Ecobricking
What even IS ecobricking? You might have seen wild pictures of buildings made from everyday waste using ecobricks but what does that really mean? If you’ve been paying attention to the climate change challenges we are all facing even a tiny, tiny bit you’ve probably picked up on the fact that one of the main strains on our way of life’s current sustainability is the perpetuation of single use plastics. Things like food wrappers, water bottles, tissues and packaging material are often made from plastics that can and will never be recycled. Instead they are dumped into massive landfills or make their way out into the ocean, clogging up our natural resources, poisoning the wildlife and breaking down into the tiny big problem labeled microplastics. The making of single use plastics, and really most plastics, contributes a supersized portion of our gaseous atmospheric pollution. When these plastics are melted down and reused, they still release an ever growing plume of noxious fumes contributing to this world's ever rising temperature. So, how does ecobricking help?
Ecobricking removes a person or group of person’s single-use plastics from this compounding cycle of trash by using the plastic to build something outside of it’s normal cycle of degradation. Removing plastic in this way is known as plastic sequestration and prevents the usual, quite harmful destinations of plastic from becoming a reality. How? Simply put, but giving them a second, more permanent use. Literally, ecobrinking involves taking empty plastic bottles, specifically polyethylene terephthalate or PET bottles, and filling them with other, smaller plastics, to create a reusable building block. These building blocks are then used to create everything from affordable homes to fire pits and seats to larger projects like community garden or park structures.
If you want to try ecobricking yourself, you might first check and see if there is an ecobricking initiative in your community or at your school. If you are ecobricking for a larger group's use, they might have some parameters you’ll want to know before you start packing away plastic. Whether or not you are ecobricking for someone else or yourself, it all starts with saving your personal plastic waste. Clean them off so you don’t have any food material that might deteriorate and break down inside the bottle. Then, when you have a little collection, take an empty plastic bottle and stuff all the plastic waste inside. Use a stick or similar tool to make sure everything is packed in there really, really tight. Mix up the plastics so you end up with something that’s about 0.33g/ml. If your brick is too heavy, try adding lighter plastics like plastic bags in between the heavier materials. The finished bricks can be incorporated directly into a larger structure or a small group of bottle can be use to make a larger building block. These larger blocks are sometimes made to fit easily together and come apart so that you can arrange and rearrange them as needed. The only limit is that of your imagination when it comes to what you can do with these building blocks. Ecobricking is a quantifiable change that you and I can make to shift towards sustainable living.
Resources:
Ecobricking: Pack Your Plastic! | Environmental Center | University of Colorado Boulder
Plastic Sequestration | Ecobricks.org
Bottle Bricks | Engineering For Change