Have you heard of the school that is made of plastic bottles? The school’s walls and foundation are literally built from discarded waste stuffed in discarded plastic bottles.
Just recently I participated in an eco-friendly program that aims to recycle and reuse discarded plastic wastes and bottles and create what is called an “ecobrick” or a repurposed discarded plastic bottle compacted with plastic waste to form a block as hard as a hollow block.
Making ecobricks helps lessen plastic wastes that are being disposed of in landfills, thus reusing it to other beneficial purposes such as being used as an alternative to cement hollow blocks in construction.
Watch the video below to learn how to make ecobricks.
Materials needed:
- plastic bottles of preferably same sizes and make
- used but clean plastic wrappers
- a pair of scissors
- discarded plastic bags
- a stick
How to do it:
- Collect as many plastic wrappers (shampoo and soap sachets, snack wrappers, etc.) and plastic bottles as you can. Clean them off by washing with water and let dry. Plastic bottles to be used are preferably 500ml or 1.5L bottles.
- Cut the plastic wrappers into small strips. Cut as many as you can enough to fill in a bottle. (i.e. at least 175g to fill in a 500ml bottle).
- Insert a whole plastic bag in the bottle to form its base. Press it down with the stick to flatten it out at the bottom of the bottle.
- Fill in the bottle with the cut plastic strips. Insert as many as you can and press it down using the stick. The goal is to make the bottle airtight and compacted until it becomes as hard as a hollow block, thus, you need to squeeze out the air in between each strip while compacting it inside the bottle. You can do this by consistently pressing the strips down using the stick. Do this until you are able to fill in the bottle with plastic strips up to its mouth.
