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 todayโs 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
fantastic!
i guess this will be the futur of architecture, we have to make something out of this huge heap of waste that we leave here on this planet.
very inspiring.
just have a question about the pet-bottles witch are under suspicion to interfere the hormonal balance.
I don’t know if this is on the website, but is there anyway I could get involved in something like this? I could get people at my school just to give their bottles to me rather than throw them away.
It’s encouraging to see the ingenuity and forward thinking ways that will bring us all into a new beginning…taking the negative and turning it into something positive. Kudos!
UV degradation could be a serious problem. Our local Solar Village built in the late 70’s used thousands of DHPE milk jugs as water/solar storage. After 20 years there was a multi thousand gallon problem. Not sure about PETE. Several plastics are stable but not usually the ‘throw-away’ type of products. Fill the bottles with local stabilized mud/adobe?
great idea
nice
Creative thinking.
Check out this glass version I visited, built in the 1950’s
https://www.kootenayrockies.com/attractions/glasshouse.html
My husband is certified in green construction but, had to take a job doing something else for financial reasons. We still wanted to exercise his skills by starting with something small, like building a carport. I wanted to know if it is just as feasible to use one gallon milk/OJ jugs and one gallon vinegar jugs as it is to use water bottles for alternative building. See, we don’t buy water but, we buy a lot of milk, OJ and vinegar. We would deeply appreciate an answer. Thank you.
Hi Cassandra,
Thanks for writing. Too bad we are not yet building ‘only’ green construction.
I would think that if you were going to fill those bottles with a slurry, that will harden and become cement-like, then the project would be structurally sound. If bottles were then tied together and the exterior plastered. But, if you were considering leaving them empty- then that would be problematic, as all that empty space would be subject to collapse, if any weight (or strong wind) was applied. I guess it also depends on load and how you would connect the bottles. Can you be more specific? Best, Keiren
hi.. im jaclyn molto from the philippines. i am very much interested in making a bottle house and of course to help our environment. but i do not funds to use to make the said house a reality.. please help. thanks
Hi Jaclyn,
Sorry to hear that you do not feel you can afford to build a plastic bottle house. If you are associated with a non-profit and desire to build a structure for a school or community organization – the people at http://www.hugitforward.com might be able to help. If for yourself, I would start slowly by collecting bottles…and when you have enough, maybe friends and volunteers will offer to assist you. Best to you!
Hi, I’m planing to exterior insulate a concrete wall in wet rural Ireland, I am concerned that the wall may go mouldy behind the PET bottles, and wondering what is best to join them so that there are no cold bridges. I intend to clad the outside withe either timer facing or render. Does anyone have any experience with this type of building? Thanks for your help and all the lovely inspiring photos.
I have designed and made a recycled plastic building block that inter locks. I need an investor help me develop and mass manufacture the bricks to start building houses. If anyone has info please let me know.
thevanzyls@telkomsa.net
I have been pondering your challenge and cannot say I am an expert on concrete mold, so slow in coming to a solution. But, just read this: ‘added a cup of borax laundry booster to prevent mold and mildew’ from this page https://www.greatdetermination.com/page3.html They are papercreting an earthbag home…but sounds like a potential solution for you too. ๐
hello again. is it possible to build a bottle house in the Philippines? we are always devastated by typhoons.
i am highly impressed with this innovative idea of your……
What about off gassing from the plastic? I love this idea and would love to build my home out of it but what about off gassing from the plastic–I don’t know much about this but I tend to not use any plastic products because I have heard that harmful chemicals leach from it. I don’t know if it would be worse than what is already used to build homes….just curious! Keep up the awesome work!
Thanks!
Thanks Keiren for your response! Our plan was to start with a trench a tad larger than the jugs and start with a level of gravel. Then a layer of concrete. We were thinking it would be wise to fill the jugs with sand and give the outside of the jug a coating of watered down cement and sand so that the outside of the jugs would bond with the cement. From that point we would layer jugs and concrete mixed with sand while giving each side of the wall a good layer of cement. And yes, we were planning to tie the bottles together with some kind of twine. Since, I wrote last I have been trying to research building codes in our area. I am not sure if this sort of building would be allowed. ( I really would like to build a house!) Then, I had thought. We would build a wall or two, document when and how the walls were built and allow some time and our Houston weather to pass. Then present our building plans to our Structural Inspection Division and show them the walls. I want to do this by the book. I also believe that it can be done, even in the good ol’ U S of A. Any thoughts?
These photos are inspirational! I want to add a new bedroom and bathroom onto my house, and now I have an inexpensive way to do it! Thank you.
I’m about to start on an exciting eco self build in Thailand and would love to hear from anybody who is interested in helping or has any ideas or contacts here. I have built a website to explain the project and my goals: http://www.myethos.weebly.com. please contact me if you have any interest in permaculture, living self sustainably or any other reason connected with building somewhere that is in harmony with nature…
Does the off-gassing of the plastic pose any health problems?
