How to Reuse Plastic Bottles for Your Garden

Repaint the bottle white or the shade of your choice.

The examples abound, from water bottles to washing cleaning agent, to how we eject our honey.

Raising awareness and reaching sustainable standards is a responsibility for each user and we are strongly encouraging you to recycle everything you can, everything humanly possible.

Create two holes at the neck of the bottle using thumbtack.

Make plastic container mugs to house pens and materials at the office, or craft supplies at home.

You’ll marvel exactly how small actions can conserve you a great deal of money and time.

You can also leave it clear so you can see just how your conserving is proceeding. The lower portion without the neck will be used as the body of the supply case/pouch.

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Make sure that you take the label off of the bottle if there is one. This image is not licensed under the Creative Commons license applied to text content and some other images posted to the wikiHow website. From food storage to art projects and gardening, there is no shortage of ways to breathe new life into your used plastic bottles.

1. Which Plastic Bottles Are Safe?
2. Plastic Recycling Levels
3. What Do the Numbers Mean on Perfume Bottles?
4. Heating Foods in Plastic & BPA
5. Safe Red Food Coloring for Cake Baking

Joe Belanger/iStock/Getty Images

During the past 100 years, plastic packaging has replaced time-tested containers like glass, tin cans and wooden barrels. Plastics found a place in shipping, home kitchens and food packaging because it is durable, lightweight and relatively easy to recycle. The federal government classifies plastics into seven categories and labels each item with a number that corresponds to the content of the plastic. Use these numbers to choose packaging that you can reuse safely. The American Chemistry Council recommends that you wash all reusable plastic containers with hot soapy water before you reuse them.

PET or PETE #1

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET or PETE) bottles are the most common plastic container in use for soft drinks, juice, peanut butter, salad dressing, ketchup and water. The number “1” on the recycling icon identifies all bottles in this category. Currently, the American Chemistry Council states that is okay to reuse these bottles, after washing them. Eco Village Green notes many PET bottles are difficult to clean and may leach endocrine-disrupting chemicals when exposed to high temperatures. Most manufacturers intend for consumers to use each bottle once, so more research will determine if consumers can safely reuse one-time-use bottles.

HDPE #2

Opaque plastic bottles, often used for milk, juices, detergent, yogurt and margarine tubs, belong to the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) category of plastics. The American Chemistry Council and Care2 agree that it is safe to reuse these bottles after you have finished the original contents. To date, no research indicates that this plastic category leaches hormone-disrupting chemicals or any substances that may cause cancer.

LDPE #4

You will often find low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic in packaging for bread wrappers and frozen food, plastic wraps for food storage, grocery bags and trash bags. This category of plastic is safe to reuse, within reason. Consider the original purpose of the packaging before you use it to preserve or store food. These plastics are thin films that are lighter weight than other categories of plastic, so they can melt or emit toxic chemicals if exposed to high temperatures, including the microwave.

Manufacturers use polypropylene (PP) plastic for some toys, baby bottles, drinking straws, syrup, yogurt, margarine and deli soup containers. The current research does not show any evidence that this category of plastic leaches harmful chemicals.

Consumer concern about bisphenol A (BPA)–a synthetic hormone that can disrupt normal endocrine functions and possibly contribute to cancer–in baby bottles and reusable plastic water bottles has made some people leery of buying products that contain polypropylene. Baby bottles with the recycling code #7 are the only ones that have the potential to leach BPA. This category number applies to many types of plastic and synthetic resins that do not fit the other classification numbers.

Plastic happens to be one of the greatest invention of mankind. It’s durable and can be shaped into all sort of things that can be use of us. But, it does have one disadvantage. It can take over 450 years to disintegrate. And that could be harmful to the environments. Turtles and other animals have been reported to have consumed these inedible objects. Some even choked by it. Plastic isn’t exactly a bad invention. It’s a problem of human behavior. So, teach our younger generations to dispose them in the proper place. Or better yet, teach them to turn plastic bottles into something useful. Checkout these ideas!

1. Zipper Container

Combine both ends of the bottles to make a zipper container. Use a hot glue gun to stick the zipper to the plastic end. It’s a cheap way to store your items for camping or traveling.

Adjust the height according to your needs. Pencil case anyone?

2. Decorative Containers

Look at that pretty design! It’s quite similar to the zipper container (no. 1) but without zippers. It looks fancy and definitely make a nice weekend project with your kids.

