Second Life
Our topic today was chosen by Magpie 11. Lady Magpie made contact with me a couple of days ago to tell me that he would not be joining us in the playground for a few days because he had been admitted to hospital, the latest news came from the man himself. He has been allowed home with strict orders to behave! I am sure that Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Gaelikaa, Ginger, Helen, Judy, Maria, Ramana & all of you who have come to know Our Magpie 11, will join me in sending a resounding Get Well wish for a speedy recovery to full health. We look forward to cracking open a bottle of good cheer and banter real soon.
Bottles
Bottles come in many colours, shapes & sizes and are often used to provide nourishment at the different stages of our lives.
Poetic licence here, the last one is not really a bottle, but I have on occasion had liquid from all the varieties shown so far!
Today I would like to concentrate on the second life of bottles. What do you mean you didn’t know bottles had a second life?
Glass is an excellent material for re-use, it is sterile, safe and 100% recyclable. The recycling process can be repeated endlessly without any loss of quality. Recycled glass reduces the amount of rubbish that needs to go into landfill.
On a recent visit to St George’s Market in Belfast, I discovered two such ‘Second Lives’!
This young lady was from Greenglass based in Cornwall. All the glasses on the stall were made from recycled bottles. I see from the website that they also make glass bracelets and necklaces.
While still on the wander another stall sold clocks. The battery operated clock mechanisms were fitted to old records, both LPs and EPs… now Magpie calm down, I know you think this is sacrilege, but it is a nice way to reuse a favourite old scratched record. I saw someone purchase a David Bowie LP and have the clock mechanism attached at the stall.
On the other part of this same stall were unusual wall clocks made from recycled liquor bottles, each with their original label. I am told the bottles are super heated until flexible and then squashed flat, the label is then reapplied and a clock mechanism is fitted. The very nature of the manufacturing process means that no two clocks are the same. They Require 1 x AA battery, it is not usually included in the price.
What is your tipple?
The final part of my dissertation on recycled bottles comes from my own garden.
I have repeated more times than enough that I live on a hill. The garden at the back slopes away from the house in two directions. Half of the plot drops quite suddenly more than the height of a two story house. It was unsafe for Jack to work there because of the war injuries to his left leg. I at times found it difficult to balance on two good legs and anyway we could spend a major Lottery prize on landscaping and never be able to enjoy looking at it from either the top of the garden or from inside the house.
For safety reasons I decided to build a wall. The wall I had in mind was of bottles! Jack thought I was crazy (and you all know that I am!), but I persisted. I could see it in my head… just as I do with most projects.
I dug a foundation and built it in the usual way. Oh! Did I not tell you this was a do-it-myself job with as little expense as possible? They are the projects I like the best.
It was 1984…. Not the book, the Year 1984!
Now Jack liked a whisky and he always poured me a sherry when I was preparing a meal, wine helped wash down the dinner and for casual enjoyment I would chose a G&T. It would need to be some party for all the bottles required for My Wall! 
Thinking cap time…..
There were at least six pubs within a 100 yards in this Town of ours. I would ask them about non returnable bottles. I did. They were glad to be rid of them so I began collecting on a weekly basis, then slowly started building up the layers of bottles mixing the coloured glass randomly as I went. Three rows at a time were cemented into place and left to set before the next rows were added. I was able to work from each side of the garden until we met in the middle.
Now this was not your common or garden straight wall. No! I had to be different weaving it in a curved fashion to keep some plants in the top garden and leave some that I thought uninteresting to grow wild behind it. This all took time. I collected all the non returnable bottles from the six pubs for five months, Well it was over seven months if you count breaks for holidays and weather interruptions.
Poor quality photo, but it will give you the idea. The gap in the centre was yet to be filled. I was not into cameras back then so digital picture quality was as yet unknown to me.
Miss Elly using her swing as a climbing frame (is that out of the box thinking?), this shot gives a clue to the curves in the wall.
I set the bottles on their sides with the ends facing the house. I didn’t want to take away the natural light as a timber fence or brick wall might do. But even I was in for some surprises.
A more recent photo with the shrubs well settled around the wall. I laid a cement pathway through two sections of the wall to allow for garden cuttings and grass clippings to be disposed of and returned to nature. The curve in the wall is almost a full circle at this side of the path. I used shorter bottles and the odd jam jar at this stage.
In the mornings the sunshine played on the front of the wall….. but in the evening the setting sun gave it a total different look:
Now after all that hard work, I think I need a drink!
Rummuser said,
September 3, 2010 at 3:04 pm
What a fantastic idea and what a fantastic wall! You are truly incrdible.
Gaelikaa said,
September 3, 2010 at 3:16 pm
You’re a woman of rare creativity and ingenuity. That is one amazing post!
cathy said,
September 3, 2010 at 3:28 pm
I love that wall! You didn’t cut the bottles, just laid them down? and cemented all around them? I think I need instructions…
wisewebwoman said,
September 3, 2010 at 5:07 pm
Magical, GM, just magical. What an amazing creative spirit you have!
XO
WWW
nick said,
September 3, 2010 at 5:33 pm
What an amazing idea, I would never have thought of it. And what a wonderful use for old bottles, although as you say they are easy to recycle into all sorts of things. New visitors must wonder just how much alcohol you consume….
