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EcoBricks - A Solution To Plastic Pollution | Anuj Ramatri | EcoFreak

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How to repurpose plastic bottles into ecobricks

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Ecobricks are a fantastic solution for tackling plastic pollution. When plastic is exposed to sun and water, it breaks down into smaller pieces (microplastics) and releases toxins. Microplastics scatter around the globe, reaching even the depths of the ocean. By storing plastic in ecobricks, we are preventing pollution.

Plastic bottles (including lids)

Clean and dry plastic rubbish

Scissors

A magic wand (a stick that is at least the length of the bottle)

Scales

Enamel paint, nail polish or permanent markers (for writing on the bottle)

Step 1: Make sure your plastic materials are clean and dry. Dirty plastic inside an ecobrick will cause bacteria to grow and gas to form inside your brick. This can make your bottles bloat and caps pop off.

Step 2: Ensure your magic wand can reach the bottom of your bottle. We call it your magic wand as it helps your plastic disappear. Bamboo and wooden sticks work best.

Step 3: Add a base layer. Choose plastic with a solid colour, then push it down to
the bottom of your ecobrick using your stick. Fill the first 1-2cm of the bottle with
the same colour.
Tip: cellophane bags work great.
Step 4: Pack it tight. Cut large pieces of plastic into smaller pieces. Also, mix up soft and hard plastic. Don't overfill it. There should be 1-2cm between the cap and the plastic inside.

Step 5: Weigh your bottle. To find a perfect weight for your bottle, multiply its volume in millilitres by 0.33. So, a 600ml bottle has to weigh at least 200g. This ensures the ecobrick is strong enough to build with.

Step 6: Record your ecobrick. Head over to www.GoBrik.com to register your bottle. Don't forget to write your name, date, serial number (this will be given to you by the app) and final weight.

Step 7: Choose a project to support. Find out if there are any local community projects who are looking for ecobrick donations. If you can't find one, there are hundreds online to get involved in.

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Ecobricks are a fantastic solution for tackling plastic pollution. When plastic is exposed to sun and water, it breaks down into smaller pieces (microplastics) and releases toxins. Microplastics scatter around the globe, reaching even the depths of the ocean. By storing plastic in ecobricks, we are preventing pollution

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Ecobricking is a simple way to take personal responsibility for our plastic by keeping it out of industry and out of the biosphere.

An ecobrick is a PET bottle packed solid with clean and dry used plastic. Ecobricks are made manually to a set density to to sequester plastic and create reusable building blocks. In this way ecobricks keep plastic from degrading into toxins and microplastics and out of high-energy, high-emission industrial processes. But most of all, the hands-on process of ecobricking deepens our awareness of these issues and their regenerative alternatives- what we call plastic transition.

Once many ecobricks are available, they can be put to short-term use in modular units, lego-furniture and open spaces. Ecobrick can also be put to long-term use in earthen gardens and structures. In their making and application, ecobricks embody regenerative principles and an ayyew vision that is based on follow the Earth's example of securing loose carbon to green the biosphere.

Be created by a not-for-profit process that is for-Earth benefit.

Manually compact and secure used plastic into a transparent, building block that can be indefinitely reused in the short and long term.

Result in more plastic and CO2 being subtracted from the biosphere than was added by the process of making

Result in building applications that contribute to the maintenance and encouragement of biodiversity

Raise the individual and collective ecological consciousness of those involved in the process.

Plastic that has been packed according to these standards and authenticated as such is considered by the GEA as a valuable ecological contribution. The GEA maintains the Brikcoin blockchain and the GoBrik platform to enable the authentication of ecobricks according to these standards. Authentication results in commodification of authenticated ecobricked plastic.

Currently, the GEA recognizes three types of ecobricks, regular ecobricks, cigbricks and ocean ecobricks. See below the technical standards for each type of ecobrick.

Ecobricking and sequestration standards were developed by ecobrickers around the world and have been refined and are maintained by the GEA.

Completed ecobricks are packed solid enough that they can bear the weight of a person without deforming and to prohibit easy flammability while maximizing its durability and re-usability.

The ecobrick is made using a transparent PET bottle

The ecobrick is only packed with used plastics that have been cleaned and dried.

The ecobrick's density is higher than 0.33g/ml

The ecobrick must have a density of 0.70g/ml or less

The ecobrick is sealed tight with a screw down lid.

Care has been taken taken to prepare the ecobrick as a reusable building block:

The label has been removed and ecobricked.

A bottom color has been added

The weight has been permanently recorded on the outside.

Only ecobricks that meet these standards can be authenticated and count as sequestered plastic.

