Creativity is a twin brother to development. A Nigerian , Yahaya Ahmed , has utilized his God-given ingenuity and creativity to build a 3-bedroom house in Kaduna with the common plastic bottles sand-filled , ( 14,800) as concrete bricks.
Ahmed is an Engineer and Director of a non- Governmental Organisation , Developmental Association of Renewable Energies in Nigeria(DARE)
According to Engineer Ahmmed, his organization embarked on this project to encourage recycling of waste materials, create jobs and ensure a safe environment in Nigeria.
The house has three rooms , a kitchenette and one toilet.
He told Journalists that his workers filled the plastic bottles with sand and linked them at the neck by an intricate network of strings.
He says,’’ It is the cheapest anyone can construct without spending much money , because the building materials are available on the streets and trash dump sites.’’
‘’It is 20 times stronger than brick wall houses and can last for over 300 years if constructed properly and carefully .
It is fireproof, bulletproof, earthquake resistant and can adapt to all kinds of climate change , desertification and deforestation.’’
‘’It is the cheapest house to build in this generation with waste plastic bottles on the streets polluting our environments and causing more problems like flood and other disaster in the communities’’.
Still speaking on the design of the ‘plastic house’, ‘’The circular shape adds strength to the walls , while providing a very aesthetic and pleasing appearance’’.
‘’Any person with masonry skills can be used as labour in the construction of one of these homes. We have trained many youths and we are still training more youths and adults the various ways of constructing these houses across the country and some parts of Africa’’.
In his response to the question why he chose to execute this project , Ahmed repled,’’We want to reduce the volume of plastic that is polluting our environments and causing diseases and other disaster.’’
‘’Our joy is to train more youths the skills of this kind of housing so as to save our streets from plastic bottles dominating our rivers and ponds, causing flood and other disasters.’’
Ahmed said , plastic –made house may be available in some parts of African countries but his own is one of them in this part of Africa, especially Nigeria.