 Welcome back to my channel, I have a very exciting video for you all today, I'm so excited to share what to do with your stainless steel water bottles once you've finished with them. Now stainless steel water bottles can actually last up to 12 years, fun fact. So they do last a long time, but if yours is banged and dented just like my sister's, I got her this water bottle as like a present and it's lasted a great like a long time, she lost the cap recently, which was very devastating, so it's kind of unusable without a cap because everything just spills out. So I was going to go recycle it, but I thought I'd share some cool upcycle repurposing tips and tricks and ideas with you guys that I discovered while I was looking into it that you can do with your water bottles in case you're not ready to recycle them because they do last a very long time and I actually do opt for them over glass often because if you have a glass bottle it's hardly likely to break, which has happened to me in the past and it's not fun when you have water all in your bag plus glass shards and you have to try and clean that up, it's not fun. So taking glass water bottles out with you is sometimes not the best thing as I've discovered. So another option is to use stainless steel, much more sturdier, much more durable, much more stronger and it lasts for up to 12 years as I said. So you have a long lifespan with your water bottle. Now the only thing is it can get dented and hers actually doesn't sit straight anymore like it's kind of tilted, I don't know if this is in the flat surface but it leans because she's dented the bottom. Still usable just means that because she's lost the lid that's why we're recycling it. But before I get into how to recycle it I'll share with you some ways you can upcycle it. But I thought I'd share something interesting that I learned this week, very fascinating and also really unfortunate. So plastic recycling ends up being more harmful on the environment than say metal recycling and things like that because metal, because recycling metal items actually saves energy and uses less energy than it would to create a whole new metal item. Whereas plastic there are a few things about plastic recycling that I didn't know until this week. So before we get into that I thought I'd quickly share, when you have a plastic bottle the reason why I don't like using plastic bottles, hold on a sec, I'm just so hot, I've got massive solar going, my big light here is just casting like a lot of heat onto my face and so I'm like super sweaty so yeah anyway we'll move on from that. So as I was saying plastic containers they actually can leach the chemicals from the plastic into the food item or the liquid inside which is like oh you don't want that. I do share more about plastic and like the toxic effects of plastic in my blog post which I'll in the description down below, you want to delve into it more but I'll just go do a quick summary. So things that are like hot or really cold so you freeze items in plastic containers or plastic bottles. When they go from varying temperatures plastic chemicals in plastic container or bottle can leach into those food items and then you consume it which is like really not good, it's very toxic for you. So that can be the downside of storing things in plastic and leaving the items in plastic for a long time also means that plastic can leach into those like food items as well and liquids. So it's just not great all around. So for me I strongly try to avoid storing things in plastic because it most likely will leach into your food or drinks. So I tend to go for stainless steel which I did share the bottle that I use from Hydroflask in my eco-friendly products haul, if you want to check that out I'll link it above. So I tend to go for stainless steel because it's nice and durable, nice and strong and easy to take out with you and just last for ages and or just fell over. So the process of actually melting down and recycling plastic can produce VOC fumes which is and VOCs are just volatile organic compounds and these fumes can actually harm plants and animal life near the industrial site. So they actually carry toxic effects, it's really not good for you to breathe in. What's more the heat required to melt down the plastic actually produces quite a lot of carbon emissions which can contribute to the climate change that we're experiencing at the moment. Got some hair on me. Anyway that wasn't part of it, sad no. Also the VOCs as I mentioned can also cause harm to people like us when we come in contact with recycled plastic. This is because like I said earlier the plastic resin that is made from petroleum like a oil for fossil fuel in fact that it actually can leach into our food and liquids that it's contained in those plastic items. Now due to the potential health risks that recycled plastic can actually pose because of these toxins, much of the plastic that's recycled tends to be downcycled. Not to be mistaken for upcycling, upcycling is different that's when you create it into something new and useful, downcycling is different. So downcycling basically means that instead of this plastic item becoming a new container it actually becomes a different, less useful product. And the problem with this is that once plastic has been downcycled it's often unfit after that to go through another round of recycling. So then it's usually just chucked into landfill anyway so it's downcycling often just postpones the inevitable process of it being thrown away which is very unfortunate. So it's definitely not a sustainable way of processing plastic I can tell you I feel like we need to find a new more sustainable way of harnessing this plastic rather than just chucking it into the landfill which we all know doesn't disappear like that. It stays in the land for thousands of thousands of years longer than our own lifetimes so we do need to figure out a plan on how to dispose of plastic more sustainably. So that is what I learned about plastic this week, hope you found it interesting. I was like whoa crazy you always think that when they recycle plastic it's going to become something new something useful and that's not always the case which is very just not impressed. Anyway we'll get into the upcycling tips now it's like been like 10 minutes of the video and I'm finally getting into the upcycling bit we've all been waiting for here it is. So a few different ways you can upcycle your stainless steel water bottles if you're not ready to recycle them I will go into how to recycle them later on in the video so