- Thread starter dv8
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youth centre made of plastic bottles opens in DR
Yes I did, was at work and for IT reasons can't see any posted images on DR1 on the computer there. I assumed it had posted.
https://flic.kr/p/qRQH45
Other than this link to the picture above, there is no way to directly post the picture here. Looks like rebar to me.
As I mentioned in my first post in this thread, this is not a new method of construction. The person who developed the method using plastic bottles is an engineer, and engineers were consulted for the DR project. Plastic bottles are estimated to take 300 years to decompose, and we know that they aren't recycled in RD, so I really don't understand the negativity.
More goody stories are needed here.
:classic: mob
As I mentioned I had never heard of this concept before but after doing some Google research it is pretty cool.
https://youtu.be/LPxXH7rCSHQ
(maybe one day I will learn how to embed the video in my post) LOL
My dad was doing adobe construction in the DR some 40 years ago with Peace Corps. It was rejected outright by the Dominicans~ anything made of "mud" was for the poorest campesinos, regardless if it was made into bricks or what it looked like finished. I told Hillbilly about it and he mentioned the same issue with his projects at the time.
I was just a kid, but remember the brick forms and the crew cranking out a couple hundred bricks an hour.
Cinder blocks are cheap and sometimes donated by the government. They're the preferred material. If it ain't broke, don't fix it..
Making bricks.. took a couple times before I noticed the wire for trimming the excess.
[video]http://www.wimp.com/onebrick/?old=1/[/video]
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Omfg
The point is that it's 40 years later. People now consume huge amounts of water and other beverages from 500 ml plastic bottles and those bottles aren't being recycled. What is wrong in finding another use for those bottles after they've been emptied?
If we all lived with the " If it ain't broke, don't fix it." attitude the wheel, or the combustion engine, or the iphone wouldn't exist.
The point is that it's 40 years later. People now consume huge amounts of water and other beverages from 500 ml plastic bottles and those bottles aren't being recycled. What is wrong in finding another use for those bottles after they've been emptied?
If we all lived with the " If it ain't broke, don't fix it." attitude the wheel, or the combustion engine, or the iphone wouldn't exist.
Bottles are easily recycled. Making buildings out of them is idiocy. Would you build your house out of them? I wouldn't.
Put a peso deposit on bottles~ the garbage vanishes, and the bottles go back in the melt.
Put a peso deposit on bottles~ the garbage vanishes, and the bottles go back in the melt.
one good feature cooler....one bad where do they get sand???? in d.r. they go to the riverbed free
I will say it looks better than the ruble construction used in Haiti that killed so many people in the quake. How many bottles equal a cinder block and how much more labor? If it's not cost effective with paid help filling the bottles, it's going to have a very limited market.
That argument doesn't work because it's a "weak" wall. Plain and simple. Mortar cement is NOT designed to stick to plastic. Sure, it will stick at first but will not stand the test of time. Plastic bottles are not designed to take the same loads as a masonry block. They're designed to temporarily hold a liquid. It wouldn't pass normal building codes. So why would you want to force it on a 3rd world country (not that they'll let you)? The best way to build in any locale is to use readily available materials that provide strength and durability, coupled with available labor and expertise. The Doms have already figured that out.
I guess you could glue your bottle wall together with plastic cement. Encase the whole thing in polyurethane with little plastic rebar running thru it. But than you'd have a carcinogenic house.
It's not like they need to make the bottles out of plastic. Used to be every bottle was glass on the island and all the soda bottles were the same with different colored caps. Maybe they can make light fixtures out of all the Styrofoam coffee cups since washing is too hard now. Give IKEA a run for their money...
