Nigerian engineer built a bottle house with 14,800 plastic bottles; experiment grew to 15 homes, including a five-bedroom duplex

Nigerian engineer Yahaya Ahmed built his first model house with 14,800 sand-filled plastic bottle (Image Credit: BBC) What if thousands of discarded plastic bottles could become part of a house instead of ending up in gutters or landfills? In Kaduna, Nigerian engineer Yahaya Ahmed has spent more than a decade exploring that possibility. His first model house used 14,800 plastic bottles filled with sand, an experiment that eventually grew into a broader construction initiative. In an interview with PUNCH, Ahmed, director of the Developmental Association of Renewable Energies, explained how he learned the technique, built the first model and went on to construct as many as 15 houses. Among the projects he described were a three-bedroom house in Ibadan and a five-bedroom duplex in Abuja. He also discussed the method’s claimed benefits, including lower construction costs, insulation and the potential to put discarded plastic bottles to practical use.From waste to wallsAhmed learned the construction technique in Germany from the person he said invented it. He later worked with non-governmental organisations to bring the method to Nigeria, where they organised training before beginning t...