A company in Taiwan has built a three-storey exhibition hall using 1.5 million plastic bottles to raise interest in recycling, creating what the builder described as a world-first.
Far Eastern Group, a Taiwan-based firm known for construction and financial services, commissioned the 130 metre long, 26 metre high structure almost three years ago and will donate it next month to the city government.
The contractor for the building, Arthur Huang said they were inspired by the waste in their office.
"When we are thinking about what type of trash to make a very very green low carbon building, we just look at our trash can, and we noticed that in our office, most of our trash that we have are actually PET bottles, because all our engineers love drinking bottled tea."
Builders took bottles from Taiwan's waste stream for reprocessing into plastic containers that interlock strongly enough to block the elements and withstand storms or earthquakes.
The pavilion, dubbed the EcoARK, will be used as a fashion pavilion during a flora exhibition in November. After the show, the wall panels will be packed up and reassembled elsewhere.
