>> Tiffany Threadgould is a design junkie and author of the This into That books (Giddy Up). Her business, RePlay Ground ( replayground.com), sells recycled goods, features DIY projects, and accepts donations of your unwanted items.
Don’t keep your artistic inclinations bottled up — use plastic soda bottles to express your crafty self.
Soda. Pop. Coke. Whatever you call this sweet, fizzy nectar, recycling bins are overflowing with its containers. Have you ever picked one up and studied it?
Look at all the glorious curves, the shades of clear and green. These mass-produced vessels can have much more value than the nickel and dime deposits you get in some states. Plastic bottles can last for hundreds of years. That durability, paired with our easy project ideas, will help you craft long-lasting household objects.
We’ll show you how to convert these plastic pieces into soap dishes, wrist cuffs, and more. When you’re ready for even more DIY plastic recycling projects, be sure to check out the Plastic Pizzazz book ( replayground.com).
POP QUIZ
Wondering how the soda bottle evolved? Soda water was first bottled in glass and sold in the 1830s. Soda makers could produce only about 1,500 bottles a day, and the glass containers were made by hand.
Later that century, sweet treats such as ice-cream soda, root beer, and cola-flavored drinks were invented, creating more of a demand for these bubbly beverages. By the early 1900s, new bottling machines made the process more automatic, but still used glass bottles.
The creation of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) in the 1970s gave shape to a lighter, cheaper soda bottle. It didn’t take long for these to catch on. In fact, Americans now consume more than 20 billion bottles of soda every year! That’s about 2. 5 million bottles every hour.
An estimated one in four PET bottles makes it from consumers’ mouths to a recycling facility. Recycled PET can be made into things like pillow stuffing, carpet backing, and fleece. Warm and fuzzy fleece can be made from used soda bottles?
That’s right. Polyester, an oil-based product, can be made from recycled soda bottles, another oil-based product. What happens to the other three out of four bottles that don’t get recycled? Help spread the word on how to turn empties into works of art.
START TRANSFORMING
Gather your clean and empty bottles. Not a soda drinker? Ask a neighbor for a few or borrow some bottles from your cubicle-mate’s Mountain Dew tower. Chances are he won’t notice.
On the next pages we offer basic instructions to get your creative, carbonated juices flowing. Feel free to add your own artistic touch, and make up your own bubbly projects. Then share them with us and other CRAF T readers at forums.craftzine.com.
Materials
» Plastic soda bottles, 20oz or 2-liter » Thumbtack
» Scissors
» Ruler
» Nonpermanent marker
» Optional: Permanent markers, paper punch, ribbon, tape or glue, electrical tape, pictures
Depending on the project, you’ll need:
» For the Trinket Dish Use the bottom 2½" of a 20-ounce bottle.
» For the Soap Dish You’ll need the bottom 3" of a 2-liter bottle.
» For the Photo Cuff Use 1½"× 6½" bands from the center of two
20-ounce bottles.
» For the Vase Cut the top 2" off a 20-ounce bottle.
References:
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