In the not too distant past, you would buy milk, sodas, etc. in glass bottles which you would return to the store to be sterilized and used again. Now, with our disposable culture, plastic bottles have replaced this system and have consequently become one of the many banes of the landfills. We need to rectify this wasteful and eco-nomically expensive practice.

The current popular solution to the problem is recycling. However, recycling requires additional energy to process the material into something usable, not to mention the fact that the process itself can have harmful side effects. So a better solution, if you can’t avoid the disposable containers altogether, is to reuse them. This requires no added infrastructure costs and concerns. In fact, if you are reusing junk, you are helping to make the initial energy that went into the production of that material last longer and go farther. It’s not just about saving money, but more importantly, integrating your lifestyle with what is available for the least amount of cost, be it environmental or financial.

That said, here are a few simple ideas on how to reuse plastic bottles around the homestead: