How can I reuse or recycle the bottoms of fizzy drink bottles?
We’ve had an email from Kate Parsons with a clever idea for using the bottoms of fizzy drink bottles:
I use the bottom 3 or 4 inches of a 2 litre plastic coke bottle to make drawer tidies at work for all my paper clips, staples, etc. You can keep them in place by stapling them together or with a blob of blutack on the bottom!
A great idea and it made me realise that while we’ve covered a large range of different types of plastic bottles (eg, milk, squash, shower gel, shampoo, miniatures ones, pump action ones, and water, water cooler and hot water ones), we’ve not looked at pop bottles – and their blobby-shaped bottoms – in particular.
So any specific uses for the bottoms of those bottles? Anything else the separate compartments can be used for? Suggestions for any size bottle are fine.
I don’t know how it will work patent-wise (not sure if the designer has patented the invention, but here is what i found on the net, and has been collecting plastic bottles bottoms ever since, as I want to make the same one!
http://fabulouslygreen.blogspot.com/2007/05/michelle-brands-petal-power.html
Oh, and I’ll throw this link in as well, as this is cool too! http://fabulouslygreen.blogspot.com/2006/09/design-inspiration-water-office.html
Here’s a great Idea I got from my aunt. Any soda bottle, cups, yogurt cups etc can be filled with a little soil and used to grow plants in. Make sure you puncture the base with a few holes to allow water to flow through.
Thanks for those links Katz, love those flower petals.
neither of the links that Katz suggested worked.
Hi there – I’ve encountered the same problem, but you can work around this by simply starting from the main page and clicking your way through. Or try this one:
http://www.michellebrand.co.uk/pages/portfolio.html
and this is the other one
http://fabulouslygreen.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_archive.html
Regards, Andreas
Hi Margo! try to copy whole link and paste it into a browser, because links may not work directly from the page in older browsers if they separated into 2 or more lines.
I use them to put water in then put them in the freezer ,,,,,
You can make a lacewing refuge out of the upper part of the bottle (http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/gg13.php), to encourage them to hang around your garden and eat the greenfly. You can also fill the bottles with water and put tiny holes along the sides, and partially bury them in the garden so that they slowly keep the soil moist.
Without meaning to sound rude, perhaps the best thing is just not to buy bottled water and fizzy drinks. Tap water’s better regulated, and filters are easily come by.
I use that to plant my small plants. Just fill it with soil and plant it.
I use the bottoms of bottles as mini-greenhouses. Simply put them over small pots of germinating seeds or cuttings. They let light through, and keep moisture in !
Pop bottles make great wasp traps. Cut the bottle into 2 about 1/3 of the way down (just after the cone at the top) and stuff this up into the other half. Fill it with juice, water and honey, or beer and hang it. The idea is the wasps fly up and into the trap, smelling the delicious “bait” and can’t figure out how to get out to sting you.
My Explanation may suck, so here’s a low rez graphic of the finished product: (note the bee’s flying around trapped, but drunk)
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|b |
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| / \ |
|/ \|
I’ll try again:
:
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/ \ / \ / \
| b |
| b |
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|_/ \_|
| / \ |
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|/ \|
Our fault for not having fixed width fonts here I’m afraid. It came out right in my email program though – here’s a pic of what Peat meant ;)
(Btw, this made me laugh so hard when I saw it – great ASCII effort, Peat :) )
Use it as a paper log maker.Cut the bottom off the large bottles, leave the lid on for time being, in meantime, soak torn up newspapers in bucket of water, overnight preferably, then next day squeeze the “mush” into the bottle, when 1/4 full take the lid off and keep filling the bottle from the cut end, and force the water out with fist or suitable plunger.When full and you have as much water as you can out,cut the bottle lengthways to ease out your log and leave it to dry thoroughly.
i will give that one a try thank you
All Ecological consultancies are in need of 2L plastic bottles for amphibian surveys. We collect them all year and never seem to have enough – I’d recommend finding a local environmental/ecological consultancy and it’s likely they’d be very grateful for your bottles! The IEEM website has a list of companies to help you find a local one.
I cut the bottoms off (stick them cut side down in soil) and use them as small decorative stepping stones in the garden or if you have a plant that is a little invasive and you want to keep it in control then I place these bottoms around the plants making sure there is plenty of room to water the plant. Clear or colored bottles work fine. You will have little weeds growing inside them but this only makes them more interesting and adds a little color to the clear plastic.