Refundables Recycling

To get the maximum benefit from this post, you have to ignore the obvious underlying issue here, which is that my partner and I drink way too many bottled drinks (diet soda). Obviously the best way to address the issue of getting our bottles to the depot would be to reduce the number of bottles we're generating, right!? Ok, no need to mention it, I already know this. And of course, I am also well aware of the fact that water is healthier than diet soda. Let's just skip over this fact for the moment, and assume that I am MEDICALLY REQUIRED to drink diet soda, and so must somehow deal with the resulting bottles.

Now we can all enjoy ourselves.


Since beginning this blog we have been bundling our recyclable bottles in those standard black garbage bags that everyone else uses, because we just happened to still have a box of them lying around and we don't use them for anything else. On an on-going basis though, I knew I wouldn't want to be purchasing wasteful bags just to throw them out at the bottle depot.

I figured my best bet would be to make something. Ideally, it should be fabric that can be sewn into a bag, that doesn't absorb liquid, and that can be washed. Recyclable bottles invariably have little puddles of liquid still in the bottom that is bound to spill out in the bag, so we don't want to make bags that will be a gross, wet mess when we have to handle them.

While browsing Value Village a few months back I found some mesh fabric I decided would work perfectly. It was in the section with all the shower curtains and such, though I'm not really sure what its original purpose was. It may have been a strange curtain.

I cut the fabric into two big sections, folded them in half to make a bottom, and sewed up the sides with some synthetic fibre yarn to make a bag. Then I threaded the same yarn through the top to make a draw string. The resulting bag was very big, but really served the purpose, although I wouldn't fill this entirely with glass bottles. For cans and plastic it should work fine.



I will have to make some more in the semi-near future, although I'm out of fabric. I'm not sure that Value Village is really the right place to find it, since their prices tend to be a little high. It would probably be worth-while to check the discount section of Fabric Land for what they have.

I was pretty pleased with the result though!

How do you get your recyclables to the depot? Leave a comment!

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