I was just getting rid of some recyclables that had been sitting around by the sink waiting to get cleaned, and I was faced with a challenge. There was a bottle of oil, and it had a little bit of oil on the bottom. How would I get the oil out? I didn’t want to use soap, because I think it’s a bit of a waste when it’s just going into a bin, and you know it’s impossible to dissolve oil in water.

This is what I did. I filled the bottle with water and then left it very slowly overflowing. The oil slowly let go of the bottle and floated slowly all the way to the top and over the rim of the bottle. It was important that the water was overflowing all the time, or the oil might have deposited around the bottle neck where there would have been a water line. This was much more fun than cleaning recyclables normally is (can you imagine?!) and all thanks to physics 🙂