Plastic soda bottles take up a great deal of space in our recycling bins and garbage bags. Here are some great ideas for putting them to better use.
Empty plastic soda bottles make great birdhouses. Cut several holes around the bottle with a utility knife and poke four-inch wooden dowels underneath the holes for birds to use as a perch. With a weather hardy outdoor paint such as latex porch paint you can paint your birdhouse any color of the rainbow. If you are crafty you can paint flowers, trees, or small birdhouses on the outside of the bottle for added decoration. Use the neck of the bottle to tie a piece of twine around and suspend your soda bottle birdhouse from a tree or porch. It’s great fun for the whole family to see what kinds of birds will move into your soda bottle birdhouse.
While the birds are happily nesting in one soda bottle they can be feeding from another. Just take an empty soda bottle and cut a large oval from its side leaving two to three inches on the bottom for seed. You can paint or decorate the soda bottle feeder any way you like and hang the feeder from a tree with a piece of twine.
Empty plastic soda bottles can also be re-used for other beverages in your refrigerator. Rinse the soda bottles and caps out with hot water and a bit of dish soap and let them dry. Now you can fill the bottles up with juice or water and they will fit on the door of your refrigerator or you can lie them down on a shelf to save room. For picnics you can put a soda bottle full of water in the freezer overnight and it can serve as both the ice pack to keep your food cold as well as a cold refreshing drink. There won’t be any messy ice water to clean up at the end of the day and your foods won’t get wet!
Have you ever opened your junk drawer and found everything tangled up in twine or thread? You can make a handy thread or string dispenser from an empty plastic soda bottle. Just take off the cap of the soda bottle and cut it in half. You can hang the soda bottle upside down in your workshop or utility closet with a thumbtack and just put the roll of string or spool of thread inside. Thread the end of the string through the mouth of the bottle and you can pull out as much as you need without causing a tangled mess.
Plastic soda bottles can make great funnels in a pinch. Just cut off the bottom half of an empty soda bottle and turn it upside down.
For some great outdoor fun with the kids try making soda bottle rockets. Fill up your empty soda bottle with an inch or two of vinegar. Take a piece of toilet paper or a Kleenex and place a Tablespoon of baking soda in the middle of it. Wrap the baking soda inside the tissue and place it carefully in the mouth of the bottle without letting it fall completely in. Next pop a cork into the mouth of the bottle and stand back! The baking soda and vinegar will mix together once the vinegar has soaked through the tissue and will form pressurized gas that will cause the cork to fly out of the mouth of the bottle.
The bottoms of empty soda bottles make great paint trays for your little artists. After you cut the bottoms off of some empty soda bottles you can pour tempura paint into them when kids are ready to create. After painting cleanup is a snap, just throw the soda bottle containers away.
