December Top Tips | 10 ways to re-purpose a plastic bottle

Welcome to December!

We thought it would be cool to find 10 ways you can use a plastic bottle even after you have refilled it gazillion times, so you don't waste all the plastic . Because, even if you try to avoid plastic bottles at all costs, you will inevitably end up using hundreds of them throughout your life. The impact on the environment is undisputed, from the land animals to the creatures of our seas, plastic bottles can have a detrimental impact. But we can reuse them in lots of fun ways, here are our ten favourites. Have a good December and a great new year, you'll hear from us!

1. Bird Feeder

At one of our blog meet-ups, we actually made a bird feeder out of an old plastic bottle, so this is definitely one we can vouch for. It's super simple, as long as you have some good scissors to cut the bottle and a suitable place to hang it. Below is a photograph of ours for some inspiration, and there are plenty of resources online to help you make your bird feeder from a plastic bottle! Now we aren't the most creative bunch, hopefully, you can make yours slightly more visually pleasing.

2. Planter

This is probably one you've heard of, but just like the National Trust in the UK used to make us plant cress in our empty cardboard lunch bags, you can plant herbs or salads in the base of a plastic bottle. It can be a really effective way to reuse your bottles and get a crop of something too! Growing things on windowsills is very easy and doing it in a plastic bottle means you have nothing to loose. You can even try and find a particularly pretty bottle and hang it up.

3. Travel box for toothbrush

Naming this one is weird. If you take the lid of a plastic bottle and cut it in half, you can roll your toothbrush, toothpaste and a little towel into it. Close the bottle and put the lid on; you now have a somewhat waterproof container that keeps your toothbrush well clear of your dirty underwear.

4. Mobile or hanging decoration

there are these plastic bottles that are slightly tinted in one colour, collect several of those and cut long strips of them around and around. They make cool wind spirals. or you can paint parts of a bottle and hang them on a mobile, cutting out specific shapes. You can make basically anything look nice. That goes as a general statement as well, I would say.

5. Storage for workshops

In your workshop, garage or shed, there is a huge mess. Don't even start pretending. Everything is lying around and getting dusty, stepping on those bolts really hurts and you can't ever find the right-sized screw. If you cut an opening in the front of a plastic bottle and hang it up, you can use it to store whatever is lying around and simulate tidiness. You can use different plastic bottles for different bolts, nails or whatever and be really proud of yourself for cleaning up. Even if you haven't, that's what I do, and it makes me feel much better about myself. You can also paint it or decorate it in another way, then it even looks nice.

6. Lantern

When I was about 7, I made this really cool torch lantern from a plastic bottle, for which you need a relatively big stick, a bottle, a bit of string, a sharp knife, glue, a fairy light or a candle and some colourful paper. First, cut off the bottom of the bottle in a wavy line, and turn it over, before cutting bits of orange, red and yellow paper and sticking it on there like flames (With the cap down!). Unscrew the cap and fit the bottle on the stick, wrapping the string around it, just for the sake of beauty. If it doesn't hold, add some glue too. Just pop your light source into it and some lucky child has a really cool torch lantern!

7. Maraca

Making maracas out of plastic bottles is actually really fun, and you can experiment a lot with them. I would recommend using small plastic bottles for that and painting them with colours you can't see through, then pouring in whatever you want: Sand, pebbles, rice (uncooked!), beans (same), shells, little bits of plastic. You name it, it all sounds cool!

8. Trashbin

You can make a trashbin out of plastic bottle caps, but you need A LOT of patience for that. If you collect lots of caps of different colours and clue them all together, you can not only come up with a specific way you want to colour your trashbin but also how you want to shape it. But it's probably a good idea to take bits of the actual bottles and stick them inside of the trashcan so all your trash doesn't fall out of the cracks. Don't get too creative with the shaping part, you don't want to disturb possible visitors...

9. Collection station for pieces of glass

This summer I saw this cool thing, where someone had hung up a plastic bottle with a little opening at the top under a tree called the emergency room of pieces of glass, (Sounds better in my language) the general idea being that people can throw bits of glass they find on the way in there so no one steps on them. It's a really cool thing to have in a place where lots of people walk around barefooted, especially when there are lots of kids around.

