Amazing things we can do with soda bottles.

Never knew what great things we could do with soda bottles!

PET bottles, unfortunately they are abundantly present as waste. Every year, over a million bottles are still produced and a large part of these end up with the trash or even on the streets.

But there are a dozen different ways to use a pet bottle after it’s main purpose has been fulfilled.

The bottles can be used to build houses…

Oscar Mendez builds houses for homeless people by using waste plastic and rubber. This way de creases both homelessness and plastic waste!

He founded the Colombian Enterprise, Concept Plastics foundation. They make building blocks out of used plastic and rubber. Those blocks resemble legoblocks in both functionality and simplicity! This way a high quality house is built within a short amount of time (only five days!) that has a low cost, for people who need it the most.

So far they’ve used more than 300 tonnes of plastic waste to build up to forty houses and there’s no end in sight!

To cool down houses…

A PET bottle can be put to use as an easy airconditioning system. In Bangladesh, the eco-cooler project arose to spread knowledge on how to cool down homes without using electricity. All you need is a couple of PET bottles and a plate to make an airconditioning system.

By cutting the bottles in half and sticking the smaller side into holes in a plate, the air is cooled by travelling through the narrow side of the bottle. When you put the plate against a window, you’ve got yourself a DIY airco!

So far the system has cooled over 25,000 houses and while knowledge on the system continues to be spread, this number will only go up!

And they can be used to illuminate houses!

Liter of Light is a grassroots movement that strives to bring green, solarenergy and electricity to everyone who needs it, even those who have little to no money. Volunteers teach marginalized communites to use recycled PET bottles and local materials to illuminate their houses and streets. So far they’ve installed more than 350,00 bottle lights in over 15 countries.

On the isle of Colón in Panama, a whole village of PET bottles will be erected.

A total of about 120 houses that are all made out of recycled PETbottles will be built over the coming year. The first two-bedroom house (made out of 10,000 plastic bottles!) was built last year. The houses are comprised out of steel cages that will be filled with PET bottles and then covered in concrete. This makes the walls flexible enough to survive earthquakes and isolating enough to cool down the houses with about seventeen degrees cooler than the jungle outside.

The houses can be built very quickly due to the fact that a large amount of plastic waste can be found on the island, says initiator Robert Bezau.

“We’re changing the world, without changing thee art, one house at a time.”

But gadgets too can run on PET bottles!

Because they were tired of buying expensive filament for their 3Dprinter, Dennon Oosterman, Alex Kay and David Joyce designed a machine that converts all sorts of plastic material to 3D printer filament. The ProtoCycler may be hard on your wallet, it’s very eco-friendly!