DIY Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Most of us are good about recycling our plastic water bottle or daily newspaper. There’s another room in our house that we tend to leave out from the recycling bin, however, and that’s the bathroom. Another great way to reuse those bottles is with our DIY Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder!

Care To Recycle®, a program of Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., aims to raise awareness of the importance of recycling personal care products in the bathroom, including preventing valuable materials from entering landfills unnecessarily. In fact, everything from shampoo and mouthwash bottles to soap and bandage boxes can be recycled.

Showing your kids how to recycle can be one of life’s little teachable moments that can have a lasting impact. Many of the empty bottles can also be put to further use through repurposed craft and diy projects that you can do together. In the past, we’ve made pencil containers from large plastic shampoo bottles. The birds are even happier about our latest repurposed project, though; a Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder from an empty baby oil bottle!

For the Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder, you first need to make sure the bottle is completely clean inside and dried off. Also, find a plastic lid wider around than the bottle with a bit of a ridge. You’ll also need a couple of cable ties, some twine, a sharp knife and scissors. And an adult. Because many of these steps are not for a child to do.

Your kid can fill the Plastic Bathroom Bottle Bird Feeder with seed once done, though. Getting seed mostly everywhere but in the bottle. The birds won’t complain.

And hang it in the tree. Then sit back and watch the happy birds.

Plastic Bottle Bird Feeder

Supplies needed:

• sturdy plastic bottle – we used a baby oil bottle
• plastic lid
• 2 cable ties
• sharp knife
• scissors
• 2 long lengths of twine

After cleaning the bottle out, an adult then needs to make a few holes in the bottom of the bottle. This can easily be done with a power drill. If you don’t have one, like me, take a sharp knife and so very carefully twist and push with gentle force until the tip breaks through. Do this twice. Also make 2 corresponding holes in the center of the plastic lid. Leave that be for just a minute.

An adult again then needs to take the knife and so very carefully poke through one side of the bottle towards the bottom, just enough to get a pair of sharp scissors in there. Then cut a triangle out of the plastic. Do the same on the other side.

Now, slide a cable tie through the holes on bottom of both the lid and bottle. Secure together.

Take another cable tie and secure around the top, loose enough to get some twine through yet tight enough so it doesn’t come off. Tie two long pieces of twine around the cable tie, leaving the top untied as that’s how it will go around the tree.

Fill with bird seed, screw on lid, and tie to the branch of a tree.

Now that’s a project that’s all for the birds! Wasting away in a landfill is not. The more you know about what’s recyclable, the more likely you are to do it. For tips and tools to become a better recycler, visit www.caretorecycle.com.

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.