Bottles from landfills turned into beautiful wall: 42,000 plastic, glass bottles retrofitted into Narayanpet college wall

Hyderabad: Red, yellow, green, and blue bottles filled with cement, mud, and sand adorn the 100-metre wall of a college in Narayanpet. They are stacked together using cement. Once you enter this compound, you'll feel light and rejuvenated by the colourful ambience.

Using 40,000 plastic bottles and 2,000 glass bottles, the Narayanpet local administration has remodelled a compound wall for the Narayanpet Government Degree College. These plastic and glass bottles are filled with mud, cement, and sand and their bottom or top portions were painted in different colours. They were then retrofitted into the wall using cement. Interestingly, not a single brick has been used to create this wall.

It took about three-four months to collect the plastic and glass bottles from landfills. The wall itself was completed in 15 days. The local administration said the main advantage has been the less use of cement, almost half of what is used in a conventional cement wall. They added that the entire wall is also cost-effective as it cost Rs. 6.5 lakhs, 1/4th lesser than a cement wall which would have cost Rs. 20 lakhs.

Narayanpet collector Harichandana said the local administration, for quite a long time, has been looking for ways to reduce landfills in the district. "We recently started segregation of wastes from dump yards. All these bottles have been collected from landfills," she added.

Another important highlight of these plastic recycling programmes has been the employment and empowerment of women masons. Around 120 women masons were trained by the local administration and two of them rebuilt the wall of the government degree college.

The Narayanpet administration is also planning to launch something similar for recycling plastic covers.

Speaking about the initiatives, collector Harichandana said, "It will be impossible to eradicate plastic completely. I am not an advocate of that. Even cloth is not a good alternative as there are many challenges. Our focus should be to recycle and reuse plastic products."