Hi Joseph, I would be cautious in an enclosed, hot space – like the inside of a plastic greenhouse. But if the bottles are covered over with plaster – then they will not break down and release noxious chemicals. When you think about how much plastic is in our seas degrading and offgassing, that is scary. Best, Keiren
Why not encourage mfg to design PET bottles so that when they are done being used for drinks that they can interlock like Lego Blocks to allow for stronger and easier assembly in a ECO friendly application?
This is great! We are considering the use of this technology as we are thinking of constructing reservoirs for capturing rain and spring water for use during summer. We will continue to use bamboo for other construction as it is lower carbon footprint than cement, but this is certainly something that we can apply in our project http://www.ecofarmasia.com
Mr. de la Cruz
Problem not solved … only delayed. Buildings also have a life-cycle and when it is over, the building will be destroyed and the bottles re-exposed. The only real solution is to stop making the plastic. Period.
Even if all building converted over to this method overnight, (and it does not seem suitable for multi-story commercial buildings) it would only hide the scope of the problem.
So long as there are customers for fluids in plastic containers (oil, gasoline, water, soap, soda pop, milk, paint and so on and on), the problem will remain.
What a great display of ingenuity!
yes yes ….creative solutions of this level can only come when someone realy does care and does want solutions…they call on the creative realm and things us creative souls did not know are always given answers…thank you for all your caring and love of humanity and their home…I am a recycle fine artist… check out some of my early experiments…my flicker page link is @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/man_is_like_unto_a_tree/sets/72157628093690218/….thank you Terri
Too bad, nothing this creative is allowed in the U.S. tyrrany.
this is an intersting thing i like very much i have improve this thing into another way if any one intersting in my way those are also partiscipate how to introduced the pet bottels in concret mixing and controle the harm full gasses or reduced that gasses maximum 50%
thank you
Are the any water bottling companies that shape their bottles for later use as building material?
When taking further use of the bottle into account in proper design it would greatly improve its versatility as building material!
Have a bottle designed by https://www.mcdonough.com/cradle_to_cradle.htm
Are there plans available to help build these wonderful places.?
hello,o
i would be very much grateful to have contacts of people who may help me in techniques of building house with plastic bottles
Regards
Dhunveer
Have you also looked at the https://inspirationgreen.com/plastic-bottle-schools.html page?
There is a ‘how-to’ at the bottom of the page. The organization Hug it Forward helps schools and non-profits build plastic bottle buildings.
This is inspirational – wow! You make me want to get out there and do some of this. In 3 years time I’m taking a year off to building work exchanges and I’m really hoping to work on some bottle buildings. Thank you for inspiring me. I’ve built out of cob, but what I love about this is that it actually utilizes what others just throw out! Great stuff.
Fantastic rather it seems unbelievable but it is fact which can save us from so many problems because used bottles are thrown into streets, on roads who block the sewerage system also. This is very constructive and right usage of the used bottles.
I would rather have a Bottle in front of me than a frontal Labotamie
I agree with some of the other comments. This is a pretty good answer for the plastic bottles that we already have but we must stop using them altogether. This is good for the trees in that they don’t have to be cut but plastic is not a full answer either. Use what we have but do not produce any more waste than is necessary.
How can you get planning permission in the UK for any of these projects.
I have a great idea to get rid of PET drink bottles but need funds to produce tooling.
http://www.greenculture.org.uk any ideas. .
this is wonderful. i would like to initiate a project with plastic bottles in my area. the plastic bottles here are just too many and are scattered all around. may you assist me in how to construct simple houses using plastic bottles.
thank you.
I am a 64 yo retired grandmother. I would like to make a circular bench around a tree in my yard with my 7 year old grandson. Can I do this myself with plastic bottles. Do you have a ‘how to booklet’ to get me started. We recycle a lot of water bottles.
Hฤฐ
I AM FROM ฤฐSTANBUL TURKEY
THANKS FOR YOUR NฤฐCE WORKS
BEST REGARDS
KORAY
Thank you so much for sharing these ingenious ways to use bottles to build sustainably! I would like to try re-building our greenhouse with bottles since the roof on our greenhouse is deteriorating. I would love to see you teaching people in Haiti to build these houses. There is so much garbage and bottle clogged rivers there that could turn into beautiful homes!
Keep up your wonderful work!
Maria
THIS IS AWESOME! GENERAL CONTRACTORS SHOULD BE FORCED INTO USING THE TEXAS SIZED FLOATING BLOB OF PLASTIC BOTTLES IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN!!!
This site is so radical. I would do almost anything to be a part of something this amaing. Is there anyway I can help? any way I can donate bottles or anything you may need to further this amazing project?
Amazing I will build my house
You guys have rversed the term WASTES, when it comes to plastics, am forced to think that word is non existent in your dictionary. Keep on keeping on.
AMAZING!
My daughters are working on earning their Silver Award in Girl Scouts and they were inspired by the plastic bottle houses being built in Nigeria. we hope to construct a house from plastic bottles and donate to the Womans shelter. Thank you for the ideas/.