INVESTIGATING STRENGTH AND PROPERTIES OF ECOLADRILLO: ECO BRICKS

Our population is increasing by leaps and bounds every year. Consequently the requirement of housing has also increased leading to a considerable imbalance between the available construction material and their increasing demand. Beside the fact that sustainable architectural principles are embraced into various buildings every day, still they are far-flung from a number of people due to the unawareness as well as lack of the knowledge. This paper propounds the utilization of the waste PET bottle as a substitute for conventional bricks. Plastic bottles usually take thousands of years to degrade it and produce toxic fumes if incinerated. As a matter of fact out of every 5 discarded bottles only 1 bottle is sent to the recycle bin. As a result giant mounds of PET bottles have been created on the earth's surface. This paper tends to investigate various aspects of the bottle bricks such as water tightness, flexibility, and load bearing capacity as well as the cost analysis. The study also mentions the self insulating properties of the bottle bricks. Comparison of eco bricks versus other materials is also done. Finally the paper concludes that plastic bottle bricks can be more effective in terms of strength, insulating properties and heat resistance along with cost reduction when compared to conventional bricks. Bottle bricks also help in reducing CO2 emissions that is released during manufacturing of conventional bricks thus leading to sustainable construction.