3. Indoor Herb Garden

Plastic bottles takes super long time to break down. It’s harmful for nature but it’s also the perfect quality for a DIY planter. Checkout the tutorial via link below.

4. Charging Phone Holder

5. Ottoman

Had a party recently? Left with tons of plastic soda bottles and not sure what to do with it? Say, do you need a chair by any chance? If it’s a yes to all that, then take a look on how you can make this via the tutorial link below.

6. Self-watering Seed Starter Pot

The end of terms of service of a plastic bottle could be the start of a new seedling’s life.

7. Elegant Planter

Give a nice metallic paint job on a cut-out plastic bottle to give it a touch of elegance. Looks nice! Since there’s lots of different bottle designs out there, get one of those unique ones! Then, turn them into these metallic planters. Chances are people won’t even able to tell that these planters are made of plastic bottles unless you tell them.

8. Flower Containers

Dress up the trunk of your naked tree with these cozy planters!

You can also do the same for the walls. Look at this magnificent wall of plants!

9. Fairy House

Believe it or not, this fairy house is made with plastic bottles! Well, not entirely. It’s later coated with aluminium foil and paper clay. After some painting job, it’ll look amazing!

10. Garden Light

It looks almost like a single stalk of white flower glowing in your garden.

11. Kitchen Utensil Holder

Cut out a flap for the hook and you’ll transform plastic bottle into a utensil holder.

12. Bottle Cap Clock

Not bad for junks! It’s note that difficult to be done as well considering there’s clock kits for sale and everything. It’s up to you to make a clock out of any thing you can find with it!

13. Broom

You can stack several bottles together for these. Make sure you cut the strips finely so it’ll work better in sweeping those small debris.

14. Piggy Bank

Ahh… the good old piggy bank. Safe guarding your money even if it’s just made of plastic. Checkout the tutorial via link below!

15. Bottle Lamp

The bottle act as a lamp shade. You can install rollers at the bottom for better portability. But, its light so that won’t be necessary actually. Just for the fun of kicking it around.

16. Trash Can

It doesn’t exactly contain the garbage inside. But, it does serve as a nice foundation to hold your garbage bags.

17. Toothbrush Holder

Every toilet needs a toothbrush holder. Cut out holes and glue the bottle openings with hot glue gun. You might want to poke holes at the bottom to allow water to flow out.

Hope the ideas here will be inspiring to you. Even if they’re not, it’s still something fun to read about. Share it if you like it!

These incredibly crafty bloggers have found some mightily cunning reuses for the humble plastic milk bottle. From money-saving DIY and garden tools to props for your kids’ fantasy worlds, take a look at how you can make the most of these containers before they head for the recycling box.

1. Seed planters

As Garden Gate Notes explains, plastic milk bottle bases make ideal containers for starting your seeds off, whether that’s outdoors, in the greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill. Carefully cut your plastic milk bottles to the depth you require and drill a few holes in the base for drainage. You can recycle the off cuts!

2. Brush and paint holder

It’s all too easy to make a mess when you’re doing a fiddly paint job. The blog My Home Look Book recommends using a modified large milk bottle as a ‘painting station’ to help cut down on the drips and avoid accidentally knocking your paintbrush onto the floor.

3. A more efficient freezer

Did you know that the fuller the freezer the less energy it needs to use to keep itself at temperature? This tutorial from Instructables explains how filling any freezer space with old milk bottles two-thirds filled with water is a simple way to minimise your electricity bills.

4. Handy watering can

This is a simple but excellent idea from A Journey to a Dream’s blog. Using one of your smallest drill bits, carefully put about 15 to 20 holes in the lid of a clean, empty milk bottle. Easy to fill, easy to handle and the fine spray is perfect for gently watering seed trays.

5. Junk-modelled Stormtrooper helmet

Our family’s gone bonkers for Star Wars, so this cool recycled Stormtrooper helmet project from the Wizardry blog is definitely on our list of things to try out at half term. Yes, it really is made from old milk bottles!

6. DIY flash diffuser

If you want to take your photography to the next level, check out this article on DIY camera hacks from OMG Facts. Here, the handle of a milk bottle is used to make a flash diffuser to reduce harsh shadowing on your subject.

