How to Make an Eco-Friendly Cork Trivet

One way to become more eco-friendly is to find new uses for materials. One easy and functional craft you can make reusing old corks, either natural of synthetic, from leftover wine bottles is a cork trivet. Trivets are essential in the kitchen and by making one you can keep the used corks from a landfill as well as protect your counter and tabletops from hot dishes.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Corks, either natural or synthetic
• Metal hose clamp
• Serrated knife
• Screwdriver

1. Gather about 50 medium-sized corks of approximately the same height to create a medium sized trivet. Ask friends, family and co-workers to save their leftover corks for you so you can stock up on corks quickly as well as save them from a landfill.

2. Stand the corks on their end and begin to arrange the corks inside a metal hose clamp. Clamps are found in the plumbing section of a hardware store.

3. Rotate and flip the corks as you want so you can either see or hide the writing on the corks. If any corks are much taller than others you can either set it aside for a future trivet project or you can carefully trim one end down with a serrated knife so the height is even with the other corks.

4. Ensure the corks fit together tightly and begin to tighten the clamp using a screwdriver.

5. Trim off excess metal with metal clippers. If you feel the edge is too sharp you can bend the tail end back on itself using pliers.

6. Use your trivet to protect surfaces from hot dishes and pans.