What do these two images have in common? First, fellow volunteer, traveler, and all-around super star Nikki forwarded them both to me. Second, they are both incredibly beautiful things made from plastic bottles. Yes, really! It’s true!
I’ve never been more motivated to find new uses for plastics than I am right now. We live on the beach and we see what the tide brings in. It’s not pretty and it’s not good for our neighbors living in the Pacific either. We found an enormous dead sea turtle the other day and I believe he died under suspicious circumstances (i.e. he got caught in or tried to eat something man-made possibly plastics-related).
What can one person do about all of the plastic out there? Well, I’ll tell you the same thing that you’ve probably been told before and something that we’ve told dozens of Ecuadorian kids during environmental charlas: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
Living in a low-resource area you can’t walk two feet without noticing how people have reused items often in novel and surprising ways. I should start collecting examples – it would make a great blog post. The point is, many other parts of the world don’t have a choice about reusing things like plastic bags, plastic bottles, the same cup for an entire party of people. So, the next time you want to throw your plastic water bottle away please think twice. Recycle it or make a chandelier or a canopy.
Check out some more images below for inspiration and visit This Is Colossal and Oh Happy Day for the details.
