All over the world people enjoy a cold beer now and then throw away the bottle caps, assuming they are just trash. At first glance, they may seem to be, but a closer look and some imagination reveals a terrific source for beer bottle cap crafts. Most are easy to do, quickly made and, best of all, assist in keeping landfills down. Plus, beer bottle caps can be used in crafting things that can be used as gifts as well as items for personal use.

A bottle is a rigid container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a “mouth.” Bottles are often made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminum or other impervious materials, and typically used to store liquids such as water, milk, soft drinks, beer, wine, cooking oil, medicine, shampoo, ink and chemicals. A device applied in the bottling line to seal the mouth of a bottle is termed an external bottle cap, closure , or internal stopper. A bottle can also be sealed by a conductive “innerseal” by using induction sealing.

By contrast, a jar has a relatively large mouth or opening.

The bottle has developed a millennia of use, with some of the earliest examples appearing in China, Phoenicia, Rome and Crete. The Chinese used bottles to store liquids.

Bottles are often recycled according to the SPI recycling code for the material. Some regions have a legally mandated deposit which is refunded after returning the bottle to the retailer