What Are Ecobricks?

Thanks for doing your part to reduce plastic waste in our oceans and landfills! Due to an incredible amount of interest from across Ireland, SRI is currently not accepting Ecobricks from the public, as we have reached storage capacity on our site.

We encourage families, schools and community groups to get creative with your own Ecobricks and turn waste into building structures in your own homes and communities! Visit https://www.ecobricks.org/ for some more great project ideas. Also check out this map for other communities working with Ecobricks. Don’t forget to follow us on Facebook to find out when we will start accepting them again!

Making Ecobricks is no substitute for reducing plastic waste! However, its a phenomenal way to raise awareness about marine plastic pollution and functionally upcycle our ‘unavoidable’ & un-recyclable soft plastic waste. We can’t wait for you all to get involved in making ecobricks and finding creative ways to use them in your home, school or business.

At Seal Rescue Ireland we’re passionate about conservation and we’re striving to protect marine life every way we can.

SRI often rescues marine mammals that have ingested or been entangled in marine plastic pollution. Therefore, we have joined a global movement to reduce marine plastics by creatively up-cycling our soft plastic waste into ecobricks!!

Small brick, Big goal! Produced for SRI by Tiernan

Making ecobricks provides important insight into how much plastic we are using. As a result of our commitment to pack each piece of soft plastic waste into an ecobrick, we realised how much unnecessary waste we were creating. Since we began making ecobricks, SRIs volunteers have significantly decreased consumption of single use plastics and plastic packaging. Our mission is to encourage you to decrease your unnecessary plastic consumption as much as possible. However, we do realise that some plastics are difficult to avoid; these are the only soft plastics that should be used to create ecobricks!

So, what are ecobricks?  (Watch this short video)

Basically, they’re recycled bottles that are packed completely full of soft plastic until they are as hard as a clay brick. You’ll be surprised how much you can fit into one bottle! The Global Ecobrick Alliance suggests “a good minimum density is 0.33 g/ml.” This means that a 1.75L ecobrick will have a minimum weight of 575 grams and a 2L ecobrick will have a minimum weight of 660 grams.  Minimum density goals are essential to ensure your ecobricks are structurally sound and fire safe; more air pockets equals more fire risk, as fire requires oxygen.

Can you fit a weeks worth of your families waste into one bottle?

Whenever we have free time, our volunteers tightly pack soft plastics (e.g. biscuit wrappers) into empty 1.75 & 2L soda bottles that we source from locals bars & restaurants. Once we have seven finished ecobricks, we silicone glue and strap them together with recycled strapping to create an ecobrick module. A module can be used to make the stool below or multiple modules can be combined to make larger furniture, such as a coffee table or shelves. One of our volunteers has even used ecobricks to build part of a house in the foothills of the Himalayas, a trend that is catching on across Asia, as seen in this short clip. People like yourselves, are becoming more creative with ecobricks every day! 

So, why not try your hand at creating your own ecobrick furniture?

GOOD ECOBRICKS:
-750ml, 1.75L & 2L bottles (eg soda bottles).
– Completely packed (we have had to refuse many ecobricks because they are not compacted and our volunteers do not have time to fix everybody’s ecobricks).
– Hard as a clay brick please! See minimum weights above.
-Ecobricks with cleaned and dried soft plastic. Dirty contents grows bacteria and makes the brick unsanitary for long term use.

NOT SO GOOD:
-Ecobricks made from still water bottles; if you are displeased with your local water quality please see Brita Ireland water filtration products.
-Please do not post ecobricks to us.
-Ecobricks with air gaps, water or dirty plastic inside them.

For more information, you can visit www.ecobricks.org or follow us on  Facebook for updates on our ecobrick construction!