Crafty Reuse: Ten Projects for Plastic Bottles
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We use billions of plastic bottles every year, at a huge environmental expense. Sure, you can recycle them and feel a bit better knowing that they’ll be turned into products like Ecospun felt, but recycling requires energy and raw materials and not all plastics can even be recycled.
Why not divert all that plastic from the waste stream entirely by turning those old bottles into something new? Here are ten plastic bottle craft ideas to get you going!
- » See also: A Review of Refashioned Bags: Upcycle Anything into High-Style Handbags
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- Re-Nest’s Trend Watch highlights plastic bottle lighting ideas. There are a few that would be easy to do yourself. You can also try drilling small holes into the caps of small water or juice bottles and stringing them on Christmas lights. You can decorate the bottles with paint and sparkly things for some extra pizzazz!
- Want to make that sassy votive holder pictured to the right there? Just cut the top off of a two liter bottle, fill with sand, marbles, or rocks, and nestle your votive inside. You might also try gluing some ribbon around the perimeter, since that plastic can have sharp edges.
- Check out this awesome coin purse made from the bottoms of a couple of two-liters over at Dollar Store Crafts. All you need are two empty bottles, a zipper, and some strong glue.
- Check out one more great project from Denise Carbonell: a mobile made from plastic bottle pieces pictured right.
- If you’re looking for a kid-friendly project, try using a couple of empties as the handles for a jump rope.
- Family Corner shows you how to turn a bottle into a feeding station for birds.
- Here’s another idea for the garden: check out this “Ghetto Greenhouse” plastic bottle seed starter over at Instructables
- If you’re feeling ambitious (and have LOTS of bottles), you can forgo the Ghetto Greenhouse and build yourself a full-sized plastic bottle greenhouse.
- Eco Child’s Play shows us how to turn a water bottle into a lava lamp!
- For the knitters, Instructables has an easy peasy tutorial for turning an empty bottle into a yarn holder.
So I’m pretty confident that you guys have done some plastic bottle crafting of your own. What sorts of things have you made with your empties?
Image Credits:
So Much For Recycling. Creative Commons photo by mookies
Two Votives, Different Motifs. Creative Commons photo by Denise Carbonell
Green Aqua Mobile. Creative Commons photo by Denise Carbonell
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