How to have a practical unique safe cheap environmentally friendly water bottle

I used to have a plastic bottle to carry water. After finding out how toxic they can be I started using a water bottle made out of safe plastic. After six months the thing broke on the day I went on a one day trip. It leaked in the backpack I intended to carry during the day. There, Düsseldorf in Germany, I bought a local beer in a glass bottle and really liked the closing mechanism.

I had one of those moments when something becomes clear to you, but it's a bit of a shame because it was in front of you the whole time and you didn't notice. The benefits of the whole water bottle go way beyond the robustness of the closing mechanism:

• much easier to clean than most plastic water bottles with elaborate design 
• very cheap compared to any water bottle 
• easy to find 
• mechanism is durable in the long run compared to plastic which can wear out 
• always properly closed - you don't have to worry if you twisted it good enough
• very secure - it doesn't leak in your bag 
• can be a unique and personal accessory

Some things to note:

• everyone will ask you why you are drinking beer at work/uni/sports
• it is glass, so don't drop it on tiles or concrete, but it will survive the fall on wood or covered floor from a normal height as the glass is fairly thick

Let's start with a clean bottle:



Next lets cut 4 pieces of string, cord or whatever material you have. Make sure it can endure getting wet and you can tie knots with it. Put the pieces with the middles at one point:

Use another short piece of the material to make a loop that holds the middles of the string together:

Should look like this if you want the loop to be just a knot:

Put the bottle centered on top of the middle and measure where do you want the first knots to happen.

It would be easier to use an object to tie the know around - the distance would be the same and the tieing would be faster. I used a phone charger, but a small cup or a marker would work. Make sure to really pull to have strong knots.

Tie such a knot from each string:

For the next ones tie the knot from two separate strings:

As you can see it starts to look like a net. And you can test your progress:

On the above photo I am holding two pairs or string. Each pair will make a knot. The other two pairs are on the table.

When you get to the neck of the bottle you can tighten it up to make sure it stays there:

The end result is pretty cool:

If you want you can make the knots in shorter distance and in turn have more knots, so the net looks more fine.

I would recommend to make the net more tight. You can do that by having good knots on the top, this way it is stretched also sideways.