10. Egg Yolk Sucker

This is a strange idea, and I haven't yet tried it, but it could be fun, if you have tried it let us know about it! All you have to do is hover your empty plastic bottle over your cracked egg and gently squeeze it. Then release as the egg yolk is sucked up into the bottle and quickly turn the bottle over before it has a chance to escape again! Way faster than slowly running it from one shell to the next. but make sure to wash the bottle, you probably know how bad rotten egg stinks.

Hopefully, you enjoyed this, let us know if you tried any of these ideas and what you thought of them! Have a great time!

Next year, we will be discontinuing the Top Tips series. It has been a cool series to write but now it's time for something new. Here's the vote so that you can decide what we do next year!

Your Green World Team💚

Sources:

I got this video without a link from a friend since I can't really source it, I will attach it at the bottom, it has lots more cool ideas!

https://www.diybunker.com/68-diy-recycle-project-ideas-thatre-totally-genius/

Images:
Bird feeder: This image is owned by a blog editor.

Video:

Comments

16.08.2020 Animal of the week: Elephant

Hello. On the 12th of August it was International Elephant Day, so we decided that this week's post should be about elephants. Elephants are the largest living land mammals. There are three types of elephant; the African bush elephant; the African forest elephant and the Asian elephant. African elephants have larger ears, whereas Asian elephants have smaller ears. Elephants use their trunks to breath, bring food and drink to their mouths and to grasp objects. Elephants' legs are like pillars. They carry the Elephant's massive weight. African bush elephants weigh 6000kg, Asian elephants weigh 4000kg and African forest elephants weigh 2700kg. Basically, they are very heavy.Elephants eat grasses, small plants, bushes, fruit, twigs, tree bark, and roots. Elephants can live up to 70 years old in the wild. They communicate by sight, touch and smell. Sadly, these wonderful mammals are in danger. African elephants are listed as vulne...

How does plastic affect the environment?

Hello, I wanted to clarify exactly how plastic affects the environment. I hope this will explain. When plastic breaks, it releases toxic gasses that poison animals. Also, if plastic is swallowed it could cut or damage the inside of the animal. Many animals such as turtles and dolphins mistake the small plastic fragments for food. Even if the plastic is too small to cut into the insides of the animal or cause choking, too many micro plastics inside an animal will eventually block the digestive tracts and they will starve to death. Recent research proves that plastic has entered the human body. This is because plankton eats microplastics and small fish eat plankton. Bigger fish eat smaller fish and we eat the bigger fish. So inside us is plastic. Plastic also blocks waterways and sewers. This leads to the perfect breading grounds for disease carrying animals such as mosquitos. When plastic is burned it releases those toxic gas...

10 animals on the edge of extinction you didn't know about no.3- The Monarch butterfly

The monarch butterfly is an animal you will probably have seen around in your life. It's not the kind of animal you will know the name of, much less the extinction status, but the monarch butterfly is rated "endangered" on the WWF website. It's affected by climate change and humans and its numbers have declined greatly. Fast Facts The Monarch Butterfly is a rather small animal, however pretty large for one of its species. Their wingspan ranges from about 90 to 100 mm, the male butterflies being slightly larger than the female. They are orange with a black patterning and white dots on the sides of their wings, the vibrant colours warn predators of their bad taste. Monarch butterflies are known for their migration habits. They are mainly found in northern America, but travel to the south (Mexico or California mainly) to hibernate. These tiny butterflies travel almost 3 thousand kilometres and can be found all over the planet by now...

Ecosia

We all need to do something to save our planet: it is no use just leaving it to Greta Thunberg! She is very inspirational, yes, but she can only do so much. She isn't superhuman! The climate crisis is up to us; up to you. We all have to get stuck in. Research, learn, discover and most importantly: never give up! The world's animals need us. The world's trees need us and a simple way to do this is to switch to Ecosia. Ecosia is a search engine but it plants trees while you search the web. Okay, it doesn't have as many websites as google so you may want to have google as a backup but it plants trees: this is your opportunity to make a simple change. Just google Ecosia and search to plant trees. Make a difference. Image: This image is owned by Binyamin Mellish on pexels.com .

Discussion || Should Everyone Switch To Electric Cars?

Hi Everyone! Thank you so much for joining me today, as I hop on the blog to discuss whether everyone switching to electric cars would really help the environment. In other words, should everyone switch to electric cars? This is the first part of a two-part series, discussing electric cars, so stay tuned for part two!! I would like to start this post by stating that I am by no means an expert. This is knowledge I have from my own experience, and from research I have done. If anything is incorrect please take it as it is and accept that this is a discussion and I am taking on board all opinions from reliable sources on this complex topic. Electric cars are a huge topic when it comes to sustainability and "saving our planet". There is no debating the fact that electric cars are better for the environment than diesel or petrol once they are on the road. But the production of them is often very polluting, with one study show...

