Saw these for sale in Hobbycraft...

[rosebud5678]

Literally couldn't believe my eyes...who pays to buy egg cartons?? If you're interested, they also had cardboard tubes and bags of garden stones...

Why can't Brownies use toilet roll tubes any more? Is this health and safety gone mad?

Corythatwas here are some: www.amazon.co.uk/s?ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_12&crid=2XK81P37GOI1M&sprefix=pipecleaners%2Caps%2C164&k=pipecleaners+craft+white&tag=mumsnetforu03-21

I'm using pipe cleaners for masks.

oooh, thank you, everybody!

rosebud5678 It is for hygiene reasons.

Egg boxes usually have a large paper label on them that covers the front, top and back of the lid part.

Just checked mine and they are also printed inside the lid part, direct onto the cardboard, so it would be a lot of work to camouflage and present nicely.

Guess it's more cost-effective to buy plain ones than to start trying to prettify an already used one.

@TroysMammy

rosebud5678 It is for hygiene reasons.

Surely people aren't wiping their bums on the cardboard tubes?

you'd hope so, but as people proudly leave the lids opened when they flush the whole concept is pretty grim.

I use MY toilet rolls for crafts here, I wouldn't use somebody else's.

I guess if you want to make something that uses a lot of egg cartons or loo rolls but you haven't been saving them up, it's quicker to buy.

When I was little all my dolls house people were made from pipe cleaners.

You can wind wool around their bodies limbs and heads , add hair and facial features and make cute little poseable families.my friends mum was brilliant at it. Sighs nostalgically.

We use them at the kids club I run. It's not worth the risk with egg allergies to use actual egg boxes.

Plus if we buy them then I know that every child has one, and no parent is under pressure to buy a box of eggs just so we can use the box.

How much were they charging? More than the price of a box of eggs?

Some people don't like where the eggs came from and that they may occasionally have poop on them. Hence the carton would be poop contaminated.

SamSeabornforPresident but I imagine they could get dirty fingers on them when changing it or some people don't change it and leave an exposed tube until some else changes it. I think it's a bit precious but that's what we've been told.

I must be seriously bored this afternoon because I googled it: £1.20. For 90p you could have the carton and a big omelette!

Lots of the "junk" we used to use for modelling simply isn't available anymore. Things that most households could find when a Blue Peter project needed them when I was a child but no longer:

Cotton reels
Newspaper
Milk bottle tops
Pipe cleaners
Paper fasteners
String

Loo rolls are still available but a lot of schools/play groups don't use them because of the risk of germs, although there is no actual guidance anywhere that decrees this, it's one of the H&S gone mad rules that don't actually exist.

@rosebud5678

Why can't Brownies use toilet roll tubes any more? Is this health and safety gone mad?

🤢 you might as well lick a flush handle if you’re willing to handle toilet roll tubes as they can’t be effectively cleaned.

"🤢 you might as well lick a flush handle if you’re willing to handle toilet roll tubes as they can’t be effectively cleaned."

What? Reasons this makes no sense:

• no one touches the cardboard tube during normal use
• the tube is almost always covered in tissue
• no one licks the tube whilst making a craft project
• there will usually be enough time elapsed between the tube being finished and the project that any germs are long gone anyway

The HSE website actually has a myth busting section which says that toilet roll tubes aren't banned and never have been.

Any brownies, playgroup or school that has banned them because they "were told to" has been told to by someone listening to rumours or urban myths.

@rosebud5678

Why can't Brownies use toilet roll tubes any more? Is this health and safety gone mad?

That’ll be the poo crumbs

Believe it's actually an overzealous misinterpretation of H&S.

On the basis that the Gurlguiding website has a number of suggestions for activities using loo rolls I really don't think there is any ban

Oh good grief Hobbycraft (and others) have sold these for ages. Quite simply the concept of 'junk art' involves having this junk at home to do it with. Not everyone does for 101 reasons. Either buy it or don't. Who cares.
In other news you can buy water in bottles....why when you can get it from a tap

I spent years working in early years and there were so many different bits of advice about loo roll tubes and egg boxes.
The apparent worry with egg boxes was salmonella. We were told to put all egg boxes and toilet rolls in the microwave for 30 seconds. No idea what people thought that would achieve.

Our primary school didn't allow toilet rolls either ... assuming due to the toilet 'spray' in bathrooms and dirty hands constantly touching the roll in use.

I don't find it that strange. You might want them but not eat eggs. I'd have no problem buying something like that in a shop if I wanted them for something.