Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum Recycle your milk jugs yourself

Somebody has come up with a way to recycle milk jugs to be used for plastic filament for 3D printers. phys.org has a story about it.

I had been wondering about being able to recycle various plastic items to use with the 3D printers, and now they are getting onto it. That will make it even easier and cheaper to make your own stuff to your own design.

Bill Gill

I recycle my plastic milk jugs by sprouting seeds in them for my garden. It works like a mini-greenhouse, and I can re-use them for a second season if I do it right.

Good Idea R2.

have you ever sprouted tomato seeds this way?

I tried this on tobacco seeds and they sprouted up to 1/4 inch
then began dying off.

do you remove the plants that you sprout soon after they sprout
or can you wait until they are not to fragile to move?

do you add any type of fertilizer to the milk jugs?

do you use tap water , well water , distilled water ?

its not a test or anything I'm just curious what I'm doing wrong.

I want to grow tomatoes from seed but I don't want to see them
die off.

I guess it's a language thing, as Orac would say.

Until I followed Bill's link I thought we were talking about jugs, but they turned out to be bottles!

No wonder non English speakers have trouble.

Ok, I'll bite. What is your definition of a jug? When I say jug I think of a large bottle, frequently with a handle of some sort on it and a fairly small mouth. It used to be that a jug would mostly be ceramic, but of course now they are plastic.

Where we used to get milk in bottles, now we get it in plastic jugs. We also usually get more. A milk bottle was typically 1 quart (.95 liter) a milk jug is now most commonly 1 gallon (3.8 liters), at least here in the USA. I suspect that the change in size is based on modern refrigeration. It used to be that milk would spoil before most people could use a gallon.

Bill Gill

While I'd love to have a 3D printer, I don't have the option of recycling milk jugs. Here, milk comes in plastic bags (unless you're buying smaller volumes) - and yes, it is as horrible and stupid as it sounds.

Bryan

I have no objection to the US usage of jug in this instance. To me an essential feature of a jug is that it has a spout. Wiki acknowledges the US usage, but says:

"In all other English speaking countries a jug is any container with a handle and a mouth and spout for liquid, and not used for retail packaging."

Now I find myself wondering if Bryan's plastic bags would be jugs in US.

I don't think they would. We would probably respond just about the way Bryan seems to. Yukk! That is about the way that we respond to boxed wine. Of course boxed wine is actually in a plastic bag in a box. It is definitely not considered "fine" wine.

I do seem to recall some mention somewhere about a plan to change the packaging of milk but I don't recall what they wanted to do it with. Possibly a plastic bag. Of course then we would have the problem of how to recycle a plastic bag. I wonder if you could turn it into feed material for a 3D printer?

Bill Gill

I am glad to get clarification of 'jug'! It's a plastic bottle!

Doesn't a jug have to have an open top, and as stated, has to have a spout? The open top is also the size of the top, if it were smaller the vessel would be a carafe or a flagon. A jug has a handle on the side, sometimes two--- though I think then it would be an ewer which is more basin-like. This seems like one of those misunderstandings between people who share the same language, (like "thongs")!

ImagingGeek (Bryan). - Do you put your plastic bags in a sort of framework to pour? We had plastic bags here for a very, very short time. We were issued with a sort of boxy frame that we were to put the bags in to pierce the bag and pour from, but everyone kept losing them and the bags were impossible to use on their own without getting covered in milk. Now we have plastic bottles or waxed cartons.

If function dictates the classification then I suppose these Canadian plastic bags are, in fact, jugs.

Only if you take them to America. According to Wiki, if you leave them in Canada they can still be bags.

Its not a Canadian thing - I've lived all over this country, and every province but the one I'm currently in (Ontario) has plain-old plastic jugs with screw-on plastic caps.

To use the bags you cut off the tip and pour - you can get little plastic containers that the bags fit into that make it kinda work. They look like a juice/iced tea jug, but shpared to fit a bag - the top 5cm or so of the bag stick out the top. SWMBO'd and I got pissed off with those (the bag tends to fold, dumping milk in front of where you were pouring), so we just dump the bags into a rubbermaid juice container.

The bags are non-recyclable, so if you had good rates of jug recycling they'd be a better option, environmentally speaking.

Bryan

Jugs? Bottles? Jars? Hey, doesn't QM have anything to say about this?

Paul,
I am using a process called wintersowing, where you put the seeds in soil and leave them outside during the Winter. They will sprout in the Spring at the appropriate time and make hardier plants than you get from a greenhouse. You have to be invited to join, but the URL is https://www.facebook.com/groups/102675420505/ It is a facebook group, and lots of good tips on sprouting and growing veggies and flowers.

It sounds like your tobacco seedlings may have gotten too much water, or the soil you used may have had damping off fungi in it, that will take little seedlings. I use a prefertilized, sterilized potting soil I buy at Shopko. It takes about an inch or two of soil, and you have to have good drainage. I generally punch a few holes in the bottom of the milk jug, and a few around the top to allow water vapor to escape. I also leave the top off the jug for more air. By using the prefertilized soil mixture I don't have to worry about damping off so much. You plant your seeds, put them outside and wait for them to grow. It is good to check them about weekly to make sure they aren't getting dried out, and water them if necessary. You can use milk jugs, or 2 liter pop bottles, or any other clean container with a lid. Some people even use plastic margarine tubs, cutting a hole in the lid and putting plastic wrap over it and keeping it on with the lid. You have to poke some holes for water to get in and out, or they will rot.

You can leave the seedlings in the containers until you are ready to put them in a spot in your garden. Some plants that grow thickly are just transplanted by taking a forkful of the seedlings and potting the whole mess. You may have to take the tops off if they get large, so that they can have room to expand.

I use regular tap water to water them, ours has chlorine and fluoride, but it doesn't seem to make the plants more docile or easier to brainwash. :-) Rainwater would be best, if you can collect it somehow.

Hope that helps a bit.

Of course QM has it all worked out.

It's a jug/bottle duality. The answer depends on the question you ask, or more precisely, on where you ask it. According to the most up to date research, if you ask the question in the Azores you should get an answer like "bug" or "jottle".

that's different from what I did.

I just put apx 20-30 of the almost invisible tobacco
seeds in a 2 litter coke bottle with no fertilizer and
only a teaspoon of tap water.

then I put the lid on the bottle , shook it up to
spread the seeds around , then put the bottle on the window
seal so that it could get lots of sunshine.

the sun evaps and condenses all day and waters all the seeds.

maybe what I needed was a small amount of miracle grow in
the bottle also.

I would turn the bottles every day or so.

it worked but they began to die off , so I transplanted them
into the small flats and after they were apx 1" tall I
moved them into the back yard and my lab helped me to finish
the gardening by spreading them all over the yard.

each and every flat , and it wasn't just tobacco.

he also helped me with the tomatoes , broccoli , collards , squash , cucumbers , cantaloupes , and honey dew melons.

labs aren't much good for farming , but they like to swim.