Ecobricks

The Global Ecobrick Alliance is an Earth Enterprise focused on energizing local and global plastic transition through the spread and support of principled and practical ecobricking. Its founder Russell was introduced to the work of Andreas Froese, who had been filling bottles with sand in Central America to make ‘bottle bricks’. Using this methodology, the Indonesian movement has continued to spread exponentially throughout the country through starter workshops, training of trainers, online trainer of trainers, and ecobrick convergences.

Ecobricks are building blocks created by filling used plastic bottles with plastic and other non-biodegradable waste. The bottles are filled to a fixed density and can be used multiple times. They are made by filling PET plastic bottles with cleaned and dried plastic waste. The bottles are packed with a minimum density of 0.33 grams per milliliter. The bottles can be filled with any non-biodegradable waste including plastic sachets, Styrofoam, wires, and small batteries.

Ecobricks have a number of applications in building structures for indoor and outdoor use, such as home furniture, outdoor benches, walls and houses.

The Global Ecobricks Alliance (GEA) has recommended techniques to avoid degradation of the PET bottles when Ecobricks are used outdoors, such as completely covering the bottles with construction materials like soil or mortar to avoid such pollution.

According to the GEA, Ecobricks provide local solutions to plastic pollution and avoids the environmental costs of throwing away plastic or sending it to industrial recycling systems, which is a toxic process that uses large amounts of energy. 

The GEA has developed a manual blockchain based currency, called Brikcoin, which represents the plastic sequestered from the environment in Ecobricks. Its team has mentioned that it will release a platform for exchanging Brikcoins.

The GEA is active in Indonesia, the Philippines, South Africa, USA and the USA. It is accepting contributions and purchases of Brikcoins.