The Building Block of Education: Plastic?

In various regions of Latin America, schools and classrooms made out of used plastic bottles are continuously popping up as a result of Hug It Forward. Hug It Forward is a non-profit organization which defines itself as a "multicultural organization operating at the grassroots level in the region of Latin America, with an emphasis in Guatemala". The organization works to construct classrooms by using plastic bottles filled with inorganic waste, or "eco-bricks" as walls. First, they stuff the bottles and stack them, (filling gaps with plastic bags), and then surround them with chicken wire to keep the frame in place. Finally, the chicken wire is coated with cement and painted. The finished product looks just like a regular school and shows no signs of the plastic frame.

To make all of this construction possible, Hug It Forward focuses on community effort, so as much of the construction is as local as possible. In addition to this, they also focus on education and consciousness regarding proper disposal of waste in the future. By doing so while building the classroom, they are physically showing their volunteers how much damage is caused when it is not properly recycled, as plastic is sometimes retrieved from nearby rivers and countrysides.  The sense of pride that the volunteers are left with after not only cleaning up their area, but taking part in building something leaves the community with a sense of pride which is carried on into other aspects of life. 

Between the community efforts, and use of simple materials, the cost of each bottle school only reaches about $7,000. However, the reward that each bottle school brings to its community such as a sense of empowerment and resilience, but most importantly access to education are priceless. In just 3-4 months a full school is built and changes the lives of so many young kids permanently, as each bottle school is estimated to last roughly 100 years. 
So, these bottle schools are a great way to reuse plastic, reduce building costs, and give children the opportunity to receive an education, but what does it have to do with the climate crisis? Well, since 1950 humankind has created roughly 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. In addition, a whopping 91% of that plastic has not been recycled, both according to a recent article in Science Advances. Plastic is detrimental to the Earth in so many ways; its production generates greenhouse gases and uses fossil fuels, damages ecosystems and harms wild/marine life, biodegrade to micro plastics, and so much more. The best solution is to stop creating more plastic at all. However, the plastic that is still presently degrading at a rate incredibly slow cannot all be incinerated, as that emits massive amounts of CO2. Additionally, not all plastics can be recycled quickly or easily. Reuse of plastic on the other hand, has a less damaging effect. The bottle schools are able to set an example and be an inspiration to future construction problems outside of just schools. This building method has the potential to take massive amounts of plastic waste out of communities and landfills to be put to use rather than incinerated or left to biodegrade. 
The innovative thinking behind bottle schools has potential to go much farther than just school buildings and aid the massive problem of excess single use plastic products.