It all started with an empty gin bottle. Mario Schaller didn’t have the heart to throw them in the glass container. Such a beautiful bottle, he thought to himself. You can’t just throw them away. No, something has to be done about it. Since then he has been making candles and lamps from the used bottles. It’s called “upcycling”. Sustainability in the classic sense.
That was in 2019. Schaller started the first tests. He cut the bottle with a diamond blade and sanded the edges of the glass until they were smooth. A lot broke at first. But little by little the results got better, until the ground glass bodies were perfect. Then he thought about the wax he wanted to fill the glass bodies with. He was looking for a sustainable, rapidly renewable raw material. The choice fell on soy wax from Europe. Today he also fills the vitreous with gel.
Nobody recognizes that the container was once a gin bottle. Mario Schaller made a gel candle out of it.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
This is how the first self-made candles came about. To his delight, as he says, they could also be sold quite well – initially to friends and acquaintances. He has also designed attractive packaging for his products. This is how beautiful souvenirs were created. And of course “the child” also needed a name. It was quickly found with “Seefeuer Starnberg”.
Mario Schaller usually turns empty bottles into lamp bases.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
But much more can be made from empty bottles – lamps, for example. Schaller found the idea exciting. And he started the lamp production. He drilled a hole for the power cable in each bottle, filled the bottle with fine sand to ensure stability and attached a socket for the light bulb to the bottle neck. He still buys the lampshades in different colors and sizes.
But what works with bottles also works with other objects: with tea and coffee pots, small sculptures or with dried driftwood from the lake shore, even with a simple hand drill that fell into his hands while cleaning up. They are all suitable as lamp bases. “There are no limits to your imagination,” says Schaller.
But he also builds lighting in tea and coffee pots.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
Extravagant exhibits can also be made from roots and driftwood from the Starnberg lake shore.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
The statue of a discus thrower also adorns an object from Schaller’s workshop.
(Photo: Georgine Treybal)
On request, Schaller will also produce individual exhibits. For example, if someone has an old teapot at home that they love very much, but which leaks easily and can no longer be used as a pot, Schaller can use it to build an individual lamp. He particularly enjoys such assignments. Then the inventor in him comes into play. For example, he converted a plane into a lamp base for a customer whose husband is a carpenter.
Whoever enters the cellar today – this serves as a workshop for the 55-year-old – comes across a sea of objects and special bottles. Of course, Schaller did not drink all of the latter himself. They come from friends and acquaintances – yes, even restaurants now supply him with empties.
An own business is not yet in it – the Starnberg rents are “horrendous”
Tinkering probably runs in his family. “My maternal grandfather was a real tinkerer,” he says. “He did everything himself – on the house, on the car, in general.” As a little boy he was always there. “By watching I probably learned a lot from him.”
Mario Schaller has been living in Starnberg for 20 years and is married. He comes from the Magdeburg area, trained as a retail salesman and now earns his living in a Starnberg gym. So far, building lamps has been an extra income for him.
He currently sells the lamps and candles he designed himself via his online shop or at markets. His candles are also available at the Starnberg Tourist Information. For financial orientation: Schaller charges either 14.90 euros (150 ml) or 24.90 euros (300 ml) for the wax candles. The gel candles cost 9.90 euros (small), 19.90 euros (large). He usually charges 49.90 euros for the lamps. Incidentally, his dream is to have his own shop where customers can see the lamp creations live. “But the rents in Starnberg are just horrendous. Unfortunately.”