We all know how to recycle the lame way: Just dump your aluminum cans into that blue bin and let the garbage man haul them off and turn them into who knows what—probably just more cans.
Here’s how you recycle the cool way: You build your own tiny foundry like Grant Thomas, aka The King of Random. Then you melt down your old soda cans yourself and turn them into whatever you want with a few molds from the Dollar Store.
We should say upfront that building mini foundries and working with molten aluminum might not be for everyone. For the DIY-challenged, it’s probably a good way to end up with a very confused doctor looking you over in the emergency room.
But even if you aren’t ready to fire up a forge in your backyard, watching Thompson melt down cans with ease and turn them into metal biscuits and other goodies (including a sword) is a fun visual representation of how recycling and reusing metal isn’t just some ambiguous concept. It’s something anyone can do, even at home. Just don’t use your good muffin pans.
Bring on the 18-pack of Mountain Dew!
This article originally appeared on FWx.
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