7. Protective cloches for young plants

Seedlings often need protection from early frosts and hungry wildlife, so here’s a simple and free solution used by bloggers Black Hills Local Foods. Get hold of a few large empty milk bottles, wash out thoroughly, remove the lids and cut the base off. Place this milk bottle ‘cloche’ over your seedling and leave until the plant is well established.

8. Under-counter storage

Brilliant storage idea for artistic supplies from the Sew Many Ways blog! Check their tutorial to see how easy it is to install this hanging under-counter organiser using a few old milk bottles, a length of pipe and some second-hand curtain brackets.

This food-safe pouch is surprisingly easy to make and surprisingly useful around the house for keeping bits and bobs under control. Kids love them! Crème De La Craft has the full tutorial.

10. Homework desk or home office book organiser

If your child’s exercise books get lost in a messy pile or your work documentation is a muddle, put yourselves in order with this DIY mini bookshelf made from recycled milk bottles, found on Amazing Interior Design’s blog

Do you enjoy a good reuse trick around the house and garden? Share your ideas and projects with us here or on Twitter and Facebook!

Brian North/Getty Images

Every time we buy a sizable new plant, we also get a new black plastic pot. While it’s nice to have a stock of old containers handy when we’re dividing, moving or giving away plants, they can really start to pile up. Rather than saving them “just in case,” here are nine ideas for putting them to good use.

Prop up Small Containers

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Containers are great ways to keep color in the garden border, but we don’t always have large-scale containers and smaller containers can get lose at ground level. Use an overturned five-gallon plastic container as a base, to lift the planter above neighboring plants. The Black color will virtually disappear into the surrounding foliage.

It’s best to use the more rigid black pots for this or double up pots with flexible sides so that they don’t collapse when the planter is heavy with water. A lightweight potting soil will also help. Another bonus of lifting the planter higher is you don’t have to bend to water it.

Shake and Disperse Fertilizer

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Smaller plastic containers make great shakers. The hole at the bottom will slowly sift fertilizer, animal repellent, and other granular material. You can just scoop up what you need and wave it about. Make sure you either scoop right next to the bed you’ll be fertilizing because it’s going to start flowing out immediately.

Mulch Protection

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Mulching is no one’s favorite chore, but you know it’s worth the effort.   It helps to speed things up by dumping the mulch into the bed, rather than spreading it carefully around. But you don’t want to bury your plants. You can protect them by covering each one with old plastic containers, before you dump, and then lift them when you are finished. This way you don’t run the risk of burying them or getting the mulch too close to their crowns.

Soil Scoop

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This is a bit of a no-brainer. Very often the only thing handy when you are filling pots is the container you just took the plant out of. How nice that it makes the perfect potting soil scoop. Thin, rigid edges make for the best scoopers.

Liners for Containers With No Drainage

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We’re always cautioned not to use containers with no drainage holes. Of course, the soil needs to drain, but some of those ceramic, metal and concrete containers are too nice to pass up and who wants to ruin them by drilling holes? Just find a plastic pot that fits easily inside the solid container and raises it a bit from the bottom with something like stones. Lift the liner occasionally to check that there is no standing water. If there is, empty it and water less frequently. If possible, you can even lift the liner and water the plant outside of the solid container and then replace it once it has drained.

Instant Frost Protection

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When you hear that a frost is pending and you are not ready to lose your favorite tender plants, cover them for the night with old nursery containers. They are like instant row covers. Once it warms the next day, remove the pots and the plants will still be in good condition. They provide enough insulation to get them through several early season threats.

Durable, Light Weight Filler

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It’s nice to give your potted plants as much soil to grow in as possible, but some containers become excessively heavy when filled with soil. Until the pot fills with roots, they can also become water sodden.

 Overturning a plastic container in the bottom of the larger pot will cut down on the amount of soil needed and the weight. If there is room around the side, you can fill them in with plenty of bunched up newspaper. The newspaper helps to hold moisture and it eventually decomposes, making room for expanding roots. Don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe to recycle the newspaper in the garden.

A Permanent Planter

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If you like to swap out container plants seasonally, right in the garden bed, you can make it easier on yourself by creating a permanent planting hole. Dig a hole and insert a black plastic pot that is larger than the containers you will be swapping out. Then you can just sink and lift the seasonal plants as needed. This is especially nice if you like to add color around shrubs. Bury the liner when you plant the shrubs and you will never have to disturb their roots. Once again, the black color will help the pot completely blend in.

