How To Upcycle Plastic Bottles To Turn Them Into Useful Daily Use Items
Plastic pet bottles are categorized as single-use plastic, but that does not mean you have to throw them away. Surely by now, you know that dumping plastic in the environment contributes to pollution. Of all the plastic items that can be recycled and reused, bottles are the easiest; you can conveniently upcycle them (no, we're not suggesting you keep water in them).
Let us first understand what upcycling is, and then list ways for you to upcycle those plastic bottles.
Country Living
According to Collins dictionary, ¡®If you upcycle something such as an old item of furniture, you repair, decorate, or change it so that it can be used again as something more fashionable or valuable¡¯.
Basically, you modify the existing plastic item, and use it for some other purpose than what it was supposed to serve. There are N number of ways you can upcycle plastic bottles and here are a few of them.
Vertical garden
You might have already seen this coming up in and around your city.
Instructables
You can cut out the upper half of a plastic pet bottle and use the lower half to plant small indoor plants (or even other small plant kinds). A vertical garden will not just spruce up your space, it will also add some freshness to it; the only cost you will have to bear is of the seeds or the plants. You will already have the plastic pots to plant them in.
Pen holder
Cut out the plastic bottle, decorate (or not) whichever half you like - could be both too. You can simply cover it with colored plastic paper, and you¡¯ll have a cheap-as-hell but pretty-looking stationary holder.
My kid craft
If you have more than one bottle to spare, you can have a separate holder for every type of stationery item.
Brush holder
It can work the same way as a pen holder or you can jazz up the decoration on this one, a little.
Cool Creativity
Actually, plastic bottles can be cut down to hold a lot of things. Pens, pencils, make up brushes, toothbrushes, late-night anxieties, you name it.
Magazine/newspaper holder
It is not just the pet bottles that are a waste right? What about the cans of oils? Those big bottles of plastic can be creatively used too. You can carve out the can as shown in the image and use it as a magazine/newspaper holder. Those newspapers lying around the house aren¡¯t doing anyone any good.
Praktic Ideas
Plus, if you redecorate prettily, it could be a nice utility show piece. You can say to your guests ¡®yes we are taking the small steps to help the environment; what are you doing?¡¯ without actually having to say it.
Crayon/pencil color dispenser
You do not even have to cut up the bottle in this case. You can simply put crayons or pencils in the pet plastic bottle after cleaning it up and viola you have a really cool color dispenser.
All For the boys
Trust me, it really looks cool and is really easy to carry.
Piggy bank
Do this - paint that 2 L useless coke bottle pink, or blue or yellow, really whatever color you want. Make a face on it, if you're really keen on making it colorful and fun.
Put glue on the cap so that you are not tempted to willy-nilly take money out of it (because that would defeat the entire purpose of a piggy bank), then carve out a rectangular hole on one side of the bottle with a cutter, big enough to let coins and notes get through. Tadaa! Your plastic gullak is ready is less than half an hour.
Bird feeder
Are you tired of birds breaking those earthen containers while voraciously trying to get all the feed from it? (Please say yes) Then, here is the perfect solution for that. You can vertically or even horizontally cut out a plastic bottle and keep the bird feed in that.
Savvy Housekeeping
You can have more than one container like that, and there is no fear of birds breaking plastic, because let's admit it, even nature cannot do that, even if it tries for hundreds of years.
Watering can
The big plastic bottles with a larger mouth can easily be turned into watering cans for plants.
Craft Side
Those 5 L oil cans do not even need much modification except for some holes on the mouth of the cap, to become watering cans; they even have space for holding them properly.
Decorative petals
There are a lot of ways you can cut out plastic bottles to turn them into cool, decorative items. But I will take you through the easiest one, assuming that you are as lazy as me and are not interested in elaborate decoration. Cut a plastic bottle horizontally, then use the upper half of the body and start cutting thin strips from bottom towards the cap.
Blue Shed
Bend them as shown in the picture. Color them in crazy pretty colors. Repeat with other bottles. You have an almost no-cost kick-ass wall decoration.
Trash can
Image using trash as the trash can? I mean can innovation BE taken to another level? (I am sure it can, but let's just all play along). You can put together a bunch of plastic bottles. You can ask your neighbors for spares if you run out of plastic bottles for this, because let us admit it - they are not doing anything better with theirs.
Glue them all together to make a trash can. And you can glue them together in any way you like.
There are a lot of other things you can do to upcycle plastic bottles - cut them out to use them as jewellery holders, or decorative lights; some people even make curtains out of them. Here we have listed out the easiest ways to upcycle plastic bottles because, well, most of us lead fast lives and would want to know the easiest and most practical ways in which we can contribute to being more environment-friendly citizens.