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If you have a load of old plastic bottles lying around, you might want to put them to some use, rather than just chucking them out? Here are some great little "hacks" you too can make at home. 

As you can imagine, you'll need some tools and materials before you get started.

With all your gear in hand, it is time to get on with this great little build.

For the first hack, take your soda bottle lids and marker pen. Mark out a few vertical and curved lines around the edge of the cap to define the phone holding grooves of the piece.

With that done, take our crafting knife and cut out the parts you've marked out on the cap, as needed. Take our time when doing this as the plastic bottle caps can be a little tricky to cut easily. Make sure you cut away from fingers to prevent accidents. 

Once you've cut the cap, bend down the cut pieces and cut off the excess as needed. With that done, take your hot glue gun and apply a dab of it to the underside of the cut bottle cap. 

With that done, glue another complete soda bottle cap to the underside of the first. Next, take a used, and clean, plastic soda bottle and cut off the neck end of it. 

Take an old compact disk (CD), or similar, and then glue the bottleneck to the center of the CD. With that done, take your bottle caps, and screw them to the top of the bottleneck to complete the stand. 

Leave the glue to cure fully, and your DIY plastic bottle phone stand is now ready to put to use!

For the next hack, take another use, and a clean, plastic soda bottle. Once again cut off the very top of the neck of the bottle just below the flange using something like a hacksaw. 

With that done, take something like a bag of rice, and feed the open ends of the bag through the bottle nozzle. Fold over the opening of the bag around the outside of the nozzle, and then tape it into place using sticky-backed plastic, insulation tape, or duct tape. 

With that done, take the soda bottle's cap, and screw it into place on the bottle nozzle. Once done, you now have a hand little device for easily pouring out the contents of the bag with little to no mess or waste!

For the next hack, take yet another used and clean soda bottle. Using your marker pen, draw a line around the middle of the bottle around its circumference. 

Using your crafting knife and scissors, cut the bottle along the line as straight as you can. With that done, take some masking tape and stick tape around the top of the bottle over the cut end of the bottle with the nozzle still attached. 

Snip a few lines around the excess part of the masking tape, and fold/stick the tape to the inside surface of the bottle. With that done, take the other end of the plastic bottle and cut off the base end of it using your crafting knife and scissors. 

Add some hot glue to the center of the base on the inside of the bottle and then glue the soda bottle cap to the base. Screw the masking-taped bottle to the base to complete the cup. 

For this very simple hack, simply cut off the nozzle end of a plastic soda bottle using your crafting knife and scissors. Transfer the part to your phone's speaker and lay it on top of it. 

Now your phone's speakers with have a little extra oomph!

For our final hack, take yet another used and clean soda bottle. Once again cut off the top of the bottle to make an open-necked "cup". 

With that done, stick some hot glue to one side of the piece and glue it into place on a fixed surface. Next, take a ball of string, and place it inside the bowl of the "cup". Pull the loose end of the string through the bottle nozzle, and hey presto you own "free" string dispenser!

And that's your lot for today. If you enjoyed these simple hacks, you might be inspired by some more?