if you want to recycle your bottle if it's reached the end of its life if it's ready for retirement and you're ready to recycle it I'll share how to do that. So the first thing that you can do with your stainless steel water bottle is to use it as a little cooking tool or baking tool so this stainless steel water bottle can actually be used as a rolling pin it's the perfect shape and it's really easy to roll on top of dough on top of baked items I guess mainly dough and you can also use the round top as a cookie cutter just use it cut out different shapes in the dough to make cookies it's very handy and I'm about to run out of battery so I'm just gonna quickly charge my camera and I'll be back soon stay tuned. The next upcycling idea for today is to turn your stainless steel water bottle into a flower vase so or vase so all you need to do is just pour in some water then collect some flowers from your local farmers market if you like or if you have a bouquet of flowers that someone's given you pop them in I had some flowers that were given to my mom so I popped them into the stainless steel water bottle and it just looks so pretty you can even if you want to get creative and decorate the outside of your water bottle if you like the outside was already blue so I didn't need to do that but you can you get paints feel free to draw designs on the outside make it look really fancy just add a little something extra to it the next upcycling idea is I'm just gonna shorten it maybe abbreviate it to NUP next upcycling idea you can also turn your stainless steel water bottle into a way to mix up your drinks or the quids without a spoon to save a protein shake that you want to mix up you don't have one of those containers if you do have those metal spheres that used to break up the powder that's also very helpful you can pop it in maybe even a wider mouth stainless steel water bottle I guess it might still fit in here but all you do you pull the liquid in pull the protein powder in or you can use tea leaves soaked tea leaves in there you can also use supplement powders so you know the sky's a little bit really you just pour the liquid the powder in and then just all the leaves and just shake it up and there you go you don't have to use a spoon to do it next is to turn your stainless steel water bottle into a herb garden this is one of my most favorite ideas as this was so creative all you do is you grab some potting soil you grab your herb seeds or other seeds that you want to put in here you can to grow flowers as well you can put them inside then you just water a little bit and let it sit at the windowsill in a nice sunny spot and then just watch the magic unfold watch those herbs start to sprout out the top and you can use it and sit on your windowsill and just easy pickings for some herbs during the day to add to meals smoothies you can even dry them out and turn them into a greens powder or just like a herbs seasoning it's like the sky's a little bit really just go crazy a tip for that is actually if you want you can drill holes in the bottom of your standstill water bottle to create a sort of filtration system for the herb garden so that the water doesn't sort of sit the bottom though it can that should be alright but if you are a bit concerned and you want the water to drain out so it doesn't kind of flood the inside just simply drill through the holes in the bottom and you have a nice filtration system for the herb garden oh I've got to say you can also use white chalk to write on the front of what the herbs are inside if you like as well some bottles actually have millimeters or ounces on the outside so you can use it to measure liquid so that can also be helpful as well I think this one is just a leader so if you want to measure something that was a leader worth you can use that as well so it can be a great measuring tool for your kitchen or garden or whatever you like to measure things with usually that's really more beneficial if you do have like the label of how many ounces it is but like different levels I have seen those bottles before usually like on plastic ones but I have seen them on standstill recently and they have just like a measuring sort of system along the side and that can be helpful if you want to measure out some liquids while you're cooking you can also use just an extra water bottle as a container for dry food mixes so say if you're out on a long hike or if you're camping and you want to take some food with you like snacks some healthy snacks you can pop in your dry mix dry foods mix dry nut mix and just sort of twirl it around if you want to shake up all the different nuts inside nuts and seeds you can go try crazy with it put a trail mix in there it's so so handy for that which is a great size as well so you can take that with you out and about and it's very handy I've done it once on hikes where I filled up some of my keep cups with snack items and it's so handy because there's such a small like size and it fits much more easily into your bag rather than having a giant container of things and if you're camping you can actually measure out ingredients and put them inside I have seen someone which is really cool they actually put like different flowers like and crushed seeds and nuts in there to make a protein powder so it's like a whole different range of different seeds and nuts to make this vegan protein powder and then when they got there they should sugar it up and then just pour the water in sugar it up and have their own protein shake so that can also be another idea you can also turn your stainless water bottle into a travel compost bin so again if you're out camping there's no way for you to put your scraps they only have a bin that you think is just going to end up in landfill you're like I want to do that don't want to cause more methane emissions ahead into that atmosphere you can turn your sensor bottle into a travel compost bin so all you do is you grab your food scraps so say you have a peach seed banana skin apple core you have an apricot seed you have anything any type of item that's a food scrap preferably probably not bones or bread because if you put them in your compost it attracts rodents and you don't want that so to make your travel compost bin all you do is you line it with some newspaper or one of those bio bags those biodegradable or home compostable bio bags you can get I will link in the description below if I find one I can share with you guys and you just line your drink bottle inside and you just pop in your scraps and then once you get home or you