Standard recycling can transform a used plastic PET water bottle into something useful. Scientists and designers have been putting their heads together to turn plastic into many different forms: rugs, fabrics, furniture, even new plastic bottles. Useful, yes.  Beautiful? Not unless its an original design by Gülnur Özdaglar.  She transforms water bottles into elegant art!

Gülnur Özdaglar has been producing beautiful works of art in the fields of architecture, graphic design, and photography since 1986. She began re-designing discarded PET bottles into usable art and jewelry in 2008.  Özdaglar may start with standard plastic bottles, in her talented hands the results are extra ordinary.

Once Gülnur Özdaglar works her magic, this beautiful art resembles thin glass and crystal in undulous shapes of nature. In her skillful hands, the PET bottles are melted and metamorphosize from lackluster PET into diaphanous shapes that resemble delicate jellyfish, or translucent flower petals.

Özdaglar feels that the best solution to sustainability is not recycling, but upcycling. Through her skillful labor and artistic vision, she changes the intrinsic value of the PET bottles she works with. By recreating the form that simple PET takes she is giving it a higher value and a new life.