Waste not, want not

In my disorganised garage occasionally I come across tools which I guess date from my grand-dad's time. Trowels, chisels, lump hammers and an implement for pulling thread through leather all feature. It seems to be part of the family tradition not to throw anything away until all possible uses have been explored. So there are obvious ones like the recycling of supermarket plastic bags for holding  the various kitchen waste piles; curtains becoming dust covers when decorating and padded envelopes which criss-cross the country several times.

My father used my school leather satchel for about 40 years as a source of leather for a variety of patches in his recycling projects. Old wellington boots were another source of "raw material" usually being stitched with waxed leather thread to create a replacement slipper sole for example (so inventing his version of outdoor slippers). It didn't surprise me too much when my engineering orientated brother designed and made a wellington stand for his daughter's family:

 Spot the old stair banister rail, poles from a windbreak, bits of pallet ?

 ( Wellies are new)

The downside of this mentality is what my wife describes as junk or clutter arranged in what appear to be random piles in the garage. Where I see raw materials - she sees junk, except for the old bedroom carpet on the garage floor which serves to keep down the dust. Also acceptable are the large flattened cardboard boxes that held the self-assembly furniture which now form good insulating layers underneath garage shelves and readily absorb liquid spills.

Using up portions of unwanted vegetables in my own home-made soup concoctions seems to go down well; and the new upper fence woven out of branches thinned from the willow tree seems to have approval as a view.

If only the vegetable peelings would rot down more quickly without producing the foul smelling black liquid that oozes from the plastic container. What I need is some sort of leak proof container that is easy to pick up and easy to pour from..and that needs little adaptation.

I'm staring at the photograph. No prizes for guessing the solution that is coming to mind...