Bolivian Ingrid Vaca Diez is on a mission to improve the housing situation for the poor in her country by using plastic bottles—the only material she can find in abundance—to build surprisingly sturdy houses.
The self-taught designer of these “garbage homes” fills recycled plastic bottles with dirt and uses them as bricks to construct her innovative houses.
To date, she has built ten such homes for poverty-stricken families.
More (including video segment): Innovative ‘Garbage’ Houses Made Of Recycled Plastic Bottles - DesignTAXI.com
American artist Bart Vargas’s ”Bottleballs,” salvaged plastic bottles glued onto cardboard globes.
Did you know?
In 2010, the United States generated almost 14 million tons of plastics as containers and packaging, almost 11 million tons as durable goods, such as appliances, and almost 7 million tons as nondurable goods, for example plates and cups.
Only 8 percent of the total plastic waste generated in 2010 was recovered for recycling.
[Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. More info in this EPA fact sheet here.]
If you’ve ever tried cutting into a plastic bottle, you know that it sometimes isn’t an easy thing to do.
That said, check out these vessels/vases. Amazing, really.
Would you have guessed that they’re made from plastic bottles?
(via Decoracaodegarrafas)
From EOps, a messenger bag made of rPET fabric itself made from 35 plastic bottles. Part of a capsule collection that also includes earbuds and a backpack, all made with a healthy quantity of recycled rPET plastic water bottles.
Designers Lin Nien-An and Cheng Ya-Fang have created the Green’s Voice system that turns empty plastic bottles into portable speakers. The package consists of a speaker driver with a custom designed rubber cradle that can be mounted to any used bottle. The bottle functions as an enclosure to amplify the sound.
(via Eco-Friendly Speakers Made From Empty Plastic Bottles - PSFK)
The “how to page” to this alternative vegetable garden (hidroponia) is purely pictures so easy to follow. Just click a few times where it says “click aquí”.
Quite brilliant if you ask me.
(via lickypickystickyme)
Team USA goes green for Olympic Games
Nike is outfitting the American team with environmentally-friendly uniforms for the games set to begin next month.
The basketball uniform Team USA will wear in London is white, but the concept is green.
“It’s made out of 22 recycled [plastic] bottles, the same drinking bottles that we all know of,” Nike Global Creative Director Marin Lotti said.
(If you aren’t able to view the video embedded above, click here to watch it.)
Birsel + Seck’s wonderful seating range, Taboo, “is a line of furniture made in Dakar, Senegal, from 75% recycled garbage bags and plastic bottles, designed and produced by Bibi Seck. The furniture is manufactured by Transtech, a Senegalese maker of cisterns and septic tanks utilizing recycled plastic.”
(via themodernsybarite)
Light artist Bill Culbert transforms discarded plastic bottles and other ordinary household objects into fantastic sculptural installations.
Culbert has been selected to represent New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2013.
(via Beautiful/Decay)
Designer Issey Miyake, who’s explored the use of recycled materials in clothing design, debuts a line of flat-pack lamps made from recycled plastic bottles:
IN-EI, a new line of lamps created by the fashion designer Issey Miyake for the Italian lighting company Artemide, includes table, floor, ceiling and pendant lights. The collection, which is made from recycled PET plastic bottles, can be stored flat and expanded into three-dimensional forms without the use of internal frames.
The lamps will be available in the U.S. this fall.
(via Artemide Bringing Miyake Lamp Line to United States - NYTimes.com)
