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Tuesday, October 9th, 2007One of the most popular recent posts here on The Temas Blog has been the one about the inexpensive solar water heater being built around Paraná state out of used PET bottles and aseptic packaging (tetrabrik). For reasons I can’t quite work out, it has proven particularly popular in Asia… Given the level of interest, […]
Inside the “Casa do Bem”
Monday, October 8th, 2007If you enter the Wal-Mart Supercenter hypermarkets in Brazil, and walk the aisles, you may run across an unusual large exhibit — a mock-up of a miniature house that you can enter and explore. It has faux windows and flower boxes, and corners representing the interiors of a kitchen, bathroom and laundry room. Look closer. […]
Ecological Bricks Update
Thursday, August 30th, 2007One of the most popular posts here on The Temas Blog, judging by stats, is one from many months ago entitled “Ecological Bricks.” It still receives a hit (sometimes several) every day. A rather unique version of “ecological bricks” discussed in that post involved entombing whole empty PET bottles filled with air. This brick was […]
Tetra-Pak Chooses to Deal
Thursday, July 26th, 2007Synopsis in English: In May the environment officials of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná called in Tetra Pak officials and told them to come up with a proposal to solve the post-consumer waste problem in that state associated with their long-life (aseptic) packaging — or face drastic action by the government, such as banning […]
Trash Photos XII: ¡Viva la Botella!
Monday, July 23rd, 2007“¡Viva la Botella!” was the title of a brief e-mail reply sent to me recently by Andreas Froese, the man behind the construction projects utilizing used PET bottles and tire rims in Honduras I profiled some months ago, and author of the companion guest post (in Spanish) to that profile”Como tener éxito trabajando con ‘basura’ […]
A Solar Water Heater Made of PET Bottles
Monday, July 2nd, 2007Synopsis in English: The government of the southern Brazilian state of Paraná has been conducting an interesting experiment in environmental design utilizing waste materials. Since August 2006 state agencies have sponsored projects to construct solar water heaters constructed from used PET bottles and “long life” (aseptic) milk packaging. So far some 3,000 such heaters have […]
Trash Photos XI: A Visit to the Landfill
Thursday, February 8th, 2007Someone recently asked whatever happened to my “Trash Photo” series. No, folks, I did not run out of trash- or recycling-related photos — not likely to happen anytime soon! No, I didn’t tire of posting in the series. I’m always ready to “talk trash.” (All right, keep the groans about my puns to a minimum!) […]
One of the World’s Top PET Recyclers
Monday, January 15th, 2007Take Three Guesses Who does the title above refer to? No peeking ahead! Not a particular recycling firm. I’m talking countries here! Nope. Wrong! Not the US! Not some European country. Okay, you’ve used up your three guesses. The answer is (drumroll please!): Brazil. In 2005 it recycled 174 metric tons, representing about 47% of […]
“Ecological Bricks”
Sunday, December 24th, 2006It’s been interesting to see how much the articles on the Brazilian and Honduran buildings made using PET bottles have captured the imagination of so many readers. Since then I have been alerted to several other examples of recycled trash being used as building materials. Most of these concern what people call “ecological bricks” (ladrillos […]
Trash Photos X: A Stunning Christmas Tree Made with Recyclables
Monday, December 11th, 2006Hope you are not yet tired of pictures of the creative way people are taking everyday used recyclable material and turning them into Christmas trees and decorations. I just found this one, and it’s stunning! The 64-year old Brazilian grandmother who decorated this tree did so with used wrapping paper, yogurt cups, PET bottles and […]