A density higher than 0.29 g/ml

A maximum density of 0.70g/ml

Only packed with acetate cigarette butts - the paper and ash have been removed.

The cigbrick is sealed tight with a screw down lid.

Care has been taken taken to prepare the cigbrick as a reuseable building block:

The label has been removed and ecobricked.

A bottom color has been added

The weight has been recorded on the outside.

Only cigbricks that meet these standards can be authenticated and count as sequestered plastic.

A density higher than 0.25 g/ml

A maximum density of 0.70 g/ml

Are packed with as much plastic as possible

Sealed tight (but not air tight).

Care has been taken taken to prepare the ocean ecobrick as a reuseable building block:

The bottle's label has been removed and ecobricked.

A bottom color has been added

The weight has been recorded on the outside.

Only ocean ecobricks that meet these standards can be authenticated and count as sequestered plastic.

Personal & Community Empowerment

Ecobricking is a both an individual and collaborative endeavour. It unites across class, continents and cultures around the shared intention of caring for the local and global biosphere. The personal ecobricking process raise awareness of the consequences of consumption and the dangers of plastic to accelerate plastic transition. The collaborative process gives individual and communities an hands on experience of regenerative living and points in the direction of other regenerative technologies, such as earth building and permaculture.

Learn More

The Global Ecobrick Alliance has developed extensive, free and open source resources (like this page!) to get you started ecobricking right. Our goal is to empower you and your community with the know-how to make ecobricks and build with them. The pages on this site are the result of years of research, experimentation and trial and error by plastic transition leaders around the world.

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Ecobricking is a simple way to take personal responsibility for our plastic by keeping it out of industry and out of the biosphere. An ecobrick is a PET bottle packed solid with clean and dry used plastic. Ecobricks are made manually to a set density to to sequester plastic and create reusable building blocks.

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This inspiring story starts with one elderly woman in rural Guatemala. Too poor to build her home with bricks, she decided to use the plastic waste that was polluting her village.

Using a twig, she started to stuff plastic trash into used water bottles. Each filled bottle became a 'brick', and slowly but surely, the lone woman made enough to built a simple home.

Susanna Heisse, a blossoming environmental activist, saw what the elderly woman was doing, and immediately realised the potential of this building technique for solving a number of challenges faced by the local community:

1. Plastic waste accumulating in open dumps, polluting Lake Atitlan, "the most beautiful lake in the world".
2. People had little understanding of the fact that plastic does not naturally break down.
3. A lack of environmental or health awareness within the community was leading to sickness and disease.

The most vital message that Susanna could put across about the plastic packaging waste? "This is not a leaf. It will not rot. It will stay here for hundreds of years. We need to do something different."

And so, in the village of San Marco La Laguna, near Lake Atitlan in Guatemala, Pura Vida Atitlan and the eco-block (sometimes called ecobrick) were born.

Image: puravidaatitlan.org
HUSK school in Cambodia

We're in Cambodia, visiting a school made from ecobricks called HUSK. Near Siem Reap, a popular tourist destination, the school is run by Fiona Jaensch and her husband Anthony, owners of the local tour company Beyond Unique.

A half hour ride out of town in the back of a tuktuk down a dusty and bumpy track, we arrived at the complex of buildings that is the HUSK Bottle School, comprising three classrooms, a library and a compost toilet block.

411 students, from grades 1 to 10 attend English lessons here, supplementing their normal schooling (attending general school is a prerequisite). The aim is to prepare young people for the better paid jobs in the growing hospitality sector of Siem Reap, close to Cambodia's main tourist draw of the Angkor temple complex.

Fiona heard about the Pura Vida technique, accessed the Bottle Schools Manual, and started collecting water bottles. Since local villagers don't use the smaller bottles (20 litre refillables are much more affordable), Fiona asked local hotels - of which there are plenty - to donate the bottles left by tourists instead.

Incentives were arranged to encourage the local residents to pack the bottles with plastic trash and deliver them to the school. Filled ecobricks could be exchanged for school materials, bottles of oil, and even bicycles.

People had no previous environmental education about the hazards of plastic pollution or burning plastics, and so the material was plentiful in the local surroundings. I was reminded of Susanna Heisse's message in Guatemala: "This not a leaf. It will not rot."

Cambodia's population is very young. Added to that, plastic is a relative newcomer in society. People simply aren't aware that plastics in the environment cause problems, and so much of Fiona's time has also been spent on environmental awareness. (Plastic bags aren't just a problem in the countryside. Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh recently hosted a UNESCO campaign " Make my country plastic bag free " in an attempt to encourage people back to natural, biodegradable packaging.)

