Are you the creative type? Not put off by a hammer, saw or drill? Ever dreamed of making your own solar water heater or cooker?
Instructables is a site you’ll love! It offers step by step guides to making all sorts of amazing gear – from simple cleaning items to quite complex alternative energy related equipment. Often the projects can be made from recycling common items found around the home/shed or materials that can be purchased quite cheaply.
Here’s just a small selection of the green themed projects from the site.
How to make the “best mop in the world” using old towels and linen
Solar heater: A solar air convection heater powered by the low angle winter sun.
Build a solar hot dog cooker with minimal tools and materials.
Bicyled powered generator : use your bike to generate electricity for your notebook, television and more!
Make your own solar panels: how to source cheap solar cells and assemble them to create a solar panel.
Solar thermal water heater: heat water courtesy of the sun for under 5 bucks cost of materials.
Reading light: Instructions for making a reading light that you power by winding
Recycled Mini Dry Erase Board – have a heap of empty cd cases? Put them to good use!
Drum composter for $10 – $15 – the creates states that this project applies the fine art of meatball carpentry; with an emphasis on form rather than aesthetics :).
Instructables isn’t just green focused, so you’ll likely find some thoroughly environmentally unfriendly projects out there, but dig around for the green gold; there’s a stack to be found!
On a somewhat related note, if you’re wanting to do something with all the plastic bags you have laying around, here’s some plastic bag craft ideas.
Know of any other general do-it-yourself type sites that have a good selection of projects for the eco-conscious? Please add them below!