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Bottle Tops

Updated 9 Jan 2011

This project is kinda inspired by http://www.365daysoftrash.blogspot.com/

On the 1st Jan 2008 I started throwing bottle tops into a bag. Whenever we finish a bottle of milk or whatever, we wash it, throw the bottle into the recycling bin and its top goes into the bag. [Factoid: 1L milk creates 1kg of CO2]

I half suspect this is a trivial/silly exercise, but anyway here's the tally so far:

Bottle tops200820092010
Milk bottle size plastic caps
BlueStandard homogenised milk, 1 or 2 litres315166
Light blueTrim milk, 1 or 2 litres34953
RedCream, 500ml (with pancakes!)271134
Yellow"Calcitrim" milk, 1 or 2 litres7112
Light greenmilk?180
Dark greenjuice113
Orangejuice013
WhiteVinegar, 2 litres (cleaning)31416
BrownChocolate milk, 1 or 2 litre231
Clear 121
BlackKeri Juice003
Soft drink size plastic caps
RedCoca Cola, 600m to 2.5 litre21259
WhiteDiet Coke, 600m to 2.5 litre651
BlackCoke Zero, 600m to 2.5 litre112
BlueSprite, 600m to 2.5 litre310
Off whiteL & P, 600m to 2.5 litre021
Gold & SilverSchwepps, 600m to 2.5 litre513
OrangeFanta, 600m to 2.5 litre200
Green"NZ Natural" water?001
Other
Beer caps 275
Wine screw tops & Grapetise 31110
Corks 030
Dishwashing liquid 063
Liquid honey 112
Oil & soy sause (drippers) 382
Oil (metal screw top) 022
Soy milk 0024
Misc 145
Totals190218251

I didn't keep corks from wine bottles - there weren't many. And I didn't remember to keep all the metal bottle caps.

Apart from those exceptions this is a pretty good record of the number of bottles (mostly plastic) thrown out in our recycling bin. This is for two adults and a small child. It includes bottles brought in by friends that were discarded here.

We keep a few bottles (and their tops) for reuse, so they're not counted here. I'd guess they would total less than 30 bottles reused for 2008.


Page last modified on 09 January 2011 at 12:40 PM