Paint and Pot Them

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There’s nothing that says you can’t use old pots as pots. If they aren’t going to be seen because they will be hidden behind other containers or under vines, you can use them as is. To spruce them up you can always paint them.

Clean the pot well and then roughen the surface with some sandpaper, so the paint will adhere better. Spray paints work much, much better than trying to brush paint on. A coat or two of primer and then two to three coats of paint, followed by a sealant should do it. You can get creative with shapes, use string or tape to create patterns (remove the string or tape once the paint dries), or use one of the metal or stone paints, as was done here. The coating won’t last forever outdoors, but you should get a few seasons of use before you need to touch them up.

Plastic Soda Bottles in Bloom. How Flowers Are Made.
Make Art. Not Trash.

Used plastic soda water juice bottles can be recycled/ upcycled to make wonderful things like this beautiful flowers.
It’s really amazing how used and/or old things that seem to have no special value
can be made into entirely different, useful, pretty, even beautiful new
items that are enjoyable, decorative and quite useful.
A little creativity can do wonders, utilizing materials and random pieces, odds and ends and produce things for the home, office, business, garden where they start another cycle of existence, often more noticeable and noteworthy.

This flowers are made from the lower bottom part of the bottles and then spray painted in different colors to create a beautiful bouquet.
Any plastic bottles can be used, the bottom part of the bottle is good to make the flower heads and you can cut it to create different shape petals which is what makes it interesting and creates different varieties of flowers.

The body of the bottles can be used to cut out leaves and stems which can also be cut to resemble many different types of flowers.

You can use regular scissors as long as they are sharp enough and the small scissors are often more comfortable to work with than the big ones. To connect the cut out parts and pieces a thing metal wire can be helpful along with hot glue gun or silicon glue.

Spray paint makes it easy to color the flowers and leaves and bright colors make a very nice bright bouquet of exotic and unusual flowers.

pic:beautiful recycled upcycled plastic bottles flowers, colorful amazing art.

• Posted on December 24, 2018
• By Debra Quick
• In
  • Inspiration

Everybody’s aware that plastic is ruining our planet and natural environment at a rapid, dramatic rate. Still, not a lot of people actually does something that can help decrease the plastic waste.

Among most used plastic objects are plastic bottles. Can you be honest and admit how many empty plastic bottles you end up having by the end of the week? That’s right. We should all be kind of embarrassed whatever the number is (unless the answer is “no empty plastic bottles” at all).

So, be a sweetheart, and check out these 10 creative ways to reuse plastic bottles. Our planet will be grateful if you use any of these.

1. DIY Hanging Containers

If you always wanted to have some hanging planters, you can now make them by yourself and also help in saving our planet from excessive plastic waste. Pain the top of the bottle in a color of your preference cut the bottle according to how big the plant will be, and hang it with cords.

2. DIY Bird Feeders

So many animals are suffering because of plastic waste in oceans. Why not use it then for something animals can benefit from? Make this great bird feeder and relive those empty plastic bottles.

3. DIY Wall Planters

Another great way to use those big plastic bottles we usually just throw away. Paint them, lay them on the side, cut the upper part and plant your favorite flowers!

4. DIY Vertical Herbs Garden

You’ll be able to make this vertical garden the same way you would make the hanging planters. You only need to place your bottles one over another, so that way you can make a sustainable, self-watering garden. Cool, right?

5. DIY Creative Planters

Want to get a little bit artsy? Take those detergent-bottles and great these chic-looking corner planters!

6. DIY No-Zipper Cases

This might be a fun way to make some upcycled cases for your kid or yourself. Just make sure to find transparent bottles that will look the best for this DIY project. You can also paint them in your favorite color.

7. DIY String Lights

If you have some string lights that you’d like to make more colorful, give this DIY project a try. It is very fun and will let you express your creativity.

8. DIY Decorative Bottle Vases

If you want to have some fancy and unique decorative vases, then opt for this upcycling idea. You’ll need a bit more time in order to make them, but once you’re done, everyone is going to fall in love with them!

9. DIY Sprinkler

If you own a big garden, you might know how convenient it is to have grass/plant sprinklers. Well if you still don’t own one, making your own out of a plastic bottle is possible!

10. DIY Bottle Bracelets

If you have a green enthusiast friend, or would simply like to teach your kid about the importance of recycling/upcycling plastic, then do this fun DIY project. You can choose the colors you prefer and make a completely unique piece of accessories.

