'People can grow healthy food for themselves'

By turning bottles into plant pots, a sprawling residential neighbourhood in Peru's capital is tackling two problems – plastic waste and the lack of space to grow vegetables.

Cut a hole in the side of a bottle, hang it upside down and fill it with soil, says Chris Cortez, head of environmental projects in Santiago de Surco, a Lima district home to about 350,000 people.

The bottles are big enough to grow lettuce, spinach, chard or one beetroot, radish or carrot. Connected by bottle caps screwed on through holes in the base of another bottle, they can be strung one on top of the other, in rows of up to seven, and hung on a wall.



Cortez says his online classes teaching vertical horticulture took off during the Covid pandemic.

"The idea was to show people they could grow healthy food at home," says Cortez, 25. Peru had the highest death rate per capita and one of the world's strictest lockdowns. "It gave them something to do when they were cooped up, particularly elderly people, many of whom grew up in the countryside," he adds.

Plastic bottles are big enough to grow vegetables such as lettuce, spinach, chard or one beetroot, radish or carrot. More than 220,000 reused plastic bottles now hang on a 700-metre stretch of wall on the edge of Lima's largest and oldest recycling plant in the Voces por el Clima (Voices for the Climate) ecological park.

With a plentiful supply of plastic bottles, Cortez has used every inch of wall space for the horticultural technique, which saves water and space.

Every few weeks, kilos of vegetables are harvested and donated to one of 24 soup kitchens, which provide cheap meals in the district's neighbourhoods.

Gloria Perez, 59, who runs the soup kitchen association, says she gets a delivery every few months. "Whenever there's a harvest we receive something," she says.

—Dan Collyns in Peru

That is a great idea using bottles that would be recylced to feed people

I liked the idea, but thought the bottles were too small. So I saved V8 juice bottles and built my own version. I cut a hole in one side and used a soldering iron with a fine tip to make pilot holes in the bottom of each bottle to attach a cap with a self-drilling screw.



Each bottle was fastened to a 1x2 board with another screw.



With a larger tip on the soldering iron, I melted drain holes around the spout of each bottle.



Since my greenhouse is not large, it adds some usable space for plants. Now I'm deciding what to try. So far, mini head lettuce and radishes. Might be good for kitchen herbs.

Any suggestions?

Great idea, those are sturdy bottles.

Did you decide on anything?

Very creative.

Neat idea, but it didn't work for me. I planted radishes and mini-head lettuce. The photo I saw showed an outdoors setup, while mine was in a greenhouse with 6-wall poly roofing and a reflective cover (otherwise it gets too hot in summer). Add the light blockage of the plastic bottle and the plants weren't getting enough sunlight: very skinny and sprawly.



Given the small volume of soil in each jug and the cold nights here (40s in summer) it wouldn't work outside. Oh well— fun to give it a try.

Could be a nice way to start seeds for transplants though, maybe with a tweak or two.

I transplanted the lettuce to a greenhouse bed. I think the radishes are too leggy to develop well.

I've started poppies in water bottles outside during winter on a covered porch. They got leggy too but they did flower. Now their progeny does much better self-sowing, some years better than others. For some reason, it hasn't happened when I sow the seeds myself.