A small company in the east of Gauteng has figured out a way to turn recycled plastic into functional building material that can be used to build classrooms countrywide.
Bottles2Build turns plastic waste into square-shaped bottles which interconnect, helping to create structures.
“What is really nice about the initiative is that, not only is it about keeping plastic out of our landfills, because plastic is very harmful for the environment, but also uplifting local disadvantaged communities,” said Bottles2Build’s brand development manager Kevin Petitt.
Bottles2Build was launched about five years ago with the aim of finding a way to use the millions of plastic bottles which would otherwise end up piling up in landfills across Gauteng.
“The whole objective with rethinking plastic was to rather up-cycle than recycle, finding an alternative use for something that was used for something else before.”
A total of 45 classrooms have been built so far. However, Petitt says the initiative has not yet become fully familiar on the market, as it is still difficult to change the mindsets of the people on up-cyling.
However, this was not the case when 18-year-old Shane Bassin spotted someone selling the square-shaped bottles at a market in Johannesburg, earlier this year.
“I saw them selling the water and I looked at it as such a great concept and idea, and I said I must take it to my school.”
Bassin then approached the organization and his school, King David in Linksfield, north-east of Johannesburg, and after a while, Bottles2Build agreed to sell the water at the school as well as the school’s other branches.
“The main goal was to be able to build a classroom and they loved the idea,” Bassin, who is also the schools’ headboy said.
With the help of Bottles2Build, Bassin and pupils at his school helped build a classroom with the bottles at Sediba Thuto Higher Primary in Soweto.
The classroom would be officially used next year for a Grade R class, he said.
“We are still collecting the bottles at all events. We sell the water bottles at school plays, at open days, at sports games. Everywhere where there is a school event, we sell the waters.”
Bassin, who wants to work as a human rights activist one day, said he had always wanted to help others.
Bottles2Build works with a bottle-making company to manufacture the bottles. The manufacturer then delivers the empty bottles to the organization, which fills them with water and then distributes them to their clients and consumers.
Each bottle is sold for R4.12, Petitt said. But each retailer can then sell it at whichever price they see fit.
So far, the organization has partnered with 20 schools and 25 corporate companies who have agreed to sell or hand them out at events.
A total of 90 000 bottles is required to complete a classroom. Once a skeleton steel structure is put in place, the bottles are packed in tight rows, to fill each section of the structure’s wall. Once the frame is completed and filled with the bottles; each side is measured and plastered to make it a complete and watertight structure.
“What is really nice about this building method is that, not only is it cheaper than the conventional building method because there is nothing but air inside the bottle, air is the most natural insulator, so when it is really hot outside, it is air conditioner cool inside the classroom. When it’s cold outside, it is warm inside, without having to use additional electricity,” he said.
Petitt has hopes to build even more classrooms in future.
The organization also aims to get the bottles into more retail spaces, in order to increase its presence in the market.
“We will also be creating a mobile app, where consumers in a community will be able to notify us on the app when they have saved maybe three or four bags of our bottles and we can arrive for collection,” he said.
(Original Script by News24Wire.com.)