Sharing is Caring! 💜

This adorable Piglet Piggy Bank is one of my favorite crafting projects to do with the kids. Even without the kids, it’s a fun way to save your spare change and at the same time upcycle plastic bottles. When I saw crafters making this cute plastic bottle piggy bank, I knew I was in all too!

Save Plastic and Make This Cute Piglet Piggy Bank

This crafting project is dear to my heart because I am a huge advocate of upcycling and recycling. Many of the crafting projects I create are made of things I upcycle. Recycling isn’t a relatively new concept and is a key part of sustainability. However, not everyone chooses to recycle, making it a harder effort than it really is.

People in America use 2.5 million plastic bottles every hour, and some (if not most) of those don’t make it to the blue bin. Plastic is a huge source of pollution and even if in some small way we contribute to upcycling and recycling it makes a huge difference for us all!

Don’t panic though, there are ways you can still recycle even if you don’t have the traditional means of doing so. Plastic bottles present a unique way of recycling: reusing. That doesn’t mean you have to keep using the bottle for what it was intended but can rather create something new with it.

This easy and creative craft can turn your used plastic bottles into something fun and can be a great activity for the whole family — especially the kids! These are the types of crafting projects I hope to create with my granddaughter when she is old enough. This cute little Piggy Bank is sure to be one of our first.

How to Create Your Very Own Plastic Bottle Piggy Bank

There are so many different ways to create an enjoyable plastic bottle piggy bank for the kids, or for yourself.

All you need to create this Piggy Bank is:

1. Almost any plastic bottle is viable, and with enough creativity, anything is imaginable. A wide-mouthed drinking bottle is perfect for this cute craft.
2. Remove all the labels and cut a coin-sized rectangular hole in one side of the plastic bottle.
3. Then find four pieces of material to use for the feet — wooden balls or marbles work great — and glue those on the opposite side.
4. You can also choose to paint the entire bottle and legs to make it seem more pig-like, or you can leave the bottle clear to see your family’s coin collection progress.
5. Using a colored paper of your choice, create two piggy ears and tape them on the same side as the coin slot.
6. You can use googly eyes or a marker to create the eyes and draw two dark circles on the bottle cap for your piggy’s nose.
7. The tail is fair game; you can use pipe cleaners, paper, ribbon — you name it.

For more instructions and a step-by-step tutorial click this link and check out how A Little Tipsy created one. I love the way she created hers and gets to spend time with her family having fun!

If you caught the recycling craft bug then there are so many other fun crafts you can do to help reuse some of those plastic bottles and keep them out of landfills. Getting your kids involved can be a great way to enjoy craft time with them as well as start them on the right path to sustainability.

If everyone made a plastic piggy bank with those 2.5 million bottles, people would probably start saving a lot of money — and the earth.

I hope you can enjoy recreating this wonderfully adorable Piglet Piggy Bank too. It’s a great way to upcycle, recycle, and spend some quality time crafting with your family.

And as always, thanks so much for stopping by! If you like this post, How to Create a Cute Piglet Piggy Bank With Reused Plastic Bottles, subscribe via email below and never miss a post again!

Introduction: Upcycled Wine Bottle Watering

In this instructable, I’m going to teach you how to turn wine into water!

Or at the very least, teach you how to upcycle wine bottles into an automatic watering system for your garden.

These work on the same principle as the glass watering bulbs for gardens (such as Aquaglobes.)

These are PERFECT for container gardening, porch gardening, patio gardening, or even in-ground plants. It is ESPECIALLY good for tomatoes in hot areas, and keeps them well hydrated even between waterings,

I only included the template for my Tomatoes version, but it wouldn’t be hard to find clipart of other vegetables.

and if you enjoy this instructable, please vote for me in the Gardening contest!

What You Will Need:
Wine Bottles
Contact Paper or Vinyl (I used the kind from Dollar Tree)
Silhouette or other cutter (You can also use an x-acto knife and cut the pattern by hand if you’re careful)
Armour Etch (glass etching cream, by the stained glass supplies in craft stores)
Gloves
paint brush
extra newspaper
masking tape or duct tape.

Step 1: Remove the Labels

First things first, you’re going to want to remove those labels.

The easiest way is to soak the bottles in hot soapy water for about half an hour.

The label should then easily peel off, but if not a bit of scrubbing with steel wool or an abrasive sponge helps to get it off quickly.

