Recycled glass art is an eco-friendly use of materials using light and color to make something beautiful and useful. Glass is a major contributor of the weight and bulk in household waste and takes about three thousand years to break down, even more if in a landfill site. For the minimalist garden a black glass gazing ball in a pebble garden makes a focal feature. Several charities and artist sites also feature recycled glass products.
Recycled Glass for Building and Garden
As an art form, ready-made recycled glass products are visually pleasing and reasonably priced when compared to plastic alternatives. Outdoor recycled glass products are waterproof and are made to be frost proof which makes them a sutitable material for garden use. Building structures have even been built using glass bottles. Buddhis Monks in Thailand collected more than one million beer bottles for the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew Temple.
Charity shops such as the WWF and artist charity foundations such as Novica which help artists to finance themselves to make eco-friendly art both have recycled glass products. Hand crafted artist sites as Etsy and Folksy feature recycled glass artists. Garden stones made out of recycled glass can be used to make a garden path.
How to Make Your Own Recycled Glass Art
Using a glass jar as a holder is inexpensive and doesn’t require any specialist equipment like a kiln. Crafting in a green world has an excellent craft series on making art using glass jars which include a sun jar that uses led lights and frosting glass spray paint to create lighting for the garden, making terrariums or putting objects into glass jars as a feature.
Microwave kilns are making it so glass art is more accessible to more people. A rock tumbler can be used to smooth recycled bits of glass into beads which can be used to make garden ornaments or decorate garden furniture and accessories. Better Homes And Garden has building plans of a gazing ball bubbler fountain made with a galvanized bucket inside of a galvanized tub that makes a lovely garden feature. Most of the materials used could be reclaimed items making it an even more eco-friendly project.
Suppliers of Recycled Glass
Recycling centre site in London and recycledartglass both supply recycled glass and products. Recycled glass chippings can be used for garden paths and for decorative purposes. Kent local council in England will even make chippings of brought in bottles for a small fee.
Further Resources:
Wilkipedia article on Glass Recycling:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_recycling
Eluna is an organization that promotes the use of recycled glass in public works of arts. http://www.eluna.org.uk/aboutus.html
Stores for Recycled Glass Art
Cara Moore - Cara E. Moore is an author, poet, playwright and writer who has written for internet sites, newspapers, magazines, theatre and ...
Join the Conversation