“I could not
imagine that the future I was walking toward could compare in any way to the
past that I was leaving behind.” - Nelson Mandela.
We
wholeheartedly disapprove of the use of plastic bricks used to encase human
life in the sad resemblance of what is termed by such practitioners a ‘home.’
If a plastic bottle of the type employed by companies such as Coca-Cola or
Pepsi to distribute their fizzy beverages takes several hundred years to
‘biodegrade’ in a landfill, what effect do they have on the average human soul
who is reluctantly forced to live amidst them? The seemingly endless urge to
recycle objects that are completely useless in the first instance has taken on
another dimension in Nigeria, Africa; Katrin Macmillan, a young lady who is
employed with the International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development,
has spearheaded a campaign to construct ‘energy-autonomous’ dwellings out of
plastic bottles. Ingenious as this may seem, it fails to address the real
problem of why such trash is produced in the first place, and why a noble
albeit poor people such as the Nigerians have to deal with it.
There are
several sensible solutions to this annoying dependence of recylability. The
first is to urge bottle manufacturers to adopt biodegradeable materials. The
extremely talented designer Andrew Kim has created a new ‘Eco-Coke’ bottle made
from a complete environmentally friendly sugar based bioplastic. We could also
urge the Soda Giants to present their product in a traditional material such as
glass. Likewise, we must encourage people such as the Nigerians to build their
homes from natural resources, surely this would be far more satisfying and
enjoyable that spending one’s life in a bus-shelter type abode shackled together
from say, an egg carton, or a MacDonalds burger box! The African peoples have
suffered far too much in their history to be further humiliated by a
sub-standard American fantasy.
So, please
let us leave plastic bricks to Lego and the children’s play-room. We of the
mature architecturally orientated mind still insist on brick, stone, cement,
wood and even steel and glass for our dwellings. Is it really too much to ask
to live in the materials that have surrounded us for thousands of years? Design
and style is another matter for discussion, but we demand integrity of
materials.
All Rights
Reserved / Copyright: David John Drew 2013
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