BOTTLE BUILDINGS
Once you get outside the main tourist parts of Siem Reap, rubbish collection is simply not available. Where it is, often families cannot afford to use it. Compounding the problem is a total lack of awareness or education on environmental issues. Rubbish is often either left dumped around villages or in most cases burnt. Both of these practices create further environmental issues. Litter is becoming a huge community health issue and a growing problem across Cambodia.
Our school was built using the concept of ‘Eco Block’ from Pura Vida. The Eco Blocks are made from old drink bottles of any size stuffed tightly with clean landfill rubbish like plastic bags, polystyrene trays, straws. These are the ideal eco alternative to bricks and greatly reduce waste going to landfill. Over 100,000 bottles – Eco Bricks were used in our first school site and our brand new school was built with over 200,000 many of which were re used from the first site.
How it Works
Families collect clean soft plastic waste from the village and stuff this into plastic water bottles used by hotels and tourists. The bottles are packed tightly until they are solidly filled. HUSK then purchases these bottles from the community using these to construct the walls and floors of our classrooms.
Bottle Builds
We discovered plastic bottle buildings through Pure Vida and adapted their techniques to Cambodia. We have now been building with these bottles for over 16 years
Waste Collection
We take plastic bottles discarded by hotels and tourists, and these are filled with clean scrunchable plastic waste collected from villages. Participating villagers are trained on how to stuff the bottles. Once filled bottles are purchased through an exchange program by the HUSK team and then used in construction.
Building Process
Eco Bricks make up the filling in our floors and walls on all of our school buildings. Our team are experienced in using these bottles and once rendered you would never know the difference.
