Brick by brick a dream house is built. Hyderabad-based entrepreneurs Prashant Lingam and wife Aruna Kappagantula, founders of Bamboo House of India, are busy giving a new twist to the adage. They are replacing bricks with trash plastic bottles to build sustainable homes. For the record, a mud-filled plastic bottle is no less strong than a brick.

The husband and wife duo are on a mission to improve the housing situation of the poor in the country. And, they have chosen a material which is dirt cheap and available in abundance. “Housing shortfall in India stands today at 148 lakhs dwelling units and we hope our innovative technique will help bring it down,” Lingam says.

Lingam puts forth that in the mantra “reduce, reuse and recycle”, the ‘reuse’ part is often overlooked. “In the pilot project, we built a house with bamboo and bottles. The basic skeleton was made with bamboo. For the walls, bottles filled with mud were placed both vertically and horizontally. It offers thermal insulation. The plastering was done with mud and cow dung. Cement plaster was only used for the final coat,” says Lingam. The roof was made with bamboo attached to wooden batons.

Cost Effective

Baked bricks, tiles, concrete and rocks, among other construction materials, have been essential for generations. But now, thanks to Lingam and Kappagantula’s innovation, a house can be constructed sans these materials. The icing on the cake is that it is strong and cheap.

A plastic bottle house costs a quarter of the money required to build a conventional house. Lingam and Kappagantula’s 225 sq ft house looks like an ordinary home, but it differs in many ways. They claim the sand-filled bottles are stronger than ordinary cinder blocks. “The structure has the added advantage of being fire proof, bullet proof and earthquake resistant,” says Lingam, adding, “In terms of strength, performance is equal to bricks and may be better too. We will be shortly sending bottle wall panels for testing to IIT Delhi. We hope the results will help us to refine the process.”

Around 4,000 bottles procured from scrap dealers were used to build the house. The house was built at a cost of around Rs 75,000. “Each bottle costs Rs 1, whereas a cement brick costs around Rs 10 and a red brick comes for Rs 5,” says Lingam.

Apart from the price difference, the house also scores on the heat factor. Excess use of cement generates a lot of heat. The house was built with less than eight bags of cement and it is expected to last a lifetime, and definitely not less than 30 years.

Sea of bottles

Getting enough empty bottles was a formidable challenge and getting the structure right was also a priority. Partnership with institutions like IIT-Delhi, National Institute of Design and the National Mission on Bamboo Application helped in zeroing in on certain technical aspects. “Initially people might have apprehensions about building bamboo and bottle houses, but we are sure with time this concept will surely catch up as there is a growing awareness on environmental issues,” opines Lingam.

They plan to promote the bottle technology for mass rural housing as raw material would be locally available and labour is cheap. A small house of 200-400 sq ft in a rural area can be constructed at less than Rs 50,000. They are working to tie up with all local restaurants/bars/food joints etc from where bottles can be sourced and educate them about not disposing of the bottles. They have already started promoting the concept among students in schools and colleges, so that the next generation thinks beyond bricks and cement.

With local means, locally available building supplies, creating something valuable for the local community is a perfect example of intelligent recycling.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Magazine / by Swati Sharma / April 14th, 2013