No doubt, you may have already bought a few bottles of wine for the big Thanksgiving meal later this week… but if watching football is also on the agenda, you may also have some canned beer ready for the festivities. And while recycling cans is a pretty easy process in most places these days – any recycler will take those, and some will even pay you for them – you can also put them to work in DIY-scale projects needing a roof or shingles? Building a dog house? A chicken coop? Some other kind of shelter or housing? You can turn those leftover beer and soda cans into building materials pretty easily. Instructables user robbtoberfest lays out the whole process in a mere 48 seconds it this video:
OK, that’s all well and good, but where do you get one of those press thingies for turning cut aluminum cans into shingles? Well, like the shingles, you make that yourself out of easily-available materials. robbtoberfest’s project pages at Instructables walks you through the entire process of making the press itself, including materials and tools you’ll need. Like many Instructables projects, there’s lots of room for using materials you may already have on hand. I do suggest, though, that you wear gloves when cutting the cans – those cut aluminum edges can give you an ugly cut!
The beauty of recycling cans: they can be turned back into more cans. But sheet aluminum is an awfully durable material, so if you’re OK with a definite DIY look, this is an awfully good alternative to putting your beer cans in the recycling bin. Because of that durability, I”m sure there must be other building-related uses for your holiday beer cans: if you know of other projects, do share!
via Inhabitat
Featured image credit: Screen capture from “Aluminum Can Roofing (Beer Can Shingles)” video