes. The only bugbear is the plastic, but I do try to re-use as many as I can, which then go on to be recylced when done with. The ones I can't use are taken for recycling too. I use them for the freezer - good for freezing stock and soup, or filled with water and frozen for ice blocks, or just to use up the space to make the freezer run more efficiently.
This is what I'm doing with them at the moment; I cut the bottle into 3 pieces
The top section makes a really good funnel, with a wider opening; coudl also be used for watering pots, eg tomatoes, to get the water direct to the roots without wasting/evaporation. The bottom section makes a handy wee tray - using at the moment for growing cress indoors, but a multitude of uses for them - drip trays, holding wee bits in the greenhouse, soap moulds, paint, all sorts of uses for them. The straight middle section I cut up into plant labels - they last for ages and are re-usable for a couple of seasons at least. After extra usage, all the bits get taken for recycling too, but it's very satisfying to get extra uses out of them before this.
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My Welsh grandad was one for re-using stuff - he used tp being home assorted stuff rescued from his job at the helicopter factory. Plastic drinks cups for seedling pots, foam rubber offcuts to stuff cushions and kneelers for weeding, punched out titanium discs turned into bird-scarers and glass fibre sheet offcuts for plant labels. Smaller seed tray labels were made from cut up washing liquid bottles. Any residue still left in the salvaged bottles was used as general purpose cleaner and greenfly spray. (At a pinch, he would wash what little hair he had left with Fairy liquid too).
He spent all the war years in the army, but to compensate he spent the rest of his life digging for victory and living frugally. His only luxuries were Murray Mints, which he had to give up due to diabetes, and his trips to the bookies. The local bookies closed down within weeks of his death. Not sure if he heard the news and gave up hope, or he was investing more than the 20p each way that he claimed.
He influenced me so much. Just wish I'd inherited his hairless legs too.
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