Pura Vida

Susana Heisse and Pura Vida, 2005

This ECO activist and former East German prisoner founded the Pura Vida organization in order to help people in solving the garbage problem in the village of San Marcos. Two years later it moved to Lake Atitlan to form an Ecological movement: Susana Heisse invented the technology of ECO-brick: a PET bottle stuffed with oter plastic garbage. The ECO-brick is light, insulating and sustainable building unit using only local resources. When cleaned and closed its hygienic and shows safer behaviour during earthquakes.

After a hurricane Stan in 2005 Susana Heisse realized garbage could be turned into cheap building material. In 2008 Pura Vida developed their first Alternative Recycle Manual (www.puravidaatitlan.org), where communities around the world can learn how to transform garbage into construction.

Bottle house of Maria Ponce

Plastic bottle house

This house was built from empty plastic bottles by Maria Ponce, 76, who lives in the village of El Borbollon, El Salvador. Maria built this house in 2003 with plastic bottles because she did not have enough money to make it in the usual way. Below, Maria stands inside of her home, showing off the roof, which is also built from plastic bottles.

Eighty-six-year-old Maria Ponce, stands at the door of her house in the village of El Borbollon, El Transito, west of San Salvador, on March 14, 2017.

Campo Cielo

Campo Cielo, Honduras, 2004

Campo Cielo is a sort of club room for women realized in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, 2004 by Andreas Froese. It offers shelter for about eight people. The building has an integrated water tank which required that cement had to be used in order to protect the earth mortar from water.

Froese usually does not apply cement in the walls of the buildings, but rather relies on earth mortar to stick the PET bottles together (see for example also the Trivadrum Cerala in India on this page).

Aquaducto Romano

Aquaducto Romano, Honduras, 2004

In order to experiment with vault structures incorporating PET bottles, the study object Aquaducto Romano was built by the Foundation Ecopark Zamorano in Honduras. A copy of a Roman aquaduct, multiple methods of building and more than ten different mixtures of mortar (mixtures of cement, earth, and lime) are tested in this object.

Froeses’ work has found a lot of application all over the world, and can be found from Honduras and Mexico to Nigeria, India, and other countries.

Bungalow

Aquaducto Romano, Honduras, 2004

In order to experiment with vault structures incorporating PET bottles, the study object Aquaducto Romano was built by the Foundation Ecopark Zamorano in Honduras. A copy of a Roman aquaduct, multiple methods of building and more than ten different mixtures of mortar (mixtures of cement, earth, and lime) are tested in this object.

Froeses’ work has found a lot of application all over the world, and can be found from Honduras and Mexico to Nigeria, India, and other countries.

Rescue object on Haiti

Haiti Eco Living Project – H.E.L.P.

After we finish up our prototype demonstration Earthship at the Grassroots compound in late January, 2011, we are taking what we learned from that and what we have absorbed from our time spent with the Haitian people and attempting to move forward with project H.E.L.P. – Haiti Eco Living Project. Groups of Earthships the Haitian people can build themselves that are absolutely sustainable. These Earthships are built using materials found in and around Port-Au-Prince.

Pagoda (PET art)

Veronika Richterová is a Czech PET bottle artist having generated thousands of art objects from this material. Additionally, she has collected PET bottles from all over the world to showcase them in a museum of PET bottles.

The artist is presenting a possible use of PET bottles in theatre architecture or public installations. For transforming the material she employs hot air gun and regular carpentry tools. Attachment points are purely mechanical and the sculptures can be recycled after demounting.

 

Botafogo fish

Three giant fish made out of PET bottles was an installation that was part of a United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The three fish were created under the slogan »recycle your attitude« and should resemble a family. The sculptures can be lit at night in various colors.

Dancing on Joy’s Horizon

Dale Wayne works with groups and individuals across the country, transforming recycled plastic bottles to create her installation Dancing on Joy’s Horizon: Bridging Communities. Participants cut and paint recycled plastic bottles, transforming them into glasslike sparkling blossoms and ribbons. Ms. Wayne then attaches their contributions to panels to be installed onto the fence that wraps the Kent County Courthouse during ArtPrize 2014.

Cup City

Legge Lewis Legge Cup City was a temporary interactive art installation comprised of a 2000- square-foot structure built using rented chain link fence panels at the Austin City Limits Music Festival, September 23–25, 2005, in Austin, Texas. Over the course of three days, concertgoers filled the structure with approximately 25,000 recycled cups and bottles. Budget $5000 Commissioned by and presented in collaboration with Austin Green Art. The walls of the lounge were slowly filled with disposable containers by concert-goers and volunteers, many of whom spent hours arranging and rearranging patterns in the chain link panel walls.  Cup City engaged and displayed a portion of the Festival crowds’ stream of consumption, diverting approximately 25,000 used bottles, cups and cans into its ever-changing web. 

Cup City inside, photo: Andrea Leggeegge
Cup City construction, photo: Andrea Leggeegge
Cup City inside, photo: Andrea Leggeegge