Grannymar said,
September 3, 2010 at 5:45 pm
Ramana - Incredible? Some people call me daft!
Gaelikaa - I am fortunate to have been encouraged and allowed to play with my fantasies.
Cathy - The bottles were left whole, and laid down as they would be in a wine cellar with a cement/mortar mix under, around and above each one. All the necks of the bottles face the back of the wall. It was a little like bricklaying. Like everything I do, I made the rules up as I went along!
Grannymar said,
September 3, 2010 at 5:47 pm
WWW - One of these days I might come up with something useful!
Nick - Nick I have a story about an observation of that wall….. One of these days!!
Mayo said,
September 3, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Speaking of recycling bottles. My wife purchase a wine making kit for me in 2003, and I did not do anything with it until now. I started to keep all of our wine bottles, but after collecting about 100 bottles I decide that I would never try to make wine so threw all of them out last year.
In july we went back to the Finger Lakes in New York, which has many wineries around them, I decided a month ago to give wine making a try. Now I wished that I had those bottles.
Rummy save your rum bottles for me. When you have collected 500 send them over on the ship. Grannymar, speckled hen wine sounds good for my labels.
Very interesting post!!!!!
Grannymar said,
September 3, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Mayo - Old Speckled Hen is a well known beer. It was first brewed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England.
ernestine said,
September 3, 2010 at 10:30 pm
this is facinating. do you fill the opening of the bottles with anything? maybe I could do something on a small scale.
very small scale since I do not have access to many bottles. i just hat to throw away the beautiful beautiful blue wine bottles…
paulo1 said,
September 4, 2010 at 2:03 am
It looks brilliant, but is there any risk of something being thrown, a brick, a cricket ball, a small grenade breaking one of the bottles and putting my eye out? Just in case I came a-visiting. Not that I would without an invitation, but one needs to sure about the required insurance coverage for such a hazardous environment.
Conrad said,
September 4, 2010 at 3:13 am
This is one of the most delightful posts, start to finish! I LOVE that wall. It’s about the only thing that can distract me from the laughter over the opening photo!
Baino said,
September 4, 2010 at 6:46 am
Very enterprising you handywoman! I’ve seen it done to great effect in rammed earth houses too actually, it emanates a lovely light when the sun shines through. You clearly have more patience than me although I wager i have more bottles than you hahaha!
Grannymar said,
September 4, 2010 at 9:31 am
ernestine - I removed the caps or stoppers from the bottles. With the drop in temperature at night and in winter, condensation can build up and with open ends it eventually evaporates.
paulo1 - The wall is well within my boundary and none of the surrounding area is suitable for playing on. There is a park, playing fields and a leisure centre within easy reach.
Conrad - The first photo came in am email a very long time ago, I knew it might come in handy some day!
Baino - Sharing a drink is so much nicer than drinking alone. I am not teetotal but certainly drink less these days, so you are sure to win on quantities of empties!
Judy Harper said,
September 4, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Beautiful! How long did it take for you to build the bottle fence, or did I miss that bit of information? I’m amazed. It does seem time consuming and for you to finish the project, wow!
Grannymar said,
September 4, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Judy H - The bottles were collected over seven months, so add another month to allow for finishing and tidying up the plants.
Magpie11 said,
September 4, 2010 at 7:15 pm
I once saw a bottle wall but not that size…the only ting that worries me is the small animals that might get in and not be able to climb out. Do you slope the bottles? At our field study centre we had a bottle with two mouse skeletons in that was picked up in Epping Forest.
I often find this business of recycling a bit annoying. We still have our milk delivered in glass bottles that are returned and reused just like in the “olden days” when Beer and po and just about anything was sold in re-usable bottles. A deposit was paid and the penny returned when the bottle was returned empty. I have heard it said that this is still more energy efficient than recycling the glass….problem? We have to use those damn plastic bottles and why? because the centre’s of production are centralised instead of being local…that goes for everything from beer to baby lotion, from cream soda to cream shampoo!
Don’t even get me started on the Great Mineral Water Scam. In the U.K. (on average) 1 litre of bottled water costs 1000times as much to produce and transport as it costs to deliver 1 litre of clean, filtered water through our taps. And the poor people of Pakistan and else where do not even have water on tap. We in the west should be b***** ashamed of our greed!
Oops! I’m ranting again. I should have put this on my blog…sorry GM.
Magpie11 said,
September 4, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Hey did I mention the green house made of bottles at a local school?
Grannymar said,
September 4, 2010 at 10:08 pm
Magpie - I never saw any little animals trapped in the bottles. I used to clear the weeds and grass from along the neck ends at the back of the wall about twice a year. Alas I have had to give that task a miss in the last twelve months.
The rules about recycling annoy me. I get to wash all glass, cans and the small selection of plastic that is accepted. Any cardboard must be flattened and cut to a certain size. 100 miles south of me in ROI, Elly can bung all into the one large bin unsorted and they take a wider variety of plastics. It is all tipped into a bin lorry, while ours are sorted at the kerbside.
The green house made of bottles sounds familiar, but you may have mentioned it to me in a conversation. Now stay well.