Recycle corks: here are 6 fun ways to avoid waste
After uncorking a good bottle of wine and sipping the precious nectar in company, what usually remains in our hands is an empty glass container and a cork. When we have to throw the bottle, our (good) habits suggest us to recycle using glass collection and the end of the cork is almost always garbage. Instead, there are several ways to reuse corks, to turn them into something beautiful, useful and creative. In fact, corks allow you to make truly magnificent objects. With creative recycling, it is now possible to create almost everything with your own hands. All you need is a bit of imagination and dexterity.
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Do you have to organize an informal dinner, a banquet or a family lunch? A fun and economical idea for decorating the table is to make practical place cards with corks, better those from sparkling wine bottles, for example the ones of Prosecco, which have a wider base and so are suitable for standing on the table. Cut out small pieces of very stiff colored cardboard on which you will write the names of the guests and place each card on the cork previously carved on the top.
2. A (floating) keychain
Have you ever lost your house or car keys in the water? Especially during the summer holidays, by the sea or the lake, or during a simple boat trip, it frequently happens that our keys end up taking a dip in the water becoming irrecoverable. To avoid similar ‘accidents’ you could create a cork key ring in just 2 minutes. It will in fact be floating! To do this, you just need a cork, a metal ring and a screw with a hook to fix it to the cap. You can color it or customize it to your liking.
3. Light ecological fire
For your summer barbecues, nothing is more suitable than cork to obtain lasting embers in a short time without the use of chemicals. Use some newsprint, pieces of wood and corks: the cork will give you a constant flame that will burn for several minutes, helping to keep the barbecue ‘alive’. And while you wait for the embers to be ready, you can uncork a bottle of Prosecco Serena 1881 for an aperitif!
4. Absorbing odors for the refrigerator
An ecological and extremely economical method to absorb and prevent the formation of bad odors from the refrigerator is to place 2 or 3 corks inside it. In fact, among the many virtues of cork, there is that of absorbing moisture: for this reason, cutting a cork in half and placing it in the fruit basket will help you slow down the fruit ripening process, prevent the formation of mold and rot and keep midges away.
5. Candle holder
Take several corks and glue them on a base of any material. Then, put a ribbon of the color you like best around the composition of corks. In the middle, place a glass container with a candle inside: your candle holder is ready, even to be used as a gift. Another creative idea is to fill a large glass container with lots of corks and then, inside it, put another smaller one, inside which you will have placed a candle. The result will be a truly wonderful candle holder, which can also be used as a centerpiece.
6. Creative writing
Do you have to adorn a party table, perhaps that of a birthday or a wedding? Nothing could be easier, because you can take some corks and create beautiful writings, which compose personal names or decorative visual elements. Get some thick cardboards, cut them into the shape you want, for example letters to compose the writings and then, on top of the shapes obtained, glue the corks. You will create very special 3D writings for your events or simply to decorate a house wall or customize a bedroom door. If you are planning a romantic evening with your partner and you want to give a touch of wonder to the dinner table, build the word “love” by gluing together many recycled corks. You can leave them in their natural color or paint them.
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