Eco-bricks School

1. Provide a good shether for the children when they are studying in the classroom because plastic bottles are impermeable to water and acts as poor conductor of heat.

2. Provide educational infrastructure for poorer communities.

3. Clean the streets of non-biodegradable trash and reduce the amount of trash in landfills.

4. Increase environmental awareness among the public.

5. Foster community leadership.

6. Teach new skills that can be used to gain employment or on other community projects.

7. Spend capital within the local community where the school is being built.

8. Give kids ownership of the school because they build it with their own hands.

9. Unite communities because the citizens come together during the project.

10. Reduce the cost of building a school.

11. Become more creative in reusing plastic soda bottles.

12. Save our mothernature.

"Every year we lack about 7,000 classrooms in Philippines. This shortage is not only caused by the growing student population, but also by the classrooms that are being damaged by strong typhoons every year. Your soda drinks takes only about seven minutes to drink, but the plastic bottle will be a problem for us for 700 years or more. So we thought of this new and sustainable solution that is both educational and environmental," said Mr. Illac Diaz.

This kind of school building was the idea of Mr. Illac .With his MyShelter Foundation, they held a fundraising project in order to build this bottle school project which they call it the First Soda PET Bottle house in the Philippines. Actually, it is not only the Bottle School project they are aiming to build as an alternative solution for school infrastructure on poor localities in the Philippines, but also some alternative environment-friendly school buildings like Earthen Schools and Bamboo Schools, which is truly a very good alternatives and also an efficient way to solve environmental issues in Philippines. Moreover, it could also minimize corruption of local funds in buying construction materials like cement, gravel, sand and hollow blocks.

How to increase the strength of these recycled materials against strong winds and other natural elements? Of course, there is cooperation with the construction sector regarding the strength and vulnerability and how they will be constructed well.The construction sector is always cooperative regarding the use of environment-friendly materials in construction materials. There is an idea of the construction sector to mix some non-biodegradable materials in the concrete mixture, like glass fragments to reinforce more the concrete mixture aside from gravel and sand. In conclusion, the usage of the used Pet bottles are the way to replace the common hollow bricks that used in building a home or building.

A man who is a dreamer but also believes that failure is part of success. Illac Diaz was born in Manila in September 15. He is the son of Ramon, an accomplished visual artist and brother of Gloria Diaz, the first Filipina Miss Universe.

Illac studied High School in Ateneo de Manila in 1990. He earned his bachelor in Management Economics also at Ateneo. To further his studies, he took a Masters Degree in Entrepreneurship at the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) with graduate thesis: "Shanties to Jobs: Creating a Migrant Center in Manila."

The main contribution of Illac is to improve the social and economic condition of the country. One of his contribution was building the first eco-bricks school in his country, Philippines. He was inspired by the bottles schools in Guatemala. Then, he brought this idea back to Philippines to solve the problem of lack of schools. Besides, he established Pier One, an affordable, clean and safe house for seafarers. This transient housing is for seamen coming from the provinces, looking for work and waiting for their next voyage.

In my opinion, we can learn much from him. So, we can contribute as much as possible to the social. For example, donates a plastic bottle. Although we contribute one bottle only, but this can change someone's life. Hence, we must arrange our timetables to have time to make contributions to the social.

1. Collect bottles and find a place with a lot of dry abode soil.

2. Make a mixture of water, soil, and 3% cement. Put the mixture into the bottles.

3. Gather the bottles that have been baked under the sun for 12 hours.

4. Start layering the bottles with cement. String is used to keep the bottles in place.

5. Apply and smooth out a bit more cement on the walls.

6. Whitewash the interior walls.

7. The building of the eco-bricks school is done.

1. Collect and stuff bottles and gather lots of inorganic trash. Each bottle and all of the stuffing material has to be clean (rinsed in water) and dried. If anything is wet or dirty it will become moldy and start to smell. Organic trash, such as paper, cardboard, dirt, and rocks, cannot be used.

2. Set up a frame, foundation, and roof comprised of either wood, metal or cement columns.

3. Start putting chicken wire on the outside of the frame, then work on the inside in sections, putting in the bottles while you slowly connect the inside layer of chicken wire to the outside, securing the bottles tightly.

4. Continue section by section, until bottles are placed, then stuff all empty leftover spaces with inorganic trash.

5. Test the cement mixture (no limestone) to make sure it sticks. Then start placing the first layer of cement.

6. When this dries, start a second layer.

7. Finish with a third layer then lay the flooring.

8. The building of the eco-bricks school is done.