When plastic bottles are recycled they can be made into lots of things, but in a first, Canadian builders have figured out a way to turn your everyday plastic waste into a home.
D Composites, a construction company, built a three-bedroom home along the Meteghan River in Nova Scotia from more than 600,000 plastic water bottles—but you’d never guess it from just looking at the home. The material is called PET (polyethylene terephthalate) foam, and the first step to creating it is by heating shredded plastic to form tiny plastic pellets. The pellets are then thrown into a hopper, where they get mixed with gases that eventually turn the material into the foam. Once cool, the foam is incredibly durable, so it made the perfect building material for the green home.
Besides the fact that the panels utilize plastic that might have otherwise ended up in a landfill or the ocean, they’re also able to withstand tough weather conditions.
