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
hi i thing this is sooo cool . i think im going to try to , wish me luck . and thank you for showing us all.
God bless you all on these endeavors! May Jesus Christ give grace and strength and love to all who are working these projects.
Craig, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
So impressed and interested ,wanted to join you.
thanks for this, i am an environmental student and i am looking into building houses like these for a paper, this was a great help. I can’t wait to build one myself.
Very nice plastic made
This is really gonna help me with my DT h/w now. Cheers.
Please let me know the cost for building a house on the first floor of my house of about 1000 sq feet. I am in cjennai, Tamilnadu, India. Also I would like to know the construction time, strength and longivity of the construction.
I am impressed and inspired.
i would love to make a greenhouse using plastic bottles. I like the pictures of the ones that don’t appear to use cement or mortar to hold them together. How are they held together?
Can you build a multistory building with these plastic bottles
I am really impressed and would like to congratulate you on this amazing initiative to reduce and reuse of plastic bottles.
Is there any help or Guide book i can get to make a place near river out of this amazing and unique way.
We get lot of snow here.
Regards
Hello
I need to get in contact of all the builders of these homes photographed.! ASAP!
peace and blessings
meredith marut
sir
Here i have qury regarding water tank. if we want to be that tank on the top of roof is it possible that roof can support the weight of water if it will made off botals.? secondly if the pillar form the ground is off about three to four metter and the water tank will be preferablly two feet width, length and 5 feet height? can that structure be supportable or not./
i am from Bhutan where Himalayas ranges passes by and i am pretty sure that earthquake will damage the society. And more over i am consent about the Eco-system balance. so, where ever i go i can see the wast bottle and we cannot do any thing about it.i was thinking and i got this video and i am sure that you all gonna do something about it
You all have really done great job.
i want to make same house for me in maharashatra at my village.
can you please help me for ato create it. So i can let my village people also do..
I love this page of projects. It is so inspirational!
Can anyone direct me to any books on the subject of building with plastic bottles?
Good to see all the work related to reusing waste materials.
One issue I did not see addressed is the breakdown of plastic by sunlight, in particular the ultraviolet radiation. Plastic exposed to sunlight will last 5 years, at most, before becoming brittle and fragile. This especially affect the greenhouses made from plastic bottles.
Amazing. Can I build same house?
Hi
I am studying architecture.the bottle bricks a very impressive method.I want to use bottle bricks at my project. I would like to introduce this method to my class.Do you send me the pdf version of the plans and drawings?
Thank you
Directions on how to make a plastic bottle shed
I saw a UV degradation concerning comment.I want to make some important points:
I run a recycling business so that my large yard was/is full of various plastics over the last years.
PET (polyethylene terephalate) resistance is great against UV.So PET(number 1 plastic index) bottles are great for this.Unfortunately PE (polyethylene) (number 2 and 4 recycling index) and PP (polypropylene) (number 5 recycling index) get brittle quickly if left under sunbeam.The delicate point is that PET bottles have PE or PP lids.One should note that chemically PET,PE and PP are distinct compounds (such as are gold,copper and iron).So the name ‘plastic’ is a general one.
I realy needem the exact procedure on use of plastic bottles to build houses
I love this I am looking for my bottled collection now.
Badartfinishingfurniture.com
SO this is very inspirational. Looking to build my very first home in Mexico made of recycled material. Just don’t know where to start! I def need to do a lot of research. Where can I find more information on how to build one? This looks relatively easy but I know once I start gathering everything I will come across a lot of questions. How and where can I get more info? NEED RESOURCES PLEASE!
I’ve been very interested in alternative housing options for a few years now. I love seeing how creative people can get to create a livable area.
Hello,
I am located in Mahahual, Quintana Roo, Mexico. I am really interested in finding more information about building small bungalows/cabanas here in our Caribbean beach community. I would like to use it as an example for our wonderful community, to help learn options of dealing with our plastic problem.
Do you do seminars? Would you be willing to come and help build a structure with us and teach anyone interested here?
Please let me know what we will need to use to build a structure that is on the beach and capable of withstanding a hurricane.
I am very excited to learn more and have built an earthbag home in Halmahera, Indonesia as well as a straw bale home with adobe plaster in New Mexico, USA.
Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you shortly.
Jono
Hello,
Great website.
I have been saving my Smartwater bottles,PET 1, now for almost a year. My husband wants to recycle, calls it my junk pile! I have an idea for a structure similar to a carport/awning design. The heat and humidity here in FL would not suffice an enclosed structure. Any suggestions or info from the experts??
This is simply the best idea to protect the environment. Making house of plastic bottle will not only help the homeless built their own house but also helps to keep surrounding neat and clean. I am thinking of applying this method to help the natural disasters victims in Nepal. I will work my hand on it and will at least build one home in Nepal applying this methodology. I found all the information very helpful and thank you for sharing all the important knowledge. Waiting to hear more of this kind.
Nice content… is it possible multi floor house with plastic bottle… and is it possible retaining wall?
Wooow, house from plastic bottle is so beautiful. That’s look so different but amazing really nice. House from plastic bottle also can re-use the plastic bottle become something that important. Architect also can build house from bottle plastic aandehage.nl/nieuws/
I am a student from Philipilpines, my question is can I use PET bottles for roof insulation? How can i make these kind insulation fire resistant ?