Step 2: Cut Out Your Stencil From the Template

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the design. I kept getting an error trying to upload the silhouette template, but here is the image I used. You can use the trace function in Silhouette Studio to easily create a new template.

If you used the silhouette, you can easily use both the positive and negative stencils created.

If you are careful cutting it out by hand, you may be able to as well.

If you don’t want tomatoes, you can find many other vegetables in clip art form. Just look for outlines, stencils, or silhouettes of the veggies, those work the best for the templates. I used the forte font for the text.

Step 3: Carefully Apply

After making sure the bottle is clean and dry, apply your stencils so that the top of the stencil is near the bottom flat part of the bottle.

Be very careful, especially with the thin lines of the tomatoes!

Tape off all extra area with masking or duct tape and add newspaper to cover all parts of the bottle except the part being etched.

Step 4: Apply Etching Cream

Make sure the bottles are on a stable surface. I padded them around with more newspaper so they couldn’t roll around.

Wearing gloves, apply the etching cream thickly over the areas to be etched.

You should not be able to see the stencil through the etching cream.

Leave on for approximately 10-15 minutes for maximum effect.

Step 5: Rinse Off

Wearing gloves, carefully rinse off all of the etching cream using cold water and paper towels. Dry bottles completely.

Admire the beautiful tomatoes.

Step 6: Water Plants

Fill the bottles up with water to the very brim of the bottle.

After watering your plant, quickly turn the bottle upside down and shove into the dirt about 6-8 inches from the base of the plant.

As the soil dries out, it will gradually drain the water from the wine bottle.

This is great for hot areas where the ground dries quickly between waterings, or especially for people who forget to water their tomatoes (raises hand).

Step 7: Admire Your Handiwork

Enjoy! Aren’t they beautiful?

Not only are you recycling something into a beautiful and functional piece of art,
but you’re using that to LITERALLY make the world a greener place!

and if you enjoyed this instructable, please vote for me in the Gardening contest!

For more awesome projects, visit my blog. The Procrastibaker!

Be the First to Share

Did you make this project? Share it with us!

Watching how relatively quickly 3D printing has hit the mainstream over the past few years has been fascinating. They’re turning up in university labs and school rooms, you can buy one to stick in your living room for $100. It’s become so easy for people to 3D-print guns in the privacy of their homes that the US state of Massachusetts has recently banned their manufacture, saying that as an American, you have a right to bear arms, but you do not have a right to bear “electrical arms”, which is anything that comes out of a 3D-printer.

Whether a fad or an integral part of our future, 3D printers are sure making an impact, but not always in the way we want. When you print something, you’re going to end up with little plastic corners and ends that are trimmed off and discarded because they’re too small to reuse. Think about how many 3D printers there are in the world and how many things they’re printing every day, and that’s a whole lot of waste that can only really end up in landfill.

So three engineering physics students at the University of British Columbia in Canada have invented the ProtoCycler, a device that can grind up all kinds of waste plastic into a beautiful clean spool of plastic filament that can be used in a 3D printer. We’re talking anything – plastic bottles, 3D-printing cut-offs, takeaway food containers. If your kids leave their LEGOs out one too many times for you to tread on with your bare feet. throw them in too. It works just like a juicer, which you can see in the video below.

“We were concerned about the amount of plastic waste generated in our engineering projects, so we looked for a way to recycle that plastic back into usable filament,” one of the team, Dennon Oosterman, said in a press release.

Not only is this great for the environment, but the team says it will save you a fortune in filament costs for your 3D printing. They say a kilogram spool of filament produced by the ProtoCycler will cost you nothing if you BYO waste plastic, and if you buy their special plastic pellets, it’s just $5. The cheapest store-bought spool starts at $30. Plus their device offers a much wider range of colour options than the ready-made spools you buy.

The device isn’t cheap at $699, but it’s basically like buying a device that cheaply produces ink to use in your regular printer. . Someone please invent that immediately.

The team hopes that the ProtoCycler will be something schools invest in so their students can go absolutely nuts on their 3D printers without the environment or their school’s budget having a total heart attack. “Schools are including 3D printing as part of their science and technology curriculum, but the cost of having each student try a project can quickly become unaffordable,” Oosterman says. “With ProtoCycler, the students can try over and over until it’s perfect, nearly for free, without harming the environment.”

That last part in particular sounds so good.

