Soda Bottles Into Plastic Strings and Ribbons? Is It Worth It?

In the United States alone, 50 million plastic bottles are thrown away each day. This is according to the website Budget Dumpster (budgetdumpster.com), a company involved in the garbage business.

Also, if we tried to burn a kilo of plastic bottles, we release 2.9 kilograms of carbon dioxide in the air which is very bad for the environment. This is according to the paper made by Plastic Solutions Fund / Global Alliance For Incinerator Alternatives / Center For International Environmental Law - no-burn.org .

Finding a use for disposed of plastic soda bottles could be a very good business to be in because there are plenty of free raw materials to work on. As already said, in the United States alone, 50 million plastic bottles are disposed of every day.

Another advantage to the business is that there is little competition. Many people see very little to no value for plastic soda bottles. They virtually throw them away as soon as they consumed its contents, giving little thought if any as to how they can be recycled or reused.

Image Courtesy of YouTube

Googling the search keywords: “turning plastic bottles into brooms” would yield plenty of articles and YouTube videos of how people are turning plastic soda bottles into brooms. For many of these people, this is their main livelihood.

As many of these people can attest, this is a real business and not just a hobby and they are making their full-time income off it. There are even businesses that invest on machinery to mass produce these brooms.

This just means that this kind of business is not only a cottage industry livelihood but could be a big business with big revenues. And since one of their raw material, the plastic soda bottle is free, net profits could be very good indeed.

I can even see the business growing at a much larger scale when these companies offer refillable plastic broom mops. This just means that their cost would further go down, thus increasing their net profit even more.

The brooms also come in soda bottle colors which makes them more attractive than the common broom handles being sold. I can even envision the broom handles being covered with layers of soda bottle plastic strips for more beauty.

Googling the search keywords: “turning plastic bottles into strings” would yield plenty of articles and YouTube videos of how people are turning plastic soda bottles into strings/ribbons. There are even tools being sold online for such a purpose.

The simplest tool I’ve seen is a piece of wood block with an attached metal shearing device. You can see this tool when you Image Search Google using the same keywords: “turning plastic bottles into strings”.

If you also looked at YouTube videos regarding the subject, the metal shearing device can be made out of anything, it just needs to be very sharp so it can smoothly shear away portions of the plastic soda bottle on a continuous basis without getting dull causing the shearing to get stuck.

As you can also see based from some of the YouTube instruction videos, you can customize the width of the string/ribbon depending on your purpose and market. So determine your purpose and market first to not waste time and soda bottles.

As you can see, you can start this business with little to no cost since the tools are cheap and you can even do the tools yourself. I would advise though that you wear gloves as the plastic soda bottle string/ribbon edges that you shear are sharp and could cut you.

Image a representation only of actual ribbons in market

As already said, you can adjust the width of the plastic soda bottle string/ribbon you shear. Depending on your intended purpose or market, a thicker width of plastic string/ribbon might be the right one for your business.


For example, if you want to compete against businesses that sell ribbons, you know, the ones used for wrapping up gifts, then you must shear plastic strings/ribbons to be the same size as those ribbons already in the market.

The plastic ribbons you create can be turned into elegant and luminous plastic ribbon bows. If you are wondering how you can create these ribbon bows, they can be connected together using glue or stapler.

These thick plastic ribbons could also be used as temporary admittance bracelets for events such as concerts and festivals. The luminous green and transparent coloring and texture of your plastic ribbons are good enough to be worn as temporary admittance bracelets.

Also, since your bracelets are made out of plastic, they are waterproof which makes them ideal for rugged water use. They can be worn in the beach or any place where people are sure to get wet with water.

Image courtesy of www.thekingofrandom.com

The YouTuber TKOR or The King Of Random made a very good YouTube video of how to make plastic soda bottles into heavy duty rope: “Soda Bottle Rope | How To Make Rope Or Homemade String From A Plastic Soda Bottle (2 Liter Bottle)”.

If you ever watched the above linked YouTube video, towards the end TKOR tested the strength of the rope by lifting himself up using it. The plastic soda bottle rope he made didn’t break which proves how strong it is.

But to make this much plastic rope composed of many plastic strings, you need to use a lot of plastic soda bottles. So, don’t attempt to start such a business unless you are reasonably sure you can get hold of an abundant supply of disposed of plastic soda bottles.

Just like the plastic strings, these heavy duty plastic ropes are waterproof and would ideally be suited for activities that involve water. These plastic ropes for example, would be ideally used as ropes for boats and other water borne vehicles and structures.

Also, since they are made out of disposed plastic soda bottles which can be had for free or at a very cheap price, the cost of creating these ropes would likely be more cheaper than the standard ropes in the market.

Image a representation only of actual tube jewelry in the market

It would be elementary to say that since you can make ropes out of plastic soda bottles, then you can also make strings out of plastic soda bottles. Therefore, you can market sheared plastic soda bottle strings into any activities that involve tying things up.

But besides tying purposes, you can also use the plastic strings as fishing line strings. Sheared soda bottle strings are tough just like actual fishing line strings and might even be tougher which makes them ideal for big game fishing.

And since sheared plastic soda bottle strings can be turned to fishing line strings, then it follows that they can be combined together to create a fishing net. You Can YouTube Search: “how to make a net of plastic bottles” for examples.

If you can turn sheared plastic soda bottles into nets, then what’s stopping you from creating curtains out of sheared plastic soda bottles. You can customize the thickness of your curtain strings and even mix up the thickness and colors of the curtain strings.

For more artistic creations, you can turn your sheared plastic soda bottles into jewelries like bracelets, earrings, rings and so on. These jewelry would be ideal for children as trinkets or toys.

It is imperative that in order to turn plastic soda bottles into plastic strings/ribbons, they should come as pristine as possible. This means that the disposed of plastic bottles should have no damages including squashing.

This could be a problem for collecting disposed of plastic soda bottles although they are free and very abundant. This is because disposed of plastic soda bottles are usually thrown in the garbage bin as soon as their liquid contents are consumed.

There are two problems to this: First, the disposed of plastic soda bottles gets mixed in with the other garbage which can be dirty, smelly and even toxic. Second, the other garbage in the garbage bin would most likely damage the disposed of plastic soda bottles.

Therefore, it is imperative that if you want to get pristine disposed of plastic soda bottles, you must have an effective collection process which separates them from the garbage before they are thrown.

You might have to come to an arrangement with professional garbage sorters or garbage collectors themselves to provide you with pristine disposed of plastic soda bottles since they are the best persons to do the job for you.

Turning disposed of plastic soda bottles into strings/ribbons can be a good business to be in. This is because the disposed of plastic soda bottles as raw materials are abundant and in most cases free.

It is important that you think of your intended purpose and market for your plastic strings. This is because more and more businesses are getting into the business of turning disposed of plastic soda bottles into strings/ribbons. This would help you compete better against them.