Americans threw away 33 million tons of plastic in 2013, according to the EPA. How long does it take a plastic bottle to degrade in a landfill? Some say 500 years, some say 1,000. Plastic hasn’t been around long enough. We (in our lifetime) will never know how long today’s petroleum-based plastic bottles take to break down in the environment. But we can do something with them while they’re around.
Plastic Bottle Homes Around the World
Eco-Tec’s Casa de la Fe. Used vehicle wheel rims make up the foundation and some of the pillars.
Casa de la Fe (Faith House) Honduran Foundation for the Rehabilitation and Integration of the Handicapped. The texture of the outside surface depends on which way the bottles face. eco-tecnologia.com
Eco Tec’s Sky Field House under construction.
How To Help? Buy A Reusable Water Bottle
The best thing, of course, would be to stop using plastic water bottles completely. We recommend these eco-friendly, reusable water bottles.
- Hydro Flask Insulated Stainless Steel Water Bottle
- Stanley Vacuum Insulated Water Bottle
- Nalgene Tritan Wide Mouth BPA-Free Water Bottle
An Eco-Tec home in Bolivia. PET bottle bottoms on the left. Wine bottle bottoms on the right.
This home in Bolivia incorporates lots of wine bottles as well as PET bottles. Here they used concrete pillars instead of PET columns.
Eco-Tec Africa – solving Nigeria’s housing shortage. Ecotec-Africa & physorg.com
Polli’s self interlocking plastic bricks are translucent thereby allowing the play of natural light to shine through. The manufacturers add they are good thermal and sound insulators and can withstand hurricane force winds. No BPA, but wish they could make the fireproof backing curtain for walls out of something other than PVC. Can be used for walls, greenhouses, roofs, etc.
Ecological Bottle House, near the Iguazu Falls, Misiones, Argentina.
Photo credit: Xinhua/Martin Zabala. Love the bottle cap curtains!
The family will instruct anyone who is up for a visit, or if you pay for their travel expenses, they will come to you. sites.google.com
Water bottle wall in Danone office, Tokyo. Great idea as partitions in an office!
The Morimoto Restaurant’s bottle wall in NYC is composed of 17,400 half liter plastic bottles filled with mineral water and then backlit with LED lights. Originally found at “morimotonyc.com”
Water bottle wall. The wall is two stories high.
Back outside…
Plastic Bottle Greenhouses
Plastic bottle greenhouse on Blue Rock Station, Ohio. This one sits on old tires and is made from 1000 2-liter plastic soft drink bottles. Flickr photo by ticticticticboom
Plastic bottle greenhouses are all the rage in Europe. Picasa-Cudlees.
Owlsoup Photo on Flickr
Plastic Bottle Greenhouse
Photo by bryanilona on Flickr
A Danish plastic bottle shed. Flickr photo By christof
Plastic Bottle House Innovations
Eco-Tec’s Ecoparque El Zamorano, Honduras.
Ecological House: Constructed with 8,000 bottles with composting toilets and a solar water heating system. The green roof can weigh 30 tons when wet and has been supported by the walls without any extra reinforcement. It is the first house in the world made from PET bottles without using cement in the walls.
Tomislav Radovanic, a retired math professor from central Serbia has built a house of waste plastic. “The house is comfortable and it practically cost me nothing,” Radovanovic said, adding that the bottles are good insulators. The foundation is concrete but all else is plastic; gutters, windows and furniture are made from recycled bottles. Freerepublic.com
Eco Tec’s Sky Field House: The first vaulted ceiling using PET bottles.
All Eco-tec projects have a strong social focus. Most of the PET bottles used are recovered in clean-up campaigns and recycling drives. The community then fills them with sand. They train the unemployed and handicapped in their construction methods. They build water tanks, schools, community centers, urban benches as well as homes. Andreas Froese, Eco-Tec’s inventor hopes to also build some PET homes in Haiti utilizing construction debris. Most of the PET bottles used are recovered in clean-up campaigns and recycling drives. (www.eco-tecnologia.com)
Ecological Bottle House, near the Iguazu Falls, Misiones, Argentina.
Alfredo Santa Cruz and his family built this house and matching play house out of used plastic bottles, Tetra Packs and CD cases. They used 1200 PET plastic bottles for the walls, 1300 milk and wine Tetra Pack boxes for the roof, 140 CD cases for the doors and windows, plus 320 PET bottles for the furniture. (sites.google.com)
Taiwan’s plastic bottle building: EcoARK Exhibition Hall.
Not just a bottle picked off the street. Polli-Brick from Minimize is made from recycled PET bottles. The building can be disassembled and then reassembled elsewhere. Looks like that might take a bit of time though as the building is 279 feet long.
Plastic Bottle Houses Under Construction
Plastic Bottle Construction. Cement.
Plastic Bottle Construction. Adobe.
Plastic Bottle Construction. Eco-Tec in Bolivia
Plastic Bottle Construction. Eco-Tec builds many cisterns/water tanks.
Plastic Bottle Construction. How to make an arch.
A painted wall.
Eco-Tec’s aquaduct.
How To Build A Plastic Bottle House
- Eco-Tec How to booklet: docs.google.com
- Hug it Forward Bottle School Wiki: bottleschools.org
- Blue Rock Station in Ohio sells an illustrated booklet on
How to Build a Plastic Bottle Greenhouse
I don’t know this for sure, but I would think that the buildings that are constructed with some type of ‘plaster’ over the bottles that give it a smooth appearance when it is painted would not have the off-gassing issue as it would be trapped by the ‘plaster’. Painting might also contain the gasses. Any other thoughts?