Reusing plastic water bottles has direct environmental and financial benefits.

Reusing Plastic Water Bottles

If you wish to minimize waste and save money in the process, you must consume less and focus more on efficiency than on convenience. It requires a substantial amount of energy to manufacture, fill, ship, and recycle or destroy plastic water bottles.

Washing and reusing plastic water bottles reduces waste and landfill crowding, minimizes pollution, and conserves energy. Refilling your plastic water bottle with tap water is considerably less resource intensive than purchasing commercially purified and bottled water.

Environmental Benefits

The reuse of plastic bottles has wide-reaching benefits on the environment.

• Every day, consumers discard more than 60 million plastic water bottles. These bottles litter highways, clog waterways, or end up in incinerators and landfills. Plastic in landfills can take up to 700 years to decompose.

• Meeting consumer demand for water bottles in the United States requires more than 15 million barrels of oil each year for manufacturing, transport, and disposal. That is enough oil to fuel approximately 100,000 cars for an entire year.

• Plastic bottles are one of the least recycled materials in the United States. The Recycling Institute states that only about one in six plastic bottles sold in the United States was recycled in 2004, or about 17% of all plastic water bottles bought by consumers.

• Reusing plastic water bottles means less need to manufacture new bottles from virgin petroleum resin, and less trash that ends up in landfills, streams, and parks. Reusing plastic bottles can significantly reduce pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, and energy usage.

Financial Benefits

In addition to the environmental benefits of reusing bottles, there are also direct and indirect financial benefits.

• Reusing a plastic bottle that initially costs US $1.25 just ten times equals a savings of $12.50. Reusing that same bottle 60 times will save $75. If you purchase a single disposable plastic water bottle every day for a year, you will spend more than $450. Buying and reusing one bottle per year results in a significant financial savings.

• While the direct financial savings are the most obvious and substantial, reusing water bottles also provides indirect financial benefits. Reduced consumption of natural resources means lower monthly utility bills, and less strain on landfills and recycling programs may result in tax reductions or other savings.

Dangers of Reusing Plastic Bottles

According to the Plastics Division of the American Chemistry Council, most beverage bottles sold in the United States are manufactured from polyethylene terephthalate, a type of plastic determined safe to use and reuse by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

However, consumers should keep a few things in mind for plastic water bottle safety when reusing plastic water bottles:

• Reusing bottles without cleaning them encourages the growth of potentially harmful bacteria. It is essential to clean all plastic water bottles between uses, just like any other food or beverage container. When properly cleaned, plastic bottles pose no greater risk of bacterial contamination than glasses or mugs.

• Many plastic bottles contain a chemical called Bisphenol A, or BPA. This chemical is associated with a variety of health risks. Heating or bleaching plastic bottles may increase the leeching of BPA into the bottle’s contents.

• Recent evidence suggests that PET, the type of plastic most commonly used to make plastic water bottles, may contain hormone-disrupting chemicals. Martin Wagner of Goethe University in Frankfurt states that these chemicals may potentially interfere with the body’s natural levels of estrogen and other hormones.

Ideas for Reusing Plastic Bottles

Most people reuse plastic bottles for storing water or other liquids. However, there are hundreds of different ways to reuse plastic bottles. A few ideas for reusing bottles are below.

1. Cut the top off a bottle and use it to store pencils or art supplies.
2. Use a plastic bottle as a piggy bank by cutting a slit into the top.
3. Fill a plastic bottle halfway with water, and then place it in your freezer. The water bottle will serve as an instant ice pack.
4. Use the top half of a bottle as a funnel, and use the bottom half as a plastic pot for plants.
5. Fill a bottle with equal parts oil and water, add some glitter or food coloring, and decorate the outside. The water and oil will not mix, resulting in interesting designs during shaking or other movement. This is a fun project for children.

Reuse or Recycle?

While recycling plastic water bottles is certainly better for the environment than throwing them in the trash, recycling uses energy to process plastic into another usable product. Moreover, the recycling process produces wastewater and air pollutants. Reusing plastic bottles requires no additional energy expenditure and does not contribute to pollution.

Ideally, it is best for the environment to avoid purchasing and using plastic bottles entirely. When you cannot avoid using disposable containers, you should reuse them as many times as possible or buy reusable water bottles. When you can no longer use them, opt for recycling the containers instead of throwing them away. This practice will ensure the greatest environmental and financial benefits.