Photo courtesy of plasticbottlevillage.com
Photo courtesy of plasticbottlevillage.com
Would you live in a house made from plastic bottles? Plastic Bottle Village on Colón Island in Panama would like to see more and more people doing so. Robert Bezeau, owner / creator, developed a new method of utilizing plastic bottles to create the walls of residences.
He reasons that if a person consumes 15 beverages in plastic bottles per month and lives to be 80 that would be about 14,000 bottles. If that same person were to purchase a 2 story home in the Plastic Bottle Village they would neutralize their footprint because the home uses the same number of bottles.
Photo courtesy of plasticbottlevillage.com
The walls are built by placing the used plastic bottles into metal cages then covering them with concrete. Not only does this construction method reuse bottles but it also keeps the homes 35 degrees cooler inside! This is helpful in Panama’s tropical climate where temperatures can range from the 70’s to the 90’s. The homes are also said to be more earthquake resistant owing to the flexibility of the walls.
He came up with the idea after helping to start a recycling program on the island in 2012. During which over 1 million plastic bottles were collected. Phase 1 of construction began in 2015. Plastic Bottle Village is composed of 36 lots. Some have a partial ocean view, others are enclosed by the jungle greenery. To learn more about this project visit plasticbottlevillage.com.
Click here for a video by CNN about the Plastic Bottle Village.
Photo courtesy of plasticbottlevillage.com
