The Holidays have come and gone, and many parties later…we have an embarrassing amount of empty wine and spirits bottles to contend with. Rather than toss them in the garbage, there are some great (and fun!) reasons to reuse and/or recycle your leftover booze bottles this year.
Why You Should Reuse or Recycle Your Glass Bottles:
- They would otherwise end up in the landfill. It takes a glass bottle about 1 million years to break down in a landfill. (via Bergen County Utilities – Recycling Facts)
- The amount of energy and resources used to create glass bottles from recycled materials is less than the amount needed to create bottles from virgin materials. Less energy means less pollution!
Are you living in Hawaii and interested in recycling your glass bottles? Check Here to see if your local recycling center will accept brown, clear, and green glass bottles (non HI-5). Most curbside services, Reynolds Recycling centers, and Island Recycling centers do accept them. Although they aren’t eligible for the 5 cent refund, it’s worth it to know you’re doing the right thing, no?
Also, if you’re one of those people who collects wine corks (like me) with the intention of doing…something with them, but never gets around to it… Yemm & Hart on the mainland will recycle those for you too! You can mail your corks to them (prepaid by the company) and they turn your wine corks in to cork tiles. These have been used as interior finishes in Whole Foods, and other commercial buildings. Pretty awesome!
Looking for something a bit more creative to do with your wine bottles? Here are a few of our favorite wine bottle hacking projects from around the interwebs:
via Design Sponge
1. Wine Bottle Tiki Torches! click here for a tutorial
via Instructables
Have a good time emptying those bottles, but remember to do something fun with them instead of tossing them in the landfill!
