Along with crafting, coming up with and collecting nifty ideas for recycling things is a family trait that’s been passed down from generation to generation. I have fond memories of my grandfather’s collection of carefully straightened used nails, and bits and pieces that would come in useful some day. My mother tells stories of how my nana made children’s clothes out of old ties and mens shirts.

But these innovations often sprang mainly from necessity. My grandparents raised their children during the depression. My mother’s recycling was as much about a concern for the environment as from a need to be thrifty. She cuts up rubber kitchen gloves to make elastic bands and refused to take plastic bags long before it became an accepted practise.

These days we have recycling bins, with a growing list of packaging and materials that can go in them. We compost. Paul and I rarely fill the small sized bin for garbage. I have a long habit of avoiding polystyrene and plastics that can’t be recycled. Old clothes go to the charity shop if still in good condition, if not they become rags.

But there are a couple of things that we have or get in quantity that I’ve not found a good solution for. First there’s the packing material leftover from the numerous parcels we both receive. My Aussie publisher uses a wonderful product with a recycled paper layer instead of bubble wrap and a celulose version of packing peanuts that dissolves in water, but most of my parcels from overseas and come in awful paper-covered bubble wrap envelopes with polystyrene packing peanuts. Paul’s eBay purchases often come wrapped in bubblewrap and/or filled with more polystyrene peanuts.

I save up the bubble wrap to give to friends who are moving house, but that doesn’t happen anywhere near as often as it used to, and finding space to store it is always a problem. I have no idea what to do with the polystyrene packing peanuts.

I also have lots of audio cassette tapes I don’t want any more. Any suggestions?