Plastic Bottles: Newsletter Challenge (03/07/06)

Drop them into a bowl of near boiling water. Most plastic bottles melt at this temperature, so you'd end up with a lump of solid plastic to take to the recycling point.

The problem with this solution is that it ruins the return value of the bottles. I know the question doesn't mention return value, but I'm also curious if there is any way to reduce volume while retaining this. No question though, your idea certainly would work.

Drill a hole on the bottle. Put metal tubing into it. Extend it with tygon tubing. At last, use vacuum suck the air from the bottle.

"...without...bringing anything else mechanical like that into contact with them..."

Kinda negates drilling, don't ya think?

In order to maintain the return value by the most conventional means, the bottle has to be more or less intact, because most supermarket redemption centers spin the bottle and scan the barcode, and a flat bottle doesnt spin very well. Now, if you had a recycling center that redeemed based on weight, a crushed bottle wouldnt mean anything. Of course, if you did find one that paid by weight, Id be inclined to leave the bottles intact and replace the air inside with argon to make them heavier. My prefered method of disposing of plastic bottles is to fill them with liquid nitrogen or dry ice and a little water, cap them, and toss them. The gas expands, and blows the bottle to smithereens. Got me in a little trouble in college, but hey, its also an effective way to mow the lawn....

I love it!!

Spin the bottle and scan the barcode? I guess we have different recycling on opposite sides of the pond. In Europe the bottles aren't reused, they're melted down and made into new bottles.

Here in many states we pay a 5 cent deposit on plastic soda bottles, glass beer and soda bottles, and soda cans. You go to your local grocery store with your recyclables and feed them into a machine that rotates the can or bottle, scans the barcode to veryify it is one in which a deposit has been paid, then crushes the can or bottle and keeps track of your total amount due back. Then it prints out a reciept which is redeemable at the checkout isle.

I wondered about that....briefly!

Only problem is , it would likely cost you more in power costs to boil the water than the return value would be worth. Kinda like spending $5. to make $4.

Use some of the metal materials lying around to make a device to allow you to direct steam from a common teakettle (remember those)into the bottle. Fill the bottle with steam, allowing enough time for the steam to displace as much air as possible, then replace the screw cap. As the steam condenses (Approx. 1000:1) atmospheric pressure takes over and, voila a flat bottle.

Yeah, I've seen this performed on an old can of paint thinner in a chemistry course. The shiny exterior created quite an effect when it collapsed. It doesn't, however, mention that these bottles have caps. I guess you can just 'assume' they do.

Or put a little water in each one; put it in a microwave with the cap loose; wait til the water boils away, and then screw the cap down. Don't even need tubing . . .

We have done the same thing with 55-gallon steel drums (barrels). . .Steam cleaned them inside and out then installed the bungs and set them outside on a winter day. They will crush just like the plastic bottles.

with tygon and drill press as motor. Still thinking how to construct roller.

Just give them to my German Shepherd.

If you drill a hole in one of the caps and attach a length of tubing that will reach from the top story to the ground you could fill the bottles with water and let the water draining out of them crush them with the pressure diferential created by the siphoning water.

kinda reminds me of the well pump challenge a few weeks back. If I knew what trygun tubing was, I might be inclined to agree. However, wouldn't stepping on the bottles be a lot easier than lugging the lot of them up to the roof ?
Good call on the method though, I suspect that's why the challenge specifies 3 stories.

Basically clea vinyl hose: http://k-mac-plastics.com/plastic-rod/tygon_tubing .htm

Found this on the web:

Tygon tubing is the clear type of flexible tubing. It is used to run water to and from condensors and steam to and from steam baths. In the picture below, it is the tubing on top. The tubing in the labs has been used and often is a lot darker in color than the tubing in the picture. Never use Tygon tubing to connect to a vacuum source since it will collapse under reduced pressure.

Notice the mention of steam... Hmmmm...

"Without using anything mechanical" What about the evaporative process of epoxy? Can we somehow use the tubing to get epoxy into or turn the bottles up-side-down and allow the petroleum distilates to evaporate into the bottles; cap them; then somehow freeze or cool them? sounds like a lot of work but, using only the materials suggested and not touching them with any other mechanical devices.

Suck the air out to flatten the bottles. Then put the cap back on to keep them flat. You do this when you drink the last of the soda - it saves time and space.

Set fire to them... ...hehehe When you can't have it, then have at it!!!

It is my understanding that the bottle and the cap are made of two different types of plastic. The cap is actually a non-recylable plastic only the bottle is. By capping them you add to the cost of recyling them, because the two have to be seperated during the process. I have noticed though, a few water bottle companies are changing to a clear recylable cap. Unfortunatley the same can't be said about the soft-drink companies.

That is because the water bottles do not have to be resistant to gas pressure leaks. Soda bottles have dissolved CO2 gas and they must maintain a pressure seal or the soda goes "flat". The softer (polypropylene?) caps seal down tight against the harder PET Polyester bottles. If cap and bottle were both PET, you could probably still get a liquid tight seal, but not a gas tight seal, due to minor imperfections or warping of the mating surfaces. Of course, a softer, sealing material could be inserted inside the cap (as when plastic bottles had aluminum screw on caps with liners, remember those?), but that would be more costly.

Also, why use argon to increase weight? Wouldn't that be more expensive than the increased value of the greater plastic weight? If you really wanted to cheat, leaving a little extra water in the bottles would probabably be a lot simpler and more effective, and not be noticed by the handlers, if they even cared!

Why is there talk about returing the bottles for money? I dont see that in the question....

I think that perhaps using the various tools and some playing around. I think a resipracating pump could be made out of metal tubing and nylon tubing and the thingy that is under the bottle cap (seal). just like the old hand pumps used for water well's. Using the drill press as the motor for the pump. you could vacume the air from the bottles, hence crushing them. seems like to much work for me though. here in canada we just put our bottles in a bin on the cure and the government takes them away for us. And we spend our time drinking beer and playing with cars.

Put all of the bottles into a cargo hold of a plane (because it is not pressurized.) Then when the maximum altitude is reached, cap all the bottles. When you return to atmospheric pressure at ground level, the higher pressure outside will have a tendency to crush the bottle. Will this crush the bottle completely though? I'm not so sure, but it's inventive. Also, you could cap all the bottles and tie them to a big stone and drop them in the ocean. You don't even need to lower them as deep as the plane flew high in the last example. Pull the rope up and wha-la. crushed bottles.

I agree with those that question the amount of energy required to deflate the bottles versus the net gain. It's a dumb bet and I have more important things to do in life with the time I have been loaned by God.

I still say just give them to my German Shepherd!

It's a win-win situation. You get a vastly reduced volume of plastic without utilizing any of your own energy or time and it keeps my dog from chewing on other things she has no business chewing!

Maybe if you took some of that IMPORTANT time that God Loaned you and teach your dog NOT TO CHEW things, you wouldn't need all the plastic bottles. It's a win-win stituation. You don't have any more things chewed up and you won't have to spend some of that IMPORTANT time picking up all the chewded up bottles.

Save water, empty the water into the next bottle to be collapsed.