In Panama, a village is built only with houses made from plastic bottles
The houses are more resistant to earthquakes and provide a milder temperature inside
Have you ever stopped to think about how many plastic bottles are produced annually around the world? This data is not so easy to estimate, but given the amount of plastic deposited in oceans and landfills, we are certainly talking about a stratospheric number.
Canadian Robert Bezeau moved to the province of Bocas del Toro, Panama, in 2009. After living on the island paradise for some time, he realized that tourists, despite moving the small local businesses, ended up polluting the local environment with plastic bottles , which can cause various environmental problems - the item takes centuries to decompose naturally and degrades in the ocean, forming microplastics (see more in "Plastic pollution in the seas: problems for fauna and humans"), not to mention which, despite being recyclable, comes from oil.
After collecting about a million plastic bottles over a year and a half, Robert decided to put into practice a different idea (but one that has already been put into practice in other situations - check out the article "Bolivian lawyer makes PET bottle houses for people in poverty“): build an entire village with only houses made of plastic bottles.
Filled with air, the bottles replace the bricks in buildings. Before, however, very light metal structures, in the form of long cages, are assembled - they serve as support for the bottles. With these modules, the structural base of the house is assembled. Finally, cement covers the modules and the finishing can already be done, as in any normal construction.
According to Robert, as there is air inside the bottles, there is thermal insulation... Houses made of plastic bottles can have an incredible cooling in relation to the external environment: 17°C difference. In a very hot region like Panama, this means less energy costs with air conditioners or fans.
In Robert's accounts, a person spends, on average, 14,000 plastic bottles over a lifetime. And this is the approximate amount of bottles that is part of the construction of a house designed by the Canadian. In this way, those who build and live in a residence in the village zero their consumption of plastic bottles.
As houses have more flexible material inside, they become more resistant to earthquakes and, in the event of a tsunami, pieces of the houses would float and serve as lifeboats. To learn more about the project, check out the video.
