Some Practical Creations from PET Plastic Bottles.

This hub shares ideas on how to utilize used-pet-bottles for practical uses. Activities in this projects are also positive for family education from which people not to mention students can get ideas and encouragement what to do with their plastic bottles instead of   dumping them directly to environment.

Based on complexity in the making, I divide the projects into three (3) categories :

Easy, Medium , and Difficult.

Scissors

Cutter

PVA Glue

candle and lighter (for heating process)

Water

Old paper, thin paper, tissue paper (for pasting).

Brushes (for pasting and coloring)

Paints

Ornaments, like beads, beach sand, colored paper, etc.

All projects in this hub basically use the same instructions like cutting, pasting, smoothing, coloring/painting, and putting on ornaments. Step-by-step of those instructions can be read in my other hubs :

We can use plastic bottles as seedling pots and they are easy to make.

Cut the bottle into three parts : the bottom (X) , middle (XX), and top parts (XXX).

Make some small holes on the bottom part (X) for the drain when we water it.

Make some holes on the lid then put it back on  part (XXX). The holes have the same function as water drain. Put the top part (XXX) on the middle part (XX) but in up-side-down position. Now you can make two pots out of one bottle.

We can also create something useful like making a bird house from a PET bottle. A big, 1.5 l volume PET bottle is cut at 1/3rd part from the bottom to make "the door" of the bird house (look at fig.1). If you think it's necessary, you can make other two smaller holes for the windows above the door. Give a small bar across the house for the birds to perch.

We need a 1.5 liter bottle for this part. Let the cap on, cut the bottle at 1/3rd from the bottom. we'll use this hole for either the cricket's entrance or for feeding gate. Don't forget to cover the hole with a net fabric like a gauze when the crickets dwell their house to keep them alive with sufficient oxygen (fig 2). When you need one or two crickets to get out ( as you need to feed your pet) you can do it through the capped hole. By doing this way then you can control the number of crickets which may go out of their house. To make the cricket house stay still, you need pedestal which can be made from a carton box..

Flowerpots are different from seedling pots that they involve additional steps in their creation to make the pots more spacious. To start this project, first do some instructions given in project 1 (about making Seedling Pots). The next steps are :

Make 4 downward cuts on the wall of the pot walls, the cutting down to around 5 cm above the bottom.

Using another plastic material, make some small pieces of 3 cm x 6 cm size. We use this pieces as connectors to intercept gaps of the cuttings on the pot walls.

Place one piece of those small pieces between a gap of the cut wall, stretch the gap so that we can make wider room in the flower pot. Put the connector on the wall and be fixed by stapling it onto the left and right of stretched sides. Do it all the same way on the other three gaps.

You can see the result like fig 3.

Cut the bottle into two parts, we'll use the bottom (1/3 part of the bottle) as the pencil holder.

Paste with thin/tissue paper around it. You can use light(diluted) PVA glue to stick the thin paper or tissue paper for pasting around the PET bottle. Two or three layers pasting is usually enough and let it dry. It normally takes one to two days to completely dry.

You can go to next step after it's dried including coloring, painting, putting ornaments, etc.

There are some designs one can make tissue holders out of PET plastic bottles, all depends on his/her creativity. Here I give two examples of tissue holder designs : A simpler design which looks like a champagne bottle and a more complicated Aladdin Lamp design.

Please check the following links to know how to make each of those designs :

We can make various forms of indoor ornaments from used PET bottles. Here I give examples of some of them. Instruction like cutting, pasting, coloring or painting still becomes the basis of making indoor ornaments, those instructions are mostly applied in the projects given above.

One step which is used in making one of the ornaments and not used in other projects is heating the PET bottle using candlelight to create artistic shape. This step is done after cutting the bottle  before pasting, coloring or painting, and putting ornaments on.

Children should be under parent's supervision and assistance when doing this project, especially when they work with cutter, scissors, and when they do the heating.