Nigerians Building Earthquake-Proof Homes With Plastic Bottles

Plastic, one of the biggest banes of environmental conservationists, is mostly a nuisance after its contents are consumed.

Still, builders in Kaduna state, Nigeria, have found excellent ways to put the plastic to work.

Trail-brazing Nigerian engineer, Yahaya Ahmed, has used plastic bottles to build a three-bedroom house, with a toilet and a kitchen.

According to Ahmed these, plastic bottle homes are 20 times stronger than houses built with brick walls and can last up to 300 years.

The engineer said he was motivated to develop a housing initiative to reduce the volume of plastic polluting the environment.

Explaining the process of building the house, Ahmed said workers filled the plastic bottles with sand and linked them at the neck by an intricate network of strings.

This building, the first of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa, is cheaper to build as building materials are available on the streets and trash dump centers.

Even though Nigeria currently does not deal with earthquakes, houses made with mud and sand would be cooler and more conducive for our tropical climate. The combination with plastic bottles would take care of waste disposal issues facing the country.

According to Ahmed, the building is fireproof, bulletproof, earthquake-resistant and can adapt to all kinds of climate changes. Ahmed said anyone with masonry skills can be used as labour in the construction of one building, adding that his organization has trained many youths.

Plastic bottles, packed tightly with sand is reportedly 20 times stronger than bricks and concrete.

In his reaction to the building initiative, the assistant director of African Climate Reporters, Piman Hoffman, urged the Nigerian government to support renewable energy companies to save the nation from the increasing threat of waste pollution.