A few weeks ago at Loretto College students launched their bottle sculpture by holding a bottled water taste test. To see how it went check out the above video created by Wade Vroom for the Youth Energy Network.

Interested in doing this at your school? Just go to our Energy Shift Actions and read the Bottled Sculpture post.

Bottled water is shipped to our schools and communities in many shapes, sizes and brands to satisfy the thirsty masses. Unfortunately many people don’t think about the garbage produced and energy wasted when drinking bottled water. The Pacific Institute estimates that the energy required to produce, ship and cool one bottle of water is equal to filling that bottle a quarter full with oil! To open eyes in your school or community build a life sized sculpture out of water bottles to help kick-off an awareness campaign.

Bottle Sculpture 101

Time: Prep ~ 4-6 months
Cost: $50.00
Grade Range: 5-12 (depending on difficulty)
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:

Before start collecting bottles, ask your administration for permission to run your awareness campaign in a prominent school location.

Step 2 ~ Collection:

To build your sculpture you’ll need lots of bottles! To create a sculpture that is two meters tall, collect at least 500 bottles. Collection takes a few months so start this project early in the year and designate a room as the drop-off location for all bottles. To speed up collection, recruit students who help with recycling and have them pick out bottles before emptying bins. Also, remind students periodically that you are collecting the bottles; it’s up to you whether you keep the reason a surprise!

Step 3 ~ Research:

As your bottles start to pile up research information on bottled water to use in your awareness campaign. Outside of energy usage and waste production areas of research could include health, ecological and societal impacts. For a great start go to the Polaris Institute’s website: insidethebottle.org

Step 4 ~ Design:  

Work as a group to decide on the scale of your sculpture and the necessary materials. To determine the scale, just measure the height and diameter of a water bottle and use the ratio to find your sculpture size. For materials you’ll need bottles, a plywood base, a dowel attached to centre of the base for stability, stiff chicken wire to keep the shape, nails and paper for additional details. Some additional details include a bottle label and cap. Think about what you want your label to say, create a strong statement that highlights your main message or give some key water facts. Not skilled in construction? This is a great opportunity to get other groups involved in eco-action, so ask around for design input from art and/or tech students and teachers.

Step 5 ~ Plan:

Once you know how you’re going to build your giant bottle, think about how you want to launch it. Ideas include placing the bottle at the front of the school with posters, pairing the sculpture launch with a fundraiser selling stainless steel water bottles and/or holding a bottled water taste test comparing bottled to tap. Within your plan, create a regular building schedule for bottle builders to meet up and construct so your sculpture is ready on time.

Step 6 ~ Build!:

To start off rinse out all of your bottles, while they are drying out use a nail or screw to attach the dowel to the centre of the plywood base. Next, create a cylinder of the appropriate height out of your chicken wire. To close the cylinder twist the open ends of the chicken wire together using pliers. Then use your nails to attach the chicken wire to the plywood base with the dowel. Make sure the chicken wire is secure as this will be the foundation for your sculpture. Now use some more chicken wire to create the top of your bottle. Be creative here and just make sure the base of the top has the same diameter as the rest of the bottle so you can easily connect them. Before attaching your bottle top, fill the base cylinder with empty plastic bottles. Once you’ve put in as many as you can, use pliers to attach the top of the bottle. Your sculpture is almost complete, now you just need to add details like a label and cap! These can be easily made out of paper and attached to your sculpture using tape, wire and/or string.

Step 7 ~ Launch:  

Once the bottle is complete put your awareness plan into action! A popular event held at Loretto was a bottled water taste test. After learning about the energy impacts of drinking bottled water, students where given a chance to try different types of water. They then chose their favorite and each response was noted on a graph near the bottle sculpture to chart the results.

Designed by: Benji Kent

In schools and communities bottled water has become the norm despite the energy it wastes and unnecessary garbage it produces.  Take a stand in your community against bottled water by raising awareness on bottled water issues, promoting the benefits of tap and selling reusable water bottles as an alternative. Reusable water bottles not only lower a user’s carbon footprint, they promote the use of Toronto tap water, a cheap, high quality eco-alternative.

Ban the Bottle 101

Time: Prep ~ 4-6 months
Cost: $15-22 per bottle, $30-100 for promotion
Grade Range: 10-12
Target: Whole School
Note: Click HERE to get a copy of our Energy Shift Checklist to help guide your team through the project.

Step 1 ~ Permission:

To start off this campaign, you’ll need permission both to sell the metal water bottles on school property and to receive any necessary start up costs for purchasing bottles. If your school is unable to purchase the bottles before the fundraiser, simply set up a system where students pay for their bottles before receiving them so the bottle costs are already covered.

Step 2 ~Research:

There are a number of companies producing metal water bottles, from Switzerland’s stylish aluminum Sigg bottles to Klean Kanteen’s simple stainless steel bottles. Research different distributors in your area to find the best fit for your school, simply go online and search “distributor, (name of bottle brand)”.  Before contacting your chosen distributors for a price quote decide on the size, style, approximate quantity, whether you’d like to personalize the bottle with a school logo and the maximum cost for the bottles you’d like to order.  If you’ve decided to pay the extra cost to personalize the bottles, start by creating high-resolution images in the correct size, decide as a group what works best and then send the image to the distributor.

Step 3 ~ Order

If you’ve decide to order a set number of bottles order now so they’re available when you start your promotion campaign. If you’re going to have students pay for their bottle first, hold off on this step until after your promotion.

Step 4 ~ Promotion

Designed by: Anji Kim

Create a full school promotion campaign to spread the word on the bottles you’ll be selling. Types of promotion include, posters, displays, announcements, jingles, an assembly and/or staged events. The key to promotion is to be creative and develop ideas that will engage the student body. To create a strong message, research hard-hitting facts on bottled water and feature them in your campaign. A great place to start your search is insidethebottle.org.  Creating teams for different areas of promotion (for example, posters, announcements) is a great way to organize your effort and will help you produce promotional materials in a shorter time frame. Promotion ideas include: Bottle Free Zone posters at school entrances and water fountains, a catchy jingle to play between classes, an assembly with a guest speaker, making buttons, placing vinyl stickers around the school, creating a display using empty water bottles, staging a fake protest, wearing campaign specific T-shirts or ties, holding a bottled water taste test, having speakers go to each class and displaying the metal bottles students can buy.

Button designed by: Anji Kim

Step 5 ~ Sell:

Now that everyone at school knows you’re selling bottles and why they should be using them, set up a station to sell them. Ideally this would be done within the same time frame as your promotion campaign. Make sure you make clear announcements on where and when you’ll be selling bottles. Create a deadline for purchasing bottles so students are encouraged to buy a bottle before they sell out. In addition to having a prominent selling station that is manned during a time like lunch, provide first period classes with order forms that you collect by the deadline.

Step 6 ~ Celebrate:

After your campaign is complete, let the school know how many bottles were purchased. To highlight the significance of their decision to turn to tap you could do an audit on the number of plastic water bottles in the recycling bin before and after the campaign, or announce facts on the amount of energy saved through their purchase. For an easy calculation, use the Pacific Institute’s estimate that the production and shipment of one bottle of water is equal to filling that bottle a quarter full with oil.