The hard truth is, in the real world, every so often you just end up having to buy some beverage that comes in a plastic bottle. Big family-sized pop bottles for a birthday party, for example, or a bottle of water when you’re stuck in an airport queue for hours on end.
I don’t get many of these bottles, true, but it’s good to try to reuse the plastic drink bottles that do come into my hands.
Okay, then — what do we do?
- • Refill the empties with other beverages.
- • Freeze water in them to act as a cold-pack in a picnic basket.
But then, what?
Bird feeding station
I’ve got a little gadget that converts a 2-litre bottle to a bird feeder, and that’s better than nothing — although it’s very far from being squirrel-proof, and it tends to spray birdseed around if caught in a good brisk wind.
Slow-release watering system
Another practical gadget is a spike with holes in it that screws onto the top of a soft drink bottle filled with water. You poke it into the garden or planter, and it’ll release the water down at the plant’s root zone, to keep everything green and happy when you abandon your garden for a few days away. (My mother has a half-dozen of those, for her big pots of geraniums on the sunny deck. The plants are big and bushy enough to hide a 750ml or 1-litre bottle, just fine.)
Instant watering can
Now here’s another interesting bottle conversion: Twist & Spout comes in two versions, for kitchen and garden (the difference is in the size of the spout.)
In the kitchen, the twist-on handle and spout makes a big fat beverage bottle a bit easier to handle and pour, especially for little people with small hands. In the garden (or among the house plants, for that matter) the attachment turns an old bottle into an instant watering can.
Twist & Spout fits “virtually any soda or water bottle with a screw-on cap” which is rather convenient, as you may have both small (single-serving) bottles and large “family size” empties to find another use for.
But I’m in two minds about this kind of product, to be honest —
Should we buy another piece of plastic just to make it easier to reuse the first one? But if it kept you from buying a plastic watering can, would that balance out the plastic-consumption equation? Oh, but hey! Is the Twist & Spout made of recycled post-consumer plastic, by any chance? They don’t say on the sales page… but if it was, that would make a difference, wouldn’t it?
Sheesh.
As the frog said, “It’s not easy being green.”
Ever made a dog seat for the car? My Jack Russell wants to see out and also wants to be near us. I want to make something that fits in between our bucket seats so she can see and I don’t have to have her on my lap all the time. I buckle her harness onto my seatbelt but it doesn’t make for a pleasant ride. I’m a diy’er but I can’t seem to figure out something that would be tall enough, light enough that will fit and yet be able to be fastened securely so she stays safe. Might you or your “hoarder of power tools” (haha) be able to figure this one out. I think you are amazing and your site is also amazing. Thanks so very, very much.
Hi Helene, thanks much for the kind words! We haven’t made a dog seat yet, but you’re smart to look for a way to buckle her in safely and yet boost her up to see. I’ll put it to He Who Hogs The Power Tools and talk to a buddy who has a Jack Russell, and we’ll see if we can come up with anything DIY that makes sense. Happy New Year to you! :)
Hi Donna,
The only other place I’ve seen the Twist & Spout Watering Can offered lately is at http://www.mishasf.com/Twist-and-Amp-Spout.html – price is $6.99 as of today.
MishaSF is in San Francisco, but you can shop online and they do ship internationally.
Where can I buy the Twist & Shout Instant watering can? Amazon says it’s currently unavailable on their site. Thanks.
p.s. – In today’s batch of hardware store flyers, I saw a little plastic daisy-shaped sprinkler attachment to turn a disposable soft-drink or water bottle into a little sprinkling-type watering device for small children.
Isn’t synchronicity just grand?