Creative Ways to Reuse Plastic, Rubber, and Other Recyclables

1) Make a DIY Plastic Bottle Planter

You don't need to go out and purchase fancy planters for your home. Instead, you can use 2-liter bottles to create appealing recycled plastic planters that can be painted to match your home décor and your own personal interests. This means you could make something designed uniquely for you that you'd never be able to find in any store and it doesn't even take long to do!

First, cut the bottom third off a 2-liter bottle.
Paint the part you've cut off in the color of your choice to match your home.
Use parts of the rest of the bottle to add extra designs to your planter.
Fill the bottle with soil.
Add seeds or a plant of your choice.

2) Upcycle a Bottle Into a Charging Dock

Charging your phone is an unfortunate frustration of everyday life, if only battery life lasted longer than just a few hours! Luckily, you can make it easy for yourself and others by creating a cell phone holder/charging dock so your phone never has to be far away!

Start by finding a bottle large enough to fit your phone. You'll want a lotion bottle, a shampoo bottle, or any other type of bottle that's more flattened rather than circular.
Remove the labels and thoroughly clean the bottle inside and out.
Hold your phone against the bottle to mark where you want the opening to start.
Use a box cutter to cut out the design you've created. You should aim to have the back curved upward so when you plug your phone in, you can keep it connected to the charging dock.
Design your charging dock by using paint or fabric to create a design you'll love.

3) Turn Plastic Bottles Into a Trash Can

There's no better way to go green than to create a trash can out of recycled plastic bottles where you can throw out all your other trash-but, not plastic, of course!

You'll need to start by collecting a bunch of plastic bottles of the same kind.
Cut the bottom of the bottle to put another bottle in it to create a firm exterior.
Drill to make a hole in the bottle to thread a wire into the bottles to skewer them.
Continue this until you've made enough skewers for a whole trash can and then put them into a steel frame using tweezers to tie the bottles.

4) Plastic Bottle Cap Lamp

The bottle portion isn't the only part of the plastic bottle that can be useful after your drink is done. You can use the cap to create a bottle cap lamp. It's a time-consuming project, but it's a creative and pretty way to use recycled materials.

Gather together a lot of plastic bottle caps, as many as you think you'll need.
Hot glue them together into four equal squares to create your lampshade design.
Hot glue those squares together and stick them to a lamp socket.
Place a bulb in the socket and turn it on to see your creation in action!

5) Create a Vertical Garden With Soda Bottles

Save up your 2-liter bottles and reuse them to create a vertical garden as a low-budget way to make an urban garden even if you don't normally have the space for one! All you'll need is a bunch of plastic bottles, scissors, a clothesline, washers, and the plants of your choice!

Cut out a large hole in the side of the bottle for your plant.
Make two holes at the bottom of the cylinder and two at the top and put your clothesline through the holes.
Add washers at the end of the string to keep the bottle level and secure.
Add smaller holes to irrigate the water.
Add your favorite plants and be sure to water them!

Crafts With Plastic Bottles

7 DIY Recycled Bird Feeders: Invite your feathered friends to the garden this spring with seven possible bird feeder ideas made from recycled materials.
Recycle Bottle Craft: How to Make a Utility Basket From a Plastic Bottle: This craft doesn't require a lot of work, just cut up an old plastic bottle and wrap wool around it the right way.
How to Make a Plastic Bottle Birdfeeder: Plastic bottles make a great recycled birdfeeder and filling it up with seeds of all sorts will bring birds right to your yard!
Super Simple Recycled Plastic Planters: You can make cute planters from a few plastic bottles and learn about new ways to make changes in your life to help the earth.
Oil and Water Discovery Bottles: This fun craft is also a great experiment to make your own lava lamp out of plastic bottles.
Make a Fish From a Recycled Plastic Bottle: Instead of tossing your plastic bottles out, crush them up and paint them to look like little fish!
DIY Water Bottle Piggy Banks: Save up all your coins with a cute little piggy bank made out of old water bottles.
Recycling Facts, Games, and Crafts (PDF): This booklet is chock full of recycling games and activities as well as cool crafts you can make out of old plastic bottles.
5 Easy and Fun Recycled Crafts: Instead of throwing out your old plastic bottles, check out these cute crafts that you can try instead to keep those bottles around for longer!
Fun Shaker Bottle Craft: Take an old bottle and add colorful items inside to create a colorful bottle that you can shake and watch the colors bounce around.

Science Projects W ith Plastic Bottles

How to Make a Squeezy Bottle Rocket: Learn more about Newton's Third Law of Motion with this bottle rocket activity.
Cloud in a Bottle: This super simple weather science experiment creates a cloud in a bottle with a few materials.
Tornado Bottle: Make your own tornado in a bottle and come back to it again and again!
Build a Balloon Powered Car: Turn bottles and trash into a toy car and watch it go! Play around with it to see if you can make certain changes that will make the car go further.
Drip Drop Bottle: This experiment teaches you about the properties of air pressure and how it affects water leaking out of a bottle.
Make a Model Lung: You breathe more than 23,000 times a day, but how does it work? You can make a model lung out of a plastic bottle, a straw, balloons, and rubber bands to see how it works!
The Draining of a Jug: Measure the rate at which water drains with different size bottles and holes.
Pop Bottle: Put a new twist on changes in volume, pressure, and temperature with this experiment.
Make a Bottle Rocket (PDF): Create your own rocket out of 2-liter plastic bottles and see how small changes can make all the difference in how high and far it can go.
Bubbles on Bottles: Temperature changes can impact the size of bubbles placed inside of a bottle

Miscellaneous Recyclable Crafts

Recycled Arts and Crafts Guide (PDF): This guide from Planet Ark is to help schools come up with fun crafts made primarily out of recycling materials. It was originally for National Recycling Week, but it's full of great activities to try at any time!
Paper Mache Pots: Use a plastic container to get you started and then paper mache tons of colorful paper from old magazines on the outside so when it dries you'll have a colorful pot from recycled materials!
Recycled Art Projects for Kids: Use recycled objects and things from nature to create any of the 30 potential crafts listed on this page.
Bottle Cap Crafts: Most crafts using recycled bottles only make use of the bottle part, but there are plenty of fun crafts you can do with the bottle caps that have been left behind too!
Easter Recycling Crafts for Kids: Celebrate spring with these fun recycled Easter crafts instead of purchasing all those artificial grass strips and items that will just go to waste.
Wee Crafts (PDF): This guide has compiled dozens of activities that will make use of all the recyclable objects you use in everyday life by turning them into fun crafts the whole family can do together!
Toilet Paper Tube Binoculars: Make your own binoculars out of 2 toilet paper rolls and decorate them exactly how you want with paint, markers, crayons, string, ribbon, and yarn!
Recycled Holiday Crafts (PDF): Make your holidays green with plenty of crafts made from recyclable materials!
Make an Off-the-Grid Eco Dollhouse: Tired of the usual small recycling crafts? Interested in starting a big project that will make use of plenty of materials and last for years to come? Make your own detailed dollhouse from a variety of recyclable materials!
10 Simple Recycling Crafts: Dive into your recycling box to make use of things like shoe boxes, egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, plastic bottles, and more to create your own crafts!