If you've got a bunch of old soda cans from your home, place of business or any other establishment, you may be wondering what your options are. There are multiple ways that you can turn these old cans into something special. Check out these ideas:

Build a Roof

With a bit of hard work, you can make a colourful roof out of old soda or beer cans. Make sure the cans are empty and give them a rinse to remove surgery residue. Then, smash the cans flat. If you want the cans to be more uniform, make a template out of cardboard, trace that design onto the metal and cut as needed.

Some people have used metal cans for their roofs, but that's not the most practical solution in most cases. However, this project can be a fun way to put a unique roof on your chicken coop, a storage shed or a kids' playhouse.

Make an Aluminium Foundry

You may also want to consider making your own foundry. Then, you can turn your old cans into lots of different and fun projects.

To make a small foundry, you need some plaster of Paris, some playsand and water. That gives you what you need to make the lining of the foundry. You also need a metal bucket and a plastic plant pot to use as the mould for your foundry. Finally, you need some PVC pipe, a bit of PVC coupling and a length of steel piping. That allows you to introduce air into the finished product.

When you're ready to use the foundry, you fill it with charcoal and heat it up. Then, you can melt your aluminium cans in there. When you have molten aluminium, you can pour it into moulds and make everything from metal play swords for your kids to decorative metal bowls.

Sell to a Metal Recycler

Many metal recyclers will pay some money for old cans or other recyclable metal, and turning your aluminium into cash is pretty fun. Aluminium is very easy to recycle and used in a lot of applications, and as a result, it tends to garner a higher price than some other metals.

If you ultimately decide that selling cans to metal recyclers is fun, you may want to diversify the type of metal you collect and sell. In most cases, non-ferrous metals tend to be the most valuable. Non-ferrous simply means the metal does not contain iron, and that category includes bronze and copper as well as aluminium.