To reduce its carbon footprint, auto giant Ford is turning materials recycled from discarded plastic bottles into lightweight vehicle components, according to reports.

The automaker is using recycled plastic bottles to create the underbody shields of all Ford cars and SUVs and the wheel liners of the company’s F-Series trucks. Lightweight materials in automotive applications improve the aerodynamics and fuel efficiency of a vehicle.

On average, the automaker uses 300 plastic bottles for every vehicle — roughly the equivalent of 1.2 billion plastic bottles a year. The plastic bottles are shredded into smaller pieces. Those pieces are sold to suppliers that transform the plastic bits into fiber used to develop sheets of plastic. Ford then uses the plastic sheets to create the underbody shields.

“The underbody shield is a large part, and for a part that big, if we use solid plastic it would likely weigh three times as much,” Thomas Sweder, a design engineer at Ford Motors, said.

Ford is not alone in its efforts to find alternative uses for discarded plastic bottles. An environmentalist is attempting to construct an entire village in Panama using discarded plastic bottles and has already completed homes, a castle, a dungeon, an educational center and a museum, all composed of discarded plastic waste. Similarly, sustainable clothing maker Coalatree recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for a hoodie composed of plastic bottles and coffee grounds, while researchers at New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) are building emergency shelters composed of plastic bottles for use following natural disasters and other events.