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I’m sorry to say it. You know I’m one of upcycling’s biggest fans. But damn, sometimes it’s not convenient and sometimes it doesn’t work out like you think it will. Here in Oaxaca (in most of Mexico I presume) there really isn’t much recycling taking place. So ever since we moved into our house I’ve been carefully cleaning, sorting and storing our trash for use in thus undefined upcycling projects. We definitely have our fair share of aluminum cans, plastic bottles, egg crates and Tetrapak boxes stacked out back. One of the things we’ve got plenty of is empty non-returnable beer bottles. However, for these we had an upcycling plan. By last weekend we had gathered together all of the supplies that we needed to create drinking glasses out of our old bottles (how to article forthcoming!) Drinking glasses don’t seem to last very long in our house. Though we bought four nice (though cheap) glasses when we moved here, a month ago we were down to just one. I swore I would not buy any more super cheap (and oh so convenient) glasses until we had attempted to upcycle our bottles.

So, we had our rubbing alcohol, string, candle, syringe, sand paper, gloves and bucket of ice water ready to make glasses. The idea is that you tie a string around the bottle wet it with alcohol using the syringe and then light the alcohol on the string on fire and let it burn until that one little thin line of glass is super hot and then plunge the whole bottle into the ice water. The rapid change in temperature theoretically causes the bottle to break cleanly. You then sand down the sharp edge and voila! Glasses. 

Well, everything did not go exactly as we had planned. The string wouldn’t light on fire, and then it wouldn’t stay lit. When we plunged the bottle into the water it didn’t do anything at all except make the string totally wet and unusable. Once a couple of them did work they cracked so badly all over that they were unusable or the edges so rough and crackly that they couldn’t really be called glasses.

As I was sitting there sanding away at my first glass for about two hours I just kept thinking: well, I know why a lot of people would prefer just to go down to Walmart and buy some 99 cent glasses. Upcycling is not convenient. At the same time, I’m now so proud of my wavy edged brown beer bottle glass and I’m glad I know how to make glasses myself out of my own trash. Not to mention, it’s really fun to experiment and learn through upcycling projects. I’m sure that as time goes by and we learn more about what works and what doesn’t work our glasses will start to turn out better and better. It just takes a bit of perseverance, patience and a willingness to acknowledge that it’s all about learning so getting frustrated and pissed off isn’t really all that useful.  

 

In the end, I’m glad we started playing with this new upcycling medium. Glass certainly isn’t the easiest thing to upcycle . . . but it’s a fun challenge for me and I’m looking forward to seeing what comes of it next!