There is something very satisfying about a big payout. Before having recycling pickup, I would amass a large amount of cans and bottles, and redeem them all at once (a full year’s worth) to get about $15. I liked this much better than getting 30 cents at a time, but it requires a very good system for cleaning, organizing, and storing all of the cans and bottles. If my system was less organized, I could have been reported for hoarding.

So that’s the background. The real story is my desire to build a nice quality, but very cheap shelf. While looking at materials for this, the total cost is much higher than my desired range ($20-$30). The lumber and hardware costs just add up too quickly, and I started to consider other materials that could provide sturdy structure on the cheap. This led me to consider precedent projects that used unconventional materials. Although I had seen it before I found hundreds of examples of of reused glass and plastic bottles.

Then it hit me: my opportunity cost is just 5 cents for each recyclable glass bottle I had. I did some quick sketches and some searching the internet for shelving made with glass bottles. Unsurprisingly, I was not the first to come up with the idea.

There are so many assembly combinations that I think I can design and build something that is still very unique. The aesthetic would not fit in every context, but it could certainly be a statement to celebrate one’s love of wine, beer, whiskey, or reuse!

The trick is going to be getting the right number of the same bottle. A shelf could be held up by many different bottles, but each level of the shelf would need to be the exact same type of bottle (minimum 4 per level).

 

I was certainly not the first to think of such an idea. In fact, my proposal is more than 50 years after one of the most ingenious developments along the same lines. Rather than finding some way to design a structural system with particular bottles, in the 1960s Heineken explored the possibility of making the design of the bottle most suitable for a building assembly. I really love the Heineken WOBO and wish more companies could use their power of manufacturing, production, and design to provide these types of opportunities and value to the world. Bring back the WOBO!