Eco-Bricks: The Building Block Made of Trash
When we think about the main contributors to climate change, we typically think of things like cars, planes, and factories. And yes, it’s true that the transportation industry does account for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions. But there’s another, less-thought about contributor to emissions that we as a society should be paying far more attention to.
That’s the construction of our buildings.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, buildings and their construction account for 36% of global energy use, and 39% of annual carbon dioxide emissions related to energy. That’s a lot of energy. And in the U.S. specifically, that number is even higher. Buildings in the country account for a whopping 40% of energy usage.
The manufacturing of materials used to build our structures is one thing that uses a lot of energy and produces a lot of carbon dioxide emissions. For example, one of the main materials used in building construction, steel, produces about two tons of carbon emissions per one ton of steel produced. That’s double the amount of steel produced, accounting for almost 5% of total world greenhouse gas emissions.
It’s clear that we need to make our construction process far more sustainable, or we’re never going to be able to stop climate change. So how do we do it? We can’t just stop building things, because the human population continues to grow and expand. So we need to think of other solutions.
That’s where a new type of building material, called eco-bricks, comes in.
What are “eco-bricks”?
Eco-bricks are essentially what the name states. They’re an eco-friendly building material, a better alternative to bricks, steel, and a variety of other materials commonly used in construction.
An eco-brick is a small, compact unit of material that can be used in many different types of structures. It typically consists of a plastic water bottle or other plastic bottle that’s stuffed with different types of unrecyclable plastic and other materials. The trash is pushed down and compacted inside the bottle until it’s filled up.
Properly made eco-bricks should have a density of over .33 grams per milliliter. By the end of the process, a 500 ml bottle can weigh anywhere from 165 to 300 grams. That’s pretty heavy when you think about it!
Because eco-bricks can be compacted and made to be very dense, they’re the perfect choice to use for a variety of building projects. They can be used for anything from benches to houses to playgrounds, and in many cases, have been used already.
Eco-bricks have already been used to make sustainable structures
Although this is a relatively new concept, there are many organizations out there that are actively making and using eco-bricks. One such organization, The Plastic Solution, is paving the way for the usage of eco-bricks worldwide, starting in the Philippines.
They’ve already built the wall of a hostel in Zambales. In addition, they partnered with The Circle Hotel to build more walls and even bathroom stalls. And they’re on their way to building a lot more structures!
If you’d like to help them out, it’s as easy as dropping eco-bricks off at different locations in the Philippines, such as Makati, Quezon City, and more.
In Sri Lanka, kids at the Building Hope children’s center built a table and two stools out of eco-bricks, which they will now be able to use for a long time. The furniture was made using only 19 eco-bricks, all made by the kids at the center.
The kids have now been asked to build more eco-bricks, and hope to build more furniture and even walls of a building in the future!
And lastly, a small farm in the British Virgin Islands has built a plant nursery out of eco-bricks. Tidal Roots Farm hopes that the eco-bricks will reduce the amount of plastic waste, and will also provide more light to young plants in the nursery than traditional building materials, which is yet another unforeseen benefit to sustainable building.
Eco-bricks also help low-income communities
Many people living in disadvantaged or low-income communities have a hard time paying for expensive housing construction that also contributes to climate change. In addition, these communities, while having one of the smallest impacts on the climate crisis, are faced with the brunt of climate impacts due to their lack of resources and ability to construct housing.
Eco-bricks, however, are a perfect way for these communities to provide housing for themselves while also being far more sustainable than places with ordinary housing construction. Hopefully, more initiatives will spring up in the coming years to implement eco-brick projects in much-needed areas. But for now, many individuals around the world are making eco-bricks and using them to build different types of furniture and buildings.
Anyone can make eco-bricks!
You don’t have to be part of an organization, and you don’t even need any prior experience. All you need is some non-recyclable trash, a plastic water bottle of any size, and a stick or other type of rod that fits into the top of the bottle.
Ecobricks.org has created an easy, 10-step guide to teach anyone who is interested in how to make eco-bricks. You should check out their website if you’re planning to make your own bricks. As the website states, you should save two different types of plastics: soft ones, such as plastic bags, wrappers, and chip bags, and hard plastics, such as yogurt and food containers, that you’ll cut up into small pieces in order to fit inside the bottle. Soft plastics will be added first to the bottom of the bottle, and you’ll add some small pieces of hard plastics intermittently to provide more structural integrity.
You can get trash for eco-bricks from anywhere, such as your home, school, workplace, or community. Before putting it into the bottles, however, you should make sure it’s washed and clean with no food remnants, because that could cause mold to grow inside the bottle.
After you make your eco-bricks, you can log them into a global system at GoBrik.com, which tracks bricks made by many people across the world. This site is helpful if you don’t know what to use your eco-bricks for because they allow you to allocate each of your eco-bricks to a “community project”. The site will give you information about what to do with your eco-bricks and where you can drop them off depending on what project you select. It’s as easy as that!
Anyone, no matter who you are, can make eco-bricks and contribute to a sustainable future. Obviously, eco-bricks are not the answer to our plastic problem. We need to stop the cycle of waste production at the start, by stopping the production of plastic in the first place. But for now, eco-bricks are a great way to prevent that waste from ending up in landfills or the environment.
