A beautiful Eco-Brick house built in eNkanini by Dr Trevor Davies is making waves for its sustainable approach and possible solution to affordable and eco-friendly housing.
The unique home is based in Joza Township in the Eastern Cape and features 5000 Eco-Brick or one-litre bottles filled with the equivalent of 30 00kg of plastic waste materials.
Davies built the home for an employee and his family and the structure is not only sturdy but also well insulated.
“It’s built on a concrete slab. In addition to 5,000 Eco-Bricks (3 Tonnes of plastic waste) they’ve used cement, wooden windows / door and a proper timber roof structure covered with zinc sheeting. A rainwater tank is plumbed to a tap inside. Later the garden will be developed and vegetables grown. Trevor is already planning Eco-Brick house project number 2,” says Graeme Holmes of the Grahamstown Project that visited the site of the home this week.
One of the amazing things about the home is that the Eco-Bricks used to build it were collected and filled by a local school, driving the demand for the Eco-Brick and raising awareness of their benefits. For every home built from Eco-Bricks, thousands of kilograms of waste can be removed from landfills.
This new housing concept has the potential to not only clean up the local area but also provide homes for those in need.
“The raw materials are scattered everywhere but without demand for Eco-Bricks there can be no scale to the industry. And that’s what we need. The crazy idea. A massive Eco-Brick industry in Grahamstown. Clean the place one Eco-Brick at a time and build homes for people. For goodness sakes, we could build Eco-Brick estates,” says Holmes.
Before the idea can take off more people need to be educated and an official system needs to be setup to properly and consistently produce Eco-Bricks.
“An opportunity exists to become the best community on earth at converting plastic waste into Eco-Bricks and then building homes of dignity. We could even host the Grahamstown Eco-Brick Festival and / or Eco-Brick World Championships,” adds Holmes.
One thing is for sure, this home is not only super sustainable but is a symbol of greater things that we can do together for each other and the earth.
Pictures: Grahamstown Project