get to a spot say like out in the bush you can pop in just just food scraps nothing like rubbish or anything you can take out your food scraps kind of bury it there or you can take it home to where they're about the next when they get done it's welcome you can just take it home and pop it into your own compost bin at home and you've just helped to reduce methanomission in landfill which is great and also it says on food waste as well and just is it great or an idea I just thought this was such a cool thing to do big tip to keep in mind though if you're using it for a compost bin just make sure to just like deposit the scraps into your garden or compost bin as soon as you can when you get home because you don't want it to go funky inside from having food scraps sitting there for ages so we're at the first opportunity you want to make sure to empty out the scraps maybe wash it out and then squids go you can use your bottle to fill up your pets water bowls so this can be set aside next to theirs and it's just so easy tool to pour water into their bowl such as a nice simple idea you can also use it as a little watering can so you can turn your bottle into like a way to water your garden so you can either just pour it straight from the top and just gently pour it over the garden you don't want to bombard it because it kind of floods the garden it's not great so when you do it just gently pour it over the top otherwise you can also drill tiny holes in the bottom and create like a little watering can kind of system and just have some getting new watering can just last a foot ages too and just like an easy system to water the garden with it's really cool and last but not least but by the no means are these the only options for you can do with your water bottle get creative if you like like share new ideas that you've come up with for your water bottle in the comments below would all love to hear before our last idea is it's a great little holder to keep spare changing so say you want to set up a little travel fund you can put loose change that you collect over time you just keep depositing it in your bottle and over time maybe at the end of the year you collect it all up and see if you can take yourself or a partner or friend on a like a weekend away or a trip away somewhere I know we're in COVID at the moment so you might not be able to go too far overseas but you could go explore your own country maybe go somewhere fancy for just like a weekend away treat yourself treat yourself I like the idea of making a travel fund like a little travel account because I love to travel but it can also be for grocery shopping or just to buy a dress that you've been wanting to get for ages and you think you should save up for it rather than just spending all that money straight away can be also used for that so it's like a little bank account for yourself so yeah that's pretty much how you can turn your water bottle into something new and different and useful at home or when you're out and about but we'll move on to how to recycle it so if you're looking to recycle your water bottle because it's had it there's just no water left in it and you need to find somewhere where you can recycle it properly so it's more environmentally friendly and doesn't end up in landfill when it can be used to make something brand new so what you do is you actually need to take it to a scrap metal or metal scrap recycling facility because normal curbside recycling doesn't actually take sand and still water bottles because when they take it to the recycling facility they actually crush and bundle together the items to be recycled and stand still won't crush with their machines so they don't take it for that reason so it needs to be taken to a special place for recycling but the bonus is you can actually get paid for taking it to the recycling place but usually they pay in like tonnage so for your bottle you're probably gonna get a few cents so if you want to collect our bottles maybe from friends family try and pull them all together and then take them you might get a bit more but my intention for recycling it is actually not to get money from it actually I don't expect to get anything in all honesty for this probably be like you probably need more than that but I just want to get there to get recycled and so it's not in landfill so I'm happy to just go for free so I'm going to take it up I have missed the deadline to take it in today I supposed to be there by four but that didn't happen I didn't get to film this video till late and and then I had to charge my camera so we definitely did not make that time frame so I'm going to take it in tomorrow so I'll see you guys then to take it in to find a metal scrap recycling facility all you do what all I did was just type online on Google the nearest scrap metal recycling facility like near me and what came up was one that was local to me so I just drove on over some places may or may not take it maybe call up beforehand just to make sure they'll take your items it may even give you a quote on how much you get for it as well so up to you but I'll be here in there tomorrow to recycle this thank you thank you they're my blue light glasses and I forgot to take them off at home I was editing on my videos and I thought I'd come up pop by here before they close so here I am so I just hand in the stainless steel bottle that I had it's been a few days since I've actually talked to you guys I supposed to go the day after but that just didn't work out I had too many things on so I ended up going like things the following Monday so I'm here on Monday like four days later got there in the end though and all I had to do is hand the guy the bottle and he took it and popped it in with all the other metal recycling in that he was gathering together which was why it was so loud when I walked in he was in his forklift driving all the metal together in a bunch so yeah it's so easy so if you guys do want to hand in just a single metal bottle most places will take them and you can always call up like I said if you're not sure about it yeah it's super easy I'm really happy now that job is like done just tick that off my little to-do list yeah I hope you guys enjoy today's video do let me know if you recycle any of your stainless steel bottles or if you upcycle them anyway I'd love to hear what you guys do and I really hope you enjoyed today's video and I hope to see you again soon in my future videos I love you guys so so much thank you so much for sticking out this whole video with me and I hope to see you again soon bye