There is no clear estimate but it is suggested that as humans we produce over 300 million tonnes of plastic each year, and nearly half of this we use only once and then throw away. This has a major effect on our environment where small fish ingest tiny plastic particles, seabirds and marine animals like penguins and turtles often die as a result of consuming or getting tangled in various plastic products like straws and plastic bags. Plastic is a huge problem in our environment and being ocean people we had to think hard about our reasons for participating in the campaign, because ideally in this world we would want zero plastic all together, but until that is the case or a feasible reality we reason that we are going to have to get proactive and not let it find it's way into the ocean. And this means that we start taking responsibility for the plastic we find in our immediate space and reusing and recycling it. The great thing is that it is actually pretty simple and easy to recycle. If you have young ones this can become a fun way of getting them to understand their impact on the environment and get creative to minimise this. In South Africa local artist Mbongeni Buthelezi collects plastic bags around Johannesburg and melts them to create art he calls "plastic fantastic" (video link here) Canadian Artist Aurora Robson makes some of the most ethereal and mind bending sculptures using recycled and use plastic bottles (do visit her website here) 

Our only limit here seems to be our imagination and for us as travellers we decided to take a page out of these creatives books and find was that we could be more responsible with reusing any plastic we come across in our travels. 

As part of the #Tangledtreelovestravelling Campaign we decided to take the different bottles and find creative ways to recycle and reuse them with this series of short videos. These are not our original ideas, we spent days scouring the web for different ways to reuse plastic bottles and picked the most applicable ones for people like us who love to travel a lot.

These wines are packaged with PET, a recyclable polyethyline terephthalate, unbreakable thermal polymer that is also up to 80% lighter than glass (even the cartons they come in are recyclable.) Very handy if you are wanting to carry these wines far and wide.

So instead of telling you how much we like the wine, you will have to buy some to find out for yourself, we decided to take the different bottles and find creative ways to recycle and reuse them with this series of short videos. 

Enjoy your wine, travel with it, but bring it home and find creative ways to reuse and then recycle, it's not hard.

Thanks to Van Loveren (@vanloverenwines) and Tangled Tree (@TangledTree) for letting us get creative with their product this campaign. 

Self Watering Garden with a recycled bottle. 

If you don't have the finances to install a home watering system for when you are away, plus you want to recycle, this is a handy slow drip system to keep your plants happy till you get home, just don't forget to remove the bottle and drop it off at your nearest recycling depo when you are done. (link Here for Cape Town recycling drop off points ) 

Homemade Mosquito Trap 

Camping is something that Mike and I love to do, but as anyone who has been out in the open will know , nothing destroys a good night sleep than the sound of a mosquito, it can ruin even the best of travel adventures. The Mosquito is attracted to moisture, heat and carbon dioxide, so here is where our trap comes in. The yeast breaks down the sugar and creates carbon dioxide,which is heavier than the air we breathe, so it sits in the bottle and the mosquito is attracted into the bottle , as opposed to your feet, leaving you to enjoy a good nights sleep. We tried this trap out and we caught a lot of small flies, give it a go and tell us what you think?

Mole Deterrent 

Using a recycled plastic bottle we made a little mole deterrent. The concept is quite simple, it's known as the "singing bottle." The vibrations created by the bottle that turns in the wind thanks to the cut squares  is said to annoy the moles and they make their way somewhere else instead of your garden. This is a favourite method that my father in law uses all the time in his long standing feud with the moles on his property that has been going on for the past five years. Good luck!