Eco-Bricks: AKA Hydroavions

Like many of the greatest inventions of all time, eco-bricks came together sort of by accident. Susanna Heisse, an environmental activist in Guatemala, identified plastic pollution as an imminent threat to lake Atlitlan which provided for the Mayan population in the area. She began picking up trash and putting it in plastic bottles with the sole intention of cleaning up the area. When Hurricane Stan hit the village in 2005, she found people she had been learning from and living with, needed homes. She realized that the bottles she had been filling with trash, could be used as construction material. Susanne and the village built a wall and many others followed.

Eco-bricks are a simple product but with such rich and beneficial values behind them. Building an Eco-brick consists simply of packing dry and clean plastic materials into a plastic bottle and pushing them down tightly to fill to their maximum capacity. These bottles can be then used to make short-term products such as chairs, tables, LEGO blocks. These can be later turned into long-term structures such as growing beds, sheds, schools, and even houses.

We all saw the turtles dying with our plastic straws, the worst part of it all is that our plastic is harming the entire biosphere. As living creatures who are inevitably a part of the biosphere, we will be harmed by the consequences of our own waste. A recent study by the center of biological diversity found that a quarter of fish found at a market in California contained plastic in their guts. Wildlife in the North Pacific Ocean ingests 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic a year. The solution is not as easy as switching to reusable straws because the truth is, the plastic will still be there even if we stopped consuming any of it. EPA data even says that every piece of plastic ever made still exists to this day. Eco-bricks take the durability properties in plastic and traps it so that it is not out and about polluting the biosphere.

` Eco bricks take the plastic out of industries, out of the ocean, and out of living organisms by locking it into this plastic bottle that can be used in our everyday lives, and because it’s plastic, it lasts!

Eco-bricks are accessible to everyone, all you need is a plastic bottle and a stick. We need scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to look at the future with creative approaches that redefine our conception of progress.

References

- https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/

- https://www.ecobricks.org/why/

- https://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/tech/turning-trash-into-building-material/index.html

- https://refash.in/blogs/diy/eco-bricks-a-revolutionary-way-of-upcycling-everyday-plastics