The Plastic House – Our First Experience with Recycling

In the early days of Buy Food with Plastic, we faced several challenges recycling the plastic we collected. We collected plastic bottles and hoped to have them processed at a recycling plant – but there were no such facilities anywhere nearby. The bottles eventually piled up on our Country Manager's property.

One day, Eileen came to us, a German woman who had emigrated to Nicaragua. She had a bold idea: she wanted to build a house out of the collected plastic bottles. At first, we thought the idea was crazy. But the more we looked into it, the clearer it became: it was actually possible. Plastic bottles filled with sand could be used like bricks – strong, safe, and even better at insulating than conventional building materials.

Eileen had long dreamed of building a house out of plastic bottles, and the village of Las Mercedes knew about her plan: she promised to build a house for anyone who brought her 6,000 bottles. But no one took her seriously – except Marbelis.

Marbelis is a single mother from Nicaragua who had to endure more in a short time than many do in a lifetime. After a devastating hurricane, she lost her home, and shortly after, her husband left the family. With four children and no roof over their heads, she was suddenly left with nothing. She was desperately searching for a roof over her family's head.

While heavily pregnant, she began collecting bottles with her family and gathered 2,500 of them within just a few weeks. However, she still needed 3,500 more bottles, and that is where we were able to step in.

Image 1: The plastic bottles serve as the bricks of the house.

Building the house turned out to be more complex and expensive than Eileen had expected. She asked us if we could help fund it. We decided to fully fund the project. Months later, the house stood – a safe haven for Marbelis, her children, and even her neighbors during the stormy months that followed.

However, the beauty and stability of the house come at a high cost to the environment.

Image 2: Mabelis and her children

Image 3: A room in the plastic house

This story was not only a success for us, but also a lesson. An architect from ETH Zurich who specializes in sustainable building materials admired the project, but pointed out a problem: the mixture of plastic, cement, metal, and sand makes the material inseparable – it will eventually become waste that cannot be recycled.

We decided that this would be the only plastic bottle house we would build. But we do not regret it: the house still stands today and has given Marbelis and her family a new life.

This experience inspired us to rethink the plastic cycle. Instead of locking it into mixed materials, we founded upcycling factories in all three of our target countries. Here, plastic waste is processed into new, reusable products that can be endlessly recycled. In doing so, we not only create sustainability, but also jobs and promote local entrepreneurship – an approach that, for us, represents the future of sustainable development work.

This is how our encounter with Eileen led to Buy Food with Plastic's current goal for its social environmental project: a circular economy for plastic.

If you would like to learn more about the plastic house, you can follow this link to an Instagram post with even more pictures of the construction.