They found that the plastic trash from a typical 20 litre waste basket, squashed down with a stick, was enough to fill a 250ml plastic bottle.

The school was built using 100,000 bottles.

Building a better future

Once enough ecobricks have been collected, the construction technique is relatively straightforward. A traditional wooden stud framework is built, with chicken wire used on the front and back of each panel to hold the bottles in place. (It's important to use the same size bottles throughout to make stacking easier.) Once complete, the wall is finished with cement render - leaving some 'honesty windows' for people to see that it's really, honestly, made out of plastic trash!

Helping families keep their children in school was another challenge. With little income, pressure would often fall upon the children to enter into construction jobs. So phase 2 of the HUSK initiative has been to build another workshop (using a further 15,000 bottles) in which 15 local women are learning to sew, and making toys to sell. Following an uncertain start with a few brave pioneers, their success led to 60 women applying for just 5 positions.

We visited the school and workshop in the early afternoon in dry season. It was a scorching hot day, and yet all of the buildings - made from little more than plastic trash - offered cool, comfortable sanctuary.

Fiona was really interested in the work of WasteAid UK, having downloaded the factsheets from our new website, and is now planning to trial making plastic paving tiles from plastic wrap, and charcoal briquettes from dry leaves. The plastic paving tiles may offer entrepreneurial opportunities for the men of the village, and Fiona is hopeful that the projects will help improve living conditions through employment - and a cleaner environment.

We wish Fiona and all the people at HUSK in Cambodia all the very best, and look forward to helping out however we can with their future waste to livelihoods projects.

A simple, scalable solution

All of these issues - plastic waste accumulating in the environment, a lack of waste collection services, little environmental awareness, and low economic activity - are shared by communities on every continent. Waste management on small islands is of particular concern, since there is typically no system for removing packaging waste from islands, so it either gets dumped in or by the sea, or burned.

Ecobricks may offer a simple, scalable solution to plastic waste, particularly on islands popular with tourists where the smaller bottles are plentiful. This technique seems to offer a lot of potential for resolving multiple issues within communities and societies. Building with ecobricks is cheaper, cleans the environment, raises awareness and involves everyone in the community.

The concept is only around 10 years old, yet its genius is spreading rapidly. A globally disruptive, innovative, sustainable solution, that all started with one woman in rural Guatemala.

Let's get ecobricking!

Ecobricks are the simplest way to prevent plastic pollution and everyone can join in.

For step-by-step instructions see the free WasteAid Toolkit.

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This Is Not A Leaf: The Story Of Plastic Bottle Schools - WasteAid

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This inspiring story starts with one elderly woman in rural Guatemala. Too poor to build her home with bricks, she decided to use the plastic waste that was polluting her village. Using a twig, she started to stuff plastic trash into used water bottles.

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Bottle Brick Benches - The Harvest Collective

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The Bottle Brick Bench at Black Hill Regional Park in Germantown, MD

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Plastic. That convenient, colorful and ever so troublesome material that we all use every day is very easy to take for granted. Fact is, it's crazily unique and valuable-- you literally can't find anything like it in elsewhere in our solar system. Plastic is a petroleum by-product. That means it is made from the carbon of ancient organisms-- algae, forest, dinausaurs that lived and died hundreds of millions of years ago. As their bodies were buried, the Earth compacted and secured their carbon underground. It was a process that removed more and more carbon from the atmosphere and greened the biosphere. Today, we dig up these deposits as 'fossil fuels'. But, this ancient carbon was never meant to be fuel! Refining fossil fuels leads to lots of leftover chemicals-- which are perfect for making plastic and dangerous when let loose into the environment.

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Ecobricks.org | Frequently Asked Questions

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Plastic. That convenient, colorful and ever so troublesome material that we all use every day is very easy to take for granted. Fact is, it's crazily unique and valuable-- you literally can't find anything like it in elsewhere in our solar system. Plastic is a petroleum by-product.

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POEM empowers youth around the world to transform waste into a community place - a "Peace on Earthbench." Click here to learn more about our mission.

What is an Earthbench? How do I make one? Click here to learn how we repurpose trash into a building material to build an earthen bench.

Peace on Earthbenches have been built in over 8 countries around the world. Click here to check out photo slideshows of these projects.

Anyone anywhere can participate in the POEM. Click here to learn how you can join the global movement to transform waste into a community place.

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POEM empowers youth around the world to transform waste into a community place - a "Peace on Earthbench." Click here to learn more about our mission. What is an Earthbench? How do I make one? Click here to learn how we repurpose trash into a building material to build an earthen bench.