Are you worried about the environment?
Not doing enough to save the planet?
Throwing too much plastic away?
Well, here are 10 ways you can not only recycle your plastic bottles but create fun, effective, time, money and planet saving uses for your trash.
1. DIY Plastic Bottle Gardening Wall
Ever wanted to jazz up that plain boring old wall with something fun, colourful and environmentally friendly?
Why not cut a trough into one side of a soda, pop or water bottle and fill with soil, plant some seeds, water daily and watch life grow from within. Hang them by a string or screw the bottles into the wall and maybe make a funky pattern from them!
Make as many as you like! A great way to spend a Sunday afternoon with the kids!
2. DIY Plastic Vegetable Garden
Those 5litre bottles you buy for cooking oil or water often get tossed away but did you know you could use them to create your own plastic vegetable garden?
Rectangular in shape they lie perfectly flat on one side enabling you to cut open the other side, fill with soil and seeds and watch as your once drab patio floor becomes a nourishing accompaniment to your favourite meals.
Grow anything you like in there; lettuce, herbs, carrots – anything that doesn’t need more than five or six inches for its roots!
3. Bottle Drip Irrigation
Ever wondered why you see corrugated plastic tubes wedged in the roots of trees and plants? Sometimes there just isn’t enough irrigation available to feed the roots below the soil, so a tube is strategically placed to allow water to flow into the base of the plant directly.
To achieve this with a bottle destined for landfill, simply cut your bottle in half and burrow a hole a few inches below the surface of your new tree or plant. Place the perforated screw cap end into the ground and fill up the soil around it to hold it in place. You won’t believe the difference this makes to the speed in which your plant flourishes!
4. Plastic Bottle Stone Fairy House
Here’s something else for the kids to make on a rainy day. It’ll require a little visit out to the forest to gather a few things first but at least that’s where the fairies live – so best ask them what you need whilst you’re there!
Simply cut a square hole in the bottom of an orange or apple juice bottle to make a doorway and then using PVA or hot glue begin to stick small pebbles around the outside. You’ll begin to see the fairies dying to get in!
Follow the link below to complete this super cute feature to your garden.
5. DIY Hanging Plastic Bottle Planter Garden
Double up your bottle cutting skills by cutting TWO holes either side of a two litre bottle and place your soil and seeds or buds in the base. Suspend them using string around the neck from an overhanging ledge or pergola and marvel as life peers out of either side of the plastic vessel.
6. DIY Self Watering Seed Starter Pots
For those who want to save the planet but just don’t have the time to spend watering their botanical babies, cut open a two litre bottle in half and open the neck end upside down into the base. Pop some wicking fabric in the opening and fill with soil and seeds.
Add some water into the base and when you return from a hard day’s work each day you can watch your begonias thrive in their new recyclable home.
7. DIY Plastic Bottle Mushroom Garden
Think you’re a bit of a fungi? Not mushrooms in the house? Then here’s your answer:
Cut open a rectangular bottle and fill with, wait for it, used coffee grounds and mashed cardboard! A generous dose of H20 and revel in the apparition of oyster mushrooms in your backyard.
8. DIY Plastic Water Sprinkler
This won’t need much of an explanation. Simply grab a bottle and, using a pin, prick a load of holes down one side and affix to the end of your hose. There really couldn’t be a simpler, cheaper way to evenly water your lawn..
9. Vertical Plastic Bottle Onion Tower
Love an onion? Who doesn’t?
Using a heated circular metal tool or a craft knife, carefully cut one inch diameter holes evenly around a plastic bottle and remove each end. Fill the vessel with onion sprouts and tasty soil, water generously and leave on the windowsill. Before long you’ll have your own vertical sprouting onion garden. Genius.
10. Plastic Bottle Tower Gardening
What better way can there be to feel smug and proud of your environmental actions by making a sprouting green wall out of the fresh water that you drink?
If you have a trellis in the garden and want plants growing up to the heavens then grab your once wasted bottles and follow the link below to see what our Dutch friends have devised.
Conclusion
Who knew there were so many environmentally friendly ways to use your plastic bottles? Not only are these innovative ideas useful and help save the planet but provide a fun way for the family to get together and create something revolutionary for the future.
Great creativity, and kept simple