Your Milk Bottles Are Next. Here's Why.

I stood in my kitchen last week holding an empty milk bottle like a total weirdo. Just staring at it. My partner asked if I was alright.

I was not alright. I had just worked out that our house alone bins about eight of those a month. Eight bottles. Times twelve months. Times every house on our street.

And here is the daft bit. That bottle is made of HDPE. It is one of the easiest plastics on the planet to melt down and make into something else. It has a wee number 2 stamped on the bottom telling you exactly what it is.

So why is it in the bin and not on my workbench?

Rope taught me to look at bins differently

For two years now I have been collecting retired climbing rope from walls around the UK. Rope that has to come out of service after five to ten years even when it looks perfect, because the core wears where you cannot see it.

In January alone we saved over 5 km of it from landfill. It comes into the workshop in Aberdeen as a tangled heap and leaves as belts, leads and keyrings.

Once you start doing that, you cannot switch it off. You walk round Tesco and see raw material everywhere. Certified waste man behaviour, I know.

HDPE was the obvious next one. It melts at around 120 to 130 degrees. That is oven temperature, not furnace temperature. You can shred it, colour it, press it and it comes out looking like stone.

How a milk bottle becomes a recycled plastic coaster

It is less magic than you would think. Here is the whole journey.

The caps are the fun part. Blue caps, green caps, orange juice caps. Chuck a handful of colours in and you get a marbled slab that looks like granite from a planet that does not exist.

The first prototype I pressed was honestly rotten. Warped edges, a bubble through the middle, and it smelled like a hot bin. But it held a cup of tea. That was enough to know it works.

What this means for you

HDPE coasters are coming. They are not ready yet and I am not going to sell you something half baked. When they land they will sit next to the recycled climbing rope coasters that are on the site right now.

In the meantime the rope side keeps going. Every recycled climbing rope belt is made to your exact waist size, anywhere from 22 to 50 inches. The rope keyrings start at £2.90 if you just want a wee bit of the story on your keys.

And if you want to help with the plastic bit, start rinsing your milk bottles and keeping the caps. Aberdeen folk, I will take them off your hands.

Two years ago it was rope. Now it is milk bottles. Give me another year and I will be eyeing up something else you have already thrown away.

Less waste. More miles.

Stay classy and remember,
Make Waste Useful.

George