Coca Cola should do new bottles, new disign special for construction.
Really, really cool, but ultraviolet light (such as from the sun) degrades plastic, which overtime would weaken the structural integrity of the bottles. I wonder how engineers address that.
i know we can make abeeter life but to see what we drink and life in at the same way is the good thing 2folds. of the life
As to offgassing…as Doni mentioned, I would not be nervous of off-gassing if the plastic bottles were hidden from the sun, under a coat of adobe or plaster or cement. I think they would last hundreds of years like that. But, plastic bottles exposed to bright sunshine, as in a greenhouse, unfortunately there would probably be a bit of offgassing…
Great projects. However I’d like to point out one thing:
If you are building a greenhouse, do not use green bottles, as they block all the red and blue light that are essential to plants. Green light is unusable to plants.
Always have wanted to participate in such things, and still hope to live in and build one some day
It is GREAT!!!!
I think this is so cool.
I love all the ideas and especially using sand in the bottles like the Earthships do with tires for their homes!! The office dividers are a great smart idea for light transfer and it looks so cool you have given me ideas for my retirement home projects!
Thanks
Bill Seward
Brilliant I love them, the perfect way to recycle all that waste. It makes me pleased to think that someone else is manufacturing the building materials!!!!
thumbs up for me and there should be more of it maybee shire councils should take some ideas of here for future projects GREAT TO SEE THIS HAPENING
GREAT IDEA this idea could save lots of landfill areas with this idea the imagination can go wild with different projects need to get the govt on side
While I despise the waste involved with plastic bottles I can see this as a perimeter fence to keep things out and things in. I love the starlike bottle bottoms.
check this out fabulous
Thank you for this amazing website showing how people all over the world are using resources in such a positive ‘life enhancing’ way. I can’t wait to get cracking, with my own creations. This is wonderful :O)
really neat..now I know what my new walls will be made of for my sun porch enclosure!
Why have I not heard of this before? It is fantastic. I want one.
Utterly Brilliant!
just watched the video clip on recycling of plastic bottles >as a young girl growing up in NZ
it was always to my fascination how clever and clean the idea was to build homes out of recycled materials.Loved it and Thank you!!
Enchanting architecture! I love the way exposed bottle bottoms create stars.
Maybe we aren’t doomed and there is hope for the future of the earth.
These are brilliant. Habitat for Humanity should get started on this idea immediatly.
I am loving what can be made from rubbish,
these building made from plastic bottles look great, if thermal properties live up to my expectations, I may try and build one.
Looks nice, but I wouldn’t want to inhale all the plastic softener exhalations that are emanated from this bottles.
This poison in plastic disturbs the health of living beeings. Better stopp using plastic and stick with natural materials as earth and wood.
I LOVE THIS STUFF!!
It is amazing… Thanks for creating a solution for these people… we in Mexico have also a lot of need in provinces… a question raise to me if in these houses will hold heat outside, are they cold or warm? just wondering… I would love to feel inside one, is there any built in Mexico?? Thanks thanks thanks, Namaste
I am going to see the web site on how to build a greenhouse. I’d love to have one. Great dwelling and things we all waste. I recycle a lot of things. Keep up the good work.
Fantastic. Endless Possibilities.
Marvelous creativity! Yet, if it becomes an excuse to continue manufacturing and using plastic bottles, that is not a good thing. Plastic is toxic…
This is excellent idea for Eco life
I LOVE this, and am planning a two story gardenshed/playhouse. Do I need a 4’X 4′ frame?
now that is an amazing use for recycling, however, i have to agree about manufacturing just for that reason!
Love it! Let’s see the discarded plastic bottles in San Miguel, Mexico not only recycled into more plastic but actually used for construction.
This is a great concept. I’m impressed with the creative structures as well as the simple houses, wells, greenhouses etc. However, it’s painful to consider how many plastic bottles there are in the world; worse yet, how many are NOT being used!
Wow!
Creativity has no limit!
Great solution, easy simple and cheap, lets go for it!!!
inspirational
This is amazing!! I love the iedea,but I wonder if my neighbors would mind if I made a greenhouse of bottles in my backyard…
Maravillada…encantada…felicitaciones a los forjadores del futuro.
Y para mi un tiron de pelos…hay que imitar lo bueno
VIVAN LAS BEBIDAS DESECHABLES…PERO QUE VIVAN SUS ENVASES Y CON EL LIQUIDO RIEGO EL PATIO
This is exciting! Thank you for making this page and allowing people to see how to make use of their own waste. I hope the idea spreads like wild fire!
Love these ideas. Love to see it for real and help save the world. Everyone should see these pictures.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uS7uQzNC1ik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9777YItvho
https://www.flickr.com/photos/escueladecomedia/sets/72157613031250912/
This is beautiful.i would like to get instructions on how to build a glass bottle house.from the foundation ,the windows and the roof.thank you
This is very good ideas!!!
Meybe we wil be have green earth in more years 🙂
Thanks for this site
Muchas felicitaciones por la promoción de temas y soluciones importantes que contribuyen a resolver problemas que se han tornado críticos en nuestra vida.
Recycling and creating new things from old used things -this is amazing, but as said earlier in the form, the plastic is very toxic, plastic, especially as we now it today (meaning most producers of products have no idea what is in their plastic etc.) must disappear from our lifecycles! Keep up the good spirit -love
WOW THIS IS A WONDERFUL WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL THING, MAY I B MORE AWARE!
I am so impressed. What a must see this
is and Must do. What a relief to see all those
bottles going to something good and useful.
So very impressed with the ingenuity and progressive approach to using ‘waste’. Thank you.