How To Give A Second Life To Used Plastic Containers

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Not to a landfill, but to business

I admire human fantasy, when it is aimed at the good of man, at life's comfort, at ease in work. I am sincerely grateful to the inventors of the automatic washing machine, multicooker, kettle with automatic shutdown and other household items that make life easier.

This was done and is now being done by professional engineering teams, but in our country there are a lot of talented people - "kulibins" who are able to make necessary and useful things from waste materials. There are especially many inventors and inventors among summer residents. To grow your favorite flowers and vegetables, greenhouses, hotbeds, mini-greenhouses, light pyramids, earthen pyramids made of boards, pipes, roofing felt, nets are made … And what is nice - these people do not make a secret of their ideas.

Products made from plastic containers are very common. Every spring, in summer cottages, bottles and bottles with cut-off bottoms stick out (they can be of different capacities - from 0.5 liters to 19 liters), depending on the height and volume of the plant planted in the beds.

Some gardeners, who can only visit the country on weekends, use one and a half and two liter plastic bottles as long-term drinkers. They make several holes in the narrow neck of such a bottle with a nail or other sharp object, fill the bottle with water, preferably warm water, then water the plants abundantly and press these bottles into the moist soil near the plants, for example, near the plantings of cucumbers. It is only important to do everything carefully so as not to damage the roots of plants, which are known to be close to the surface. While the soil is wet, water slowly flows out of the container. And when the soil begins to dry out, the water from the bottle begins to slowly flow into the soil, watering the plants. If you wish, you can add fertilizers to the water, then there will be watering and feeding at the same time. The same drinker can be installed under recently planted tender seedlings of fruit, ornamental and floral plants. By the way, if you take brown bottles for such a drinker, the water in them will be heated.

I was recently told about the experience of a man who assembled a drainage system from plastic bottles on site.

I used plastic containers too. Last year I needed more pots for picking seedlings than I had, and the stores have already taken them apart. But a way out was found. At work, we have a coffee machine, we constantly go there for our favorite drink. And a lot of used cups have accumulated there. In terms of volume, they fit my flowers, their walls are not transparent. So I put in the free material. I pierced the holes in the bottom and attached the cups to the plastic cake lid. It turned out that it was possible to water the plants both from above and from below. But bad luck - they turned out to be not very stable. The idea came to improve them. I did this with the help of other cups, which I cut in half, then turned the top of them down and inserted cups with seedlings there. Diameters matchedand the cups fit tightly into this kind of now stable stand.

And I also like to use bottles as containers and packaging for transporting plants. If you cut off the upper tapering part of the bottle a little not completely, so that you can fold it back, and then put the plant there, close the upper part and secure the cut with tape - the package is transparent, elastic and light. In it, you can safely transport seedlings or other plants without fear that they will break.

Last year, I donated several plants in a 6 liter plastic bottle over 2,000 kilometers with a minimum amount of soil. They spent almost a month in this package, they only added a little water to them, and all the flowers took root.

By the way, in the same container it is convenient to transport eggs purchased in the store to the dacha. They will not break and will get there safely.

In the fall, when it’s time to harvest, there is usually not enough container for everything. And plastic dishes help out again, especially when you need to transfer vegetables or fruits to friends and not wait for them to return the necessary dishes. I was bringing apples to friends in a nine-liter bottle (also cut and secured with tape). One young man in transport became interested: how did I pack them there. I willingly shared my experience.

You can also use plastic bottles to store cereals in the country, especially in spring and autumn. Moisture will not get there, and a hungry mouse will not be able to profit. If ventilation is needed, you can make holes with a drill inserted into a screwdriver. I also store onion sets and seed potatoes in such containers. If some tuber decays, it is visible, and you can immediately get rid of it. In addition, potatoes are also vernalized in the light.

Last summer we had a lot of sassy wasps. On the Internet, I found a recommendation on how to make a bottle trap. To do this, you need to cut it in a 1: 2 ratio, and insert the upper smaller part with the neck down into the lower one, fix it there and pour honey diluted with water on the bottom of the bottle. Our wasps were not tempted by honey, but they really liked sea buckthorn jam, wasps and flies feasted there and died. Some flies turned out to be smart, after a meal they found a way out of the narrow neck, but a lot of them remained in the trap.

I believe that such repeated use of plastic containers not only benefits gardeners, but also helps to save the territory near summer cottages from pollution.

Tatyana Telichkina, a

resident of St. Petersburg, a

gardener in the Kirovsky district of the Leningrad region

Photo by the author