Make Eco-Bricks to Keep Plastic out of Landfill

An Eco-brick is a plastic bottle crammed full with so much plastic that it is heavy and strong enough to be used as a building brick.

Hampstead Norreys Community Shop collected eco-bricks for a playground bench they built for the village primary school. Meet Sammy, the longest eco-brick snake in the UK!

How to Make an Eco Brick

Lesley Ravenscroft from Hampstead Norreys explains all here!

Technique

Clean and dry your plastic and bottles. Cut the plastic into small pieces: soft plastic (crisp packets etc) approx 4cm square, hard plastic (yoghurt pots etc) approx 1cm square. Use a dowl or spoon handle longer than the length of the bottle to cram in the plastic right into the bottom of the bottle. Alternate layers of soft and hard plastic.

This way you get enough in to achieve the minimum required weights for each bottle size:

500 ml – 167 gms
1 litre – 333 gms
1.5 litre – 500 gms
2 litre – 666 gms

(the formula is ml divided by 3 = gms)

Please use bottles with screw tops not flip tops.

Where to Take your Eco-Bricks

The best idea is to keep your own eco bricks and make something useful out of them.

Here are some ideas from ecobrick.org or you can register with GoBrik.com to donate your bricks to someone else’s project.

Donate completed eco bricks to Newbury Eco Brickers on Wednesday afternoons at Lock, Stock & Barrell pub in Newbury, or take along plastic and bottles to make your own with the group.