He’s not the Rockwell Retro Encabulator guy, but this video sounds remarkably similar.

The molecular alignment is amazing, I had no idea.
posted by migurski at 8:54 PM on April 18

It really is a masterpiece of design.

If only it were reusable and degraded into something else instead of millions of fragments of itself.
posted by Ickster at 9:40 PM on April 18 [3 favorites]

For some reason, while watching the video, I was fixated on what appeared to me that he was really good at reading a prompter and did it in one take. Then I came to the part post the "end" and saw the bloopers.

Fascinating video. I especially was intrigued by the part about the cap and the neck. The gap in the thread issue was solved for me.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 2:08 AM on April 19

If only it were reusable

I had an array of ~ 12 2L bottles cycling fermenting commercial cleared apple cider with Champaign yeast that went on for about a year.

They were really convenient for doing the secondary ferment to get it bubbly (great at containing pressure).

I can't remember having to throw out any of the bottles due to wear.
posted by porpoise at 2:54 AM on April 19

For many years, the only reason I wanted cable tv was a show called "How It's Made" which would have three segments or so showing how different products were manufactured. That show was great, but I think I like this better.


I've always been deeply curious about the things I use daily. Not just how they are made, but why they work. This is perfect for me.

Thanks!
posted by Vigilant at 3:42 AM on April 19

If only it were reusable II
This is addressed in the last minutes of the piece (unless you're making the distinction between reuse and recycle, whc fair enough). Pop bottles are pure PET; IF they are captured from landfill they can get shredded, spun out and used to make fleece for jackets and blankets. Although I now feel guilty for loving fleece because it sheds forever microfibres every wash. 25% of PET bottles are caught for other purposes - that's ~5,000 tonnes, because while lots of bottles [5 x 10^11] are fabricated each year, each one weighs only 40g. There has been great buy-in for recycling pop-bottles in Ireland since The Man slapped a 25c levy on each one retailed: redeemable through bar-code scanner, crusher machines at all supermarkets.
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:56 AM on April 19 [1 favorite]

For many years, the only reason I wanted cable tv was a show called "How It's Made"

Have you seen the YouTube parodies of this: "How it's Actually Made"? There's about 100 of them and they are my go-to when I need a quick chuckle at lunch or what have you..,

How It's Actually Made - Soft Drinks
posted by jeremias at 4:00 AM on April 19 [1 favorite]

making the distinction between reuse and recycle

“Inspired by Reishee Sowa, who lives on a water bottle island in mexico, [recyclenation] this is my attempt at a similar feat. While many people have duct taped a couple hundred bottles together in the past and called it a raft, mine is sturdier, has a real deck, and is indefinitely reusable” [instructables]
posted by HearHere at 5:16 AM on April 19

Nice to know I drink my cola out of a what really seems to be inflated and then cured condoms.

One of my neighborhood friend's father was a victim of the 1970s exploding 1.5L glass pop bottles which caused an eye injury when he opened the fridge door and the bottle exploded into his face. That and many other peoples' injuries, including Canadian singer Anne Murry, help motivate the switchover to plastic bottles from the recyclable but potentially dangerous glass bottles. Interestingly, the reusuable glass bottles were mandated in a lot of Canadian provinces for environmental concerns about single use plastic waste. We've known it was a problem for half a century!
posted by srboisvert at 5:32 AM on April 19 [3 favorites]

I'll check it out, jeremias, thanks for the link!
posted by Vigilant at 5:53 AM on April 19

If you make your own beer, you might remember White Labs used to distribute yeast in these odd-looking containers.
posted by tommasz at 7:34 AM on April 19

Some very small-scale reuses:

We use empty 2-liter bottles in Physics lab every year to calculate the molar mass of air using the ideal gas law. Students pump air into the bottles with a bicycle pump. The instructions say not to exceed 20 psi (or 140 kPa). Students are terrible at reading instructions, but we've never had a bottle explode.

They're also great for making ginger beer (which has a negligible amount alcohol) with regular ol' active dry yeast.

You can make use them to make big Ecobricks (previously).
posted by BrashTech at 11:11 AM on April 19 [2 favorites]

You can also use them for lighting.

https://newatlas.com/pop-bottles-provide-light/19829/

[snip]
That's the idea behind the Isang Litrong Liwanag (A Liter of Light) project - it's bringing daytime indoor lighting to the homes of the poor in the Philippines, by installing water-filled plastic pop bottles through holes in their roofs.
posted by aleph at 3:14 PM on April 19 [1 favorite]

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