Re-Inspiration: A New Life for Discarded Bottles

Plastic Bottle Lights

Whether we’re talking plastic or glass, empty bottles are full of potential. Sure, you can recycle them, but that still takes energy. In fact, both plastic and glass are often downcycled into products of lesser quality, which means they can only be recycled so many times before they end up in a landfill.

Of course, the obvious solution is to upcycle those bottles into something new. Need a little inspiration? We’ve got some upcycling eye candy to get you going!

Plastic Bottle Flowers

Soda Bottle Flowers

How sweet are these flowers made from recycled soda bottles by Frozen in Time? I love how she used the shape of the bottle to form the flowers and used darker paint on the tips of the flower petals. Gorgeous!

Wine Bottle Wind Chimes

Wine Bottle Wind Chimes

I’m loving the elegant simplicity of these wine bottle wind chimes that Wiccked shares. It looks like they were made using a bottle cutter to remove the bottoms, and assembled with wire and fishing line.

Recycled Plastic Bottle Lights

Plastic Bottle Lights

This cluster of plastic bottle lights is ingenious! It takes advantage of the various bottles’ colors, and looks pretty simple to string together. You’d probably just need the right sized drill bit and some hot glue to create your own strand of upcycled lights. Photo by F-R-A-N-K.

Let’s keep the re-inspiration going! What are some of your favorite projects for upcycling plastic and glass bottles?

[Image Credits: All photos via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.]

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