People often ask me where the different colours for my 100% recycled plastic soap dishes come from. Here are the main sources of the various colours I use for my soap dishes.
Remember, all of my soap dishes are made from plastic products that people used, and, rather than chuck in the rubbish or recycling bin, they gave to me. We use plastic in so many different ways in our life these days – containers for food, bath products, medicine, and bags. I never was fully aware of how much plastic I come across, use, and discard in my daily life until I started paying attention to it. I’ll bet that you’ll recognize and use most of these common sources of plastic that make up the main colours in my recycled plastic artisanal soap dishes.
The Colours Of My Soap Dishes Come From...
Here are the main colours that appear in my original and hanging soap dishes. Note though that most of my dishes are a combination of colours as opposed to just one distinct colour. I like how combining the different colours looks:)
Blue – Ice cream containers are the main source of this for me. I’m not sure if you realize, but New Zealanders are one of the highest consumers of ice cream in the world (on a per capita basis). That means we use a lot of ice cream containers. There are also a number of different types of lids for bottles.
Green – Mainly from milk bottle lids, but there is also some from the lids to My Food Bag containers.
White – There are lots of whites. The main is shampoo bottles, some milk bottles, and a few yoghurt containers.
Clear – This mainly comes from take away containers.
Gray – This colour comes from clear hummus and white yoghurt containers both of which have a plastic label embedded into it. When I shred these they turn into an amalgamation of colours and they turn into a gray colour in the soap dishes.
Black – The primary source of this are Anchor milk bottles, but also lids and a couple ice cream containers.
Red – I don’t have much red, but the little there is comes from milk bottle lids.
Gold – This is another colour that I don’t see much of, in fact like the real stuff, this one is quite rare. There simply aren’t a lot of items made in a gold coloured plastic. The main source of the little gold colour that I do have comes from tip top ice cream containers. Additionally, there are a few instant coffee lids.