How well do you know the Arctic and the Antarctic? - Quiz

Welcome back to Green World, As announced last week, we're starting our new monthly series: quizzes! This post contains the questions, you have to write down the answers and compare them with the solutions right at the bottom of this post. Questions: True or False? The Arctic is not actually a land mass, it's a frozen ocean. How many people live in the Arctic circle? a) 500 000 b) 4 million c) 10 million True or False? Narwals don't actually have unicorn-like horns. That's just a legend. What percentage of the world's freshwater is frozen within the Arctic's ice? a) 10% b) 15% c) 20% True or False? The Arctic covers parts of 15 different countries. Scientists exploring Antarctica have measured winds of up to... a) 100 km/h b) 150km/h c) 200km/h True or False? The driest (natural) place on Earth is in Antarctica...

10 Animals on the Edge of Extinction No. 10- The Javan Rhino

The Javan rhino is listed as the 1st animal on WWF’s list of the 10 world’s most endangered animals, and I for my part, had never heard of it! If you hadn’t either, we’re changing that now. A bit about the rhino’s lifestyle The Javan rhinos are now exclusively found on the island of Java in Indonesia, but were once found in vast regions of northeast india and Southeast Asia. They have a dark grey colour which looks almost black when wet, and their (often pink) skin folds look a bit like plated armor. Both males and females have lower incisors which resemble tusks that they use to fight. Males have one relatively short horn of about 25 cm (10 inches). Javan Rhinos live in tropical forests, marshy areas and in the thick bush. They are mainly browsers and eat over 100 plants species they find in the forest, weigh between 900 and 2300 kg (1984-5071 pounds) and are between 3 and 3.2 meters (10- 10.5 feet) long. How endangered are we talking? Javan rhinos are the most ...

Amazon Rainforest series - part 3: human involvement

Hi everyone, This is the last post in the amazon rainforest mini series. It's all about how humans have affected the amazon rainforest. Unfortunately, most human impact on the amazon is negative. The Amazon rainforest faces many threats, but the main one is fire. You may think that the fires in the amazon are wildfires or created by accident, but that is not true. All over the amazon, farmers are setting fire to the trees and foliage. For only one reason, to clear land for farming. But this is a disaster. Last month, the amazon rainforest reached its tipping point . Due to the fires, it is now releasing more CO2 than it is absorbing. To feed our growing population, we are killing countless species. Species, that in some cases, we haven't even discovered yet. If the amazon rainforest goes, climate change will become pretty much unstoppable. But it isn't only animals and plants that are suffering. Do you remember all those tribe...

Ozone layer

Hi everyone, What even is ozone? And the ozone layer? Where does the hole in the ozone layer come from and what does it mean? Is it dangerous? What can be done? Often the ozone-talk can be complicated and confusing, keeping an overview is hard and understanding all the problems always difficult. Let us break it down a bit for you: What is the ozone layer? We'll start with the basics: The ozone layer is part of the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the Earth's atmosphere, between 10 and 50 km above the Earth's surface and made up of protective gases. One of these protective gases is ozone. There is not much ozone in the atmosphere, only 0.3 molecule of ozone per 1 million molecules of air. This is because ozone is chemically unstable and only forms when ultra violet radiation (UV light) hits oxygen and breaks the bonds between the atoms. It fact it is so unstable that even when it has formed, it breaks down again relatively quickly. This leads to ozone turning back ...

Palm Oil

Hi everyone, Today we would like to share with you some information about palm oil. With all the focus on climate change and plastic pollution, not many people are acting against the use of palm oil. Workers First of all, the managers promise that the workers will have good money, but when they arrive, their passports are taken from them, therefore, meaning they are trapped. Soon they find out that they aren't paid as well as promised. They have to work long hours with no breaks, maternity leave or sick days. Some people have to spray pesticides with leaking cans and no safety gear, meaning they become ill but are still forced to work. Deforestation Many animals are losing their home because the trees are chopped down to make room for the palm trees. they are now facing extinction. Also, trees helped to slow down climate change, but without them, climate change speeds up. So this is a big problem. Help your planet! Image:...

Green World

Search This Blog