A Nigerian engineer and director of a non-governmental organisation, Developmental Association of Renewable Energies in Nigeria (DARE), Yahaya Ahmed, has built a house in Kaduna state using 14,800 sand-filled plastic bottles as bricks.
Speaking with PREMIUM TIMES, the engineer said the house is 20 times stronger than brick walls houses and can last for over 300 years. He said the house was built by his organisation to encourage recycling of waste materials, create jobs and ensure a safer environment in Nigeria.
According to him, workers filled the plastic bottles with sand and linked them at the neck by an intricate network of strings to build the house, which he described as the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa.
The house has three rooms, a toilet and a kitchen. Ahmed said “It’s the cheapest house that everyone can construct without spending much money because the building materials are available on the streets and trash dump centres. It is 20 times stronger than brick walls houses and can last for over 300 years if constructed properly and carefully.
He added, “It is fireproof, bulletproof, earthquake-resistant and can adapt to all kinds of climate changes, desertification and deforestation. It is the cheapest house to build in this generation with waste plastic bottles on the streets polluting our environment and causing more problems like flood and other disasters in the communities.”
He urged for more Nigerians to be trained to build houses out of plastic bottles.
