Recycled bottles as shelter in Nigeria

Nigeria is home to an innovative project that has given housing and shelter to homeless people. The concept has been adopted in many other countries.

Houses made of recycled bottles were built by the Development Association for Renewable Energies (DARE), nongovernmental organisation (NGO) based in Nigeria. The first of these houses was a two-bedroom bungalow made entirely out of plastic bottles. The plastic bottles houses are said to be fi reproof, earthquake resistant, and can remain comfortable inside even during hot weather. The houses can be even better and more durable that houses made of conventional construction materials. More important, the project also aims to clean up the streets with discarded water bottles.

An ideal concept

Plastic bottles were filled with sand or soil and then tied together by strings. The bottles were then laid down with a combination of mud and cement, a building material that is claimed to be stronger than cinder blocks. The multicoloured bottle caps were also put into use as these were lined into a fa?ade that provided added colours. DARE received assistance from African Community Trust, a London-based NGO, to build similar buildings. The organisation hopes to roll out similar buildings in the future to serve as model of a housing project.

Each house with one bedroom, a living room, bathroom, toilet and kitchen, can use as many as 8,000 plastic bottles. The "bottle brick" technology is not new as it’s been introduced around 10 years ago in India, South and Central America, to provide low-cost, yet environmentallyfriendly alternative to tradition building materials.

The bottle houses are also ideal to the hot Nigerian climate as the soil or sand inside these bottles can insulate against the sun’s heat to maintain lower room temperature. Security has also been assured as the compact can be bullet-proof.

Other organisations have also initiated projects to make use of plastic bottles as building materials for houses. ECOTECAfrica is an environmental waste management company that specialises in the design and construction of houses using PET plastic bottles. Established in Uganda in 2011, ECOTEC-Africa is a franchise of ECO-TEC Environmental Solutions. ECO-TEC Environmental Solutions (ECOTEC) has been able to develop and build houses using plastic water and pop bottles. Based on the concept of Andreas Froese, a German Bio-Constructor, ECO-TEC was founded in 2001 in Honduras inspired on the knowledge that 80% of plastic bottles produced each year are not recycled, have to be properly discarded, and there is a need for housing for millions of people in various parts of the world.

Nigeria will not have a shortage of plastic bottles to construct into new houses. The country is a growing market for bottled water despite the fact that most water in Nigeria is sold in small plastics bags. Consumption of bottled water has been rising every year and this means more discarded plastic bottles littering which should be recycled one way or another.

The move to make the bottle house more eco-friendly by utilising solar energy as source of electricity and fuel for cooking and water purifi cation has also been taken and designed.