Hello crafters!
I’ve been wanting to do this tutorial for a while but it has taken me a while to save up enough plastic! While you may be fooled into thinking that this is not at all crochet related, I have still found a way to work the topic of crochet into here 🙂 I am planning to use my eco bricks as the building blocks for a sturdy crochet ottoman!
What is an Eco Brick?
When I first stumbled across eco bricks online I thought it was such a great project! I starting reading up on them a bit more and now I am totally sold on the idea 🙂
An eco brick is essentially a plastic bottle packed tightly with any type of clean, dry plastic waste. The resulting sturdy block can be used as an affordable and long-lasting solution for any sort of building / construction.
In developing countries eco bricks are used to build houses and structures. I also read that the United Kingdom uses eco bricks to build playgrounds, crazy!
Now I don’t expect you to go and build a house from this tutorial, but if you want the challenge then go for it!
What items can go into my eco bricks?
The purpose of making and using eco bricks is to make use of plastic that would otherwise end up in the landfill. The fact that it is packed so tightly will pretty much ensure that your eco bricks will last forever!
Any type of clean and flexible plastic can be used to stuff your eco bricks as long as they are soft plastics that you can compress down into the bottle. Here is a quick list of stuff that I have used to get you started:
- bread tags
- milk bags
- netting bags from fruit (lemons, avocadoes, etc.)
- plastic grocery bags
- toilet paper packaging
- ziplocs
- produce bags
- chip bags
- cling film
- chocolate bar wrappers
If you have other ideas for eco-brick fillers I would love to hear from you in the comments below!
How to make your own eco bricks
Supplies for one eco brick
- Approx 600 grams of plastic (see above for which type of plastic to use)
- 2 x 2L soda bottles
- duct tape (or other heavy duty tape)
- scissors
- stick or wooden spoon to pack plastic with
Filling the bottle
Gather up your plastic and start stuffing it into the top of the first 2L bottle. As you put plastic into the bottle, frequently press it down with your stick to make sure there is as little air in the bottle as possible. I keep a 2L bottle under the kitchen sink and just fill it as I come across plastic waste.
If you have bigger pieces of plastic you will need to cut them in to smaller pieces so that you can stuff them into the bottle. As long as it fits into the bottle it is fine so you don’t need to waste a ton of time with cutting.
Continue stuffing your bottle until only 1cm of space remains at the top. Screw on the lid.
A few sources say that an eco brick should weigh .33g for every ml in the bottle. That means that a 2L bottle should hold about 660g of plastic. I wouldn’t worry too much about the weight of your eco brick but if you want to check if you are packing it tightly enough then weighing it would be a good guideline. Mine were closer to 560g but they seem pretty firm!
Finishing the eco brick
Once your eco brick is stuffed you could just leave it as it is. This is how they are typically used for building. I wanted mine to have flat tops and bottoms as I am planning to use them as an ottoman. For this reason I did one extra step to finish off my eco bricks.
Take your second 2L bottle and line it up with your filled bottle, pointing the other direction.
You want the second bottle to fit over your first bottle and join somewhere in the middle, so somewhere near the middle of the two bottles draw a line.
Cut along the line so that you have two pieces. You only need the bottom part so you can put the top part in your recycle bin 🙂
Stuff some plastic into the bottom piece of the cut bottle. Obviously you won’t be able to pack it as tightly as you did with the full bottle, but try to put enough plastic to fill the space.
Then press the half bottle onto the top of your full bottle. If you are making multiple bottles you will need them to be uniform in height so make sure you press it on tight enough to be the same as your previously made bricks.
The final step is to tape over the edge of you eco brick to make sure it stays in place. Any sort of heavy duty tape will work!
That’s it! It’s surprising how much plastic can fit into one bottle! If you want to reduce your plastic waste but don’t feel like making anything with your bricks you can always donate them!
There are organizations that happily collect eco bricks, just have a look online to see if there are any near you. Be sure to read their guidelines and procedures for how they want their eco bricks made if you do decide to donate them 🙂
Happy crafting!
