
Ecobricking for Our Future

There's an amazing microculture around the world that calls itself Ecobrickers. You can find them in South Africa, all over Asia, and some scattered in the American Continent, even Europe. But what is it?
Ecobricking is essentially trash-compressing in a bottle. Non-biological, non-compostable, non-recyclable trash, mainly plastic! An ecobrick is a plastic bottle (one that you can buy at restaurants, or supermarket when you get bottled water), packed with plastic to a set density to create a reusable building block. Ecobricks have been used to make modular furniture, garden spaces and even full-scale buildings such as schools and houses. Ecobricks are a collaboration-powered, low-tech, virtually zero cost regenerative technology that provides a zero-cost solid waste solution for individuals by a growing movement of communities around the world

Natboo is excited to advocate for ecobricking as another recycling solution for our nylon bristles. As of now, it is recommended that our nylon bristles go to recycling centers for the arts to avoid them going into landfills. However, ecobricking offers a more practical solution (and more efficient since you don't have to send them out to recycling centers). Essentially, all you need are plastic bottles, various non-biodegradable plastic trash, and a long stick to help compress the trash. Once you're done with transforming your bottles into "ecobricks", you can use them yourself by building various things for your garden, backyard, porch, even household furniture (really there's no end of what you can build with ecobricks, I've seen a boat/ raft built from thousands of ecobricks!) OR you can send them off to various places in the USA that accept ecobricks and will upcycle them into something.
Ecobricking is NOT a perfect solution by any means (It would be perfect if we could somehow stop all plastic trash increase, stop producing plastic altogether, and have every product wrapped in biodegaradable packaging, but oh well, it's not a perfect world), but it is a great solution nonetheless, one that will not send plastic trash onto our landfills, and worse, our oceans.
See below what ecobricks look like and what items people have built with them! (Check out that whole wall made of ecobricks!)




Visit https://www.ecobricks.org/build-2/ to see how you can build things with ecobricks, as well as its limitations.
Visit https://www.gobrik.com/#com-exchange/ to see a map of places that accept ecobricks.
Natboo-