Houses in Nigeria are Being Built Using Plastic Bottles

 

There’s a new way to build houses, and it’s proven to be quite a success in Nigeria. Not only is it durable, it’s cost-effective and sustainable as well. Houses are being built with plastic bottles. Can’t imagine it, right?

Well, people in Nigeria are constructing houses using discarded bottles, and so far, they’ve been able to make them so durable that they were resistant to earthquakes.

Builders use a mud mixture of sharp and laterite to fill the plastic bottles, and the bottles can then be used as blocks or to build a house’s foundation.

A 1,200-square-foot house requires an average of 14,000 plastic bottles. In the United States, more than 125 million plastic bottles get thrown away every day, with 80 percent ending up in landfills. Those bottles could build roughly 10,000 houses.

In fact, some experts argue that the houses are both durable and economically feasible, as each structure costs one-third of what a concrete house would cost.

 

 

Watch below, to see what a house made of plastic bottles looks like.

 

This WNBA Star Brings Free Vision Care in South Chicago

 

Chicago Sky player Diamond DeShields wanted to bring free vision care to the South Side of Chicago and says she is “overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude and love” after hosting a free eye clinic there last month.

For DeShields, clear vision is something she’ll never take for granted. Growing up, she was forced to play with terrible vision. She told PEOPLE that after countless expensive lenses and two surgeries, she appreciates how big a deal clear vision is.

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Oakley (@oakley)

 

DeShields spoke with PEOPLE after hosting a two-day free eye clinic, put on by global vision-care nonprofit OneSight and Oakley.

 

 

The clinic provided free eye exams and glasses to nearly 200 children and adults on the South Side. This included a family who lost everything after their house was recently burned down.

The Humphrey family was fitted with new glasses, and for their father, there was a replacement for the glaucoma medication he lost in the fire.

“It’s personal to me,” said DeShields. “I don’t know how getting these glasses will change peoples’ lives, but I do know my first glasses changed mine. They opened the game of basketball to me and I wouldn’t be playing at the level I am now without them.”

DeShields was one of four children raised by a single mother. When she was younger, she hesitated to complain about her blurred vision because she knew things were tough for her family. It wasn’t until she fell asleep in class that she told her mother about her eye issues, and finally visited an ophthalmologist.

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Oakley (@oakley)

 

“I couldn’t see the board and looking at it all blurry would make me sleepy,” she recalled.

She was diagnosed with Keratoconus, a progressive thinning and bulging of the cornea that distorts vision. Her treatment included a $1,200 pair of contact lenses, with a prescription that changed every 4 to 6 months due to the progression of the disorder. However, the lenses gave her a much clearer vision and changed her life in the process.

A week after the free vision care clinic, DeShields still thinks about the impact it’s made on people. “There was an older man who had put on glasses for the first time in 20 years, and a little boy who got his first glasses and really looked at his own face for the first time. It was just so inspirational I wanted to cry.”