Water Bottles – Finding and Preparing Them
11:32 am in Seeking Advice by Pete Jelliffe
So I opted not to spend $100 on 10 plastic water bottles that were already painted. But because the idea of searching far and wide in dumpsters, or haggling with “plastic bottle collectors” I bought 12 1.5L Poland Spring bottles for $15 in chinatown. I know it’s not recycled, because I wouldn’t have bought these bottles otherwise, but I don’t think it’s that contrary to the idea of window farming. It was a material I needed to buy, like a drill bit or box of screws. I would have bought empty bottles from WF had they not cost 7 times as much as full ones.
Now I’m in the process of cutting and spray painting the bottles. I’m trying to get the glue off, but it’s being stubborn. Soap doesn’t work, and I’m afraid to use nail polish remover for fear of the bottle dissolving too.
How did everyone else go about finding and preparing their bottles?
Don’t worry I did the same thing. Everyone squashes their large bottles around here so they are useless.
Just drink the water or use it in the farm and your golden.
Use GooGone or something similar. I picked up a bottle at a dollar store. But a hardware store will carry as well.
Must be a particularly nasty glue they’ve used, then?
The glue use here in Norway(they don’t sell this brand of water here, I’m using 1.5L soda bottles) dissolves after a minute or two in hot water. Wipes cleanly off after a soak.
Some glues can also be removed by using oils.
Sewingmachine oil, or even olive oil…
Cool, thanks guys! I’ll let you know how it turns out.
The type of glue I usually find on the bottles never really drys and is always sticky. You practically need to pry it off with a screw driver..
I did not even remove the glue entirely. As far as I am concerned it’s not a beauty contest so I simply washed my bottles (I used 1.5L Cola bottles by the way since WF does not ship to Europe and I use a slightly modified design anyway) and then spray-painted them while there was still some glue residue here and there. Of course, there is only a tiny strip of glue used to stick the label to the bottle anyhow so the end result was quite okay.
nail polish remover worked pretty well for me, but in some cases it left the plastic a little cloudy in color
I have a lot of bottles use another kind or ask someone to doante it.
use a degreaser to clean it