Plastic is, without a doubt, one of the most widely used materials in industry due to its low cost and practicality. Most things we purchase today are either made of plastic or comes in plastic packaging, which results in a large amount of waste that eventually could end up in rivers and oceans if not properly disposed and recycled.
Some people aren’t very happy with the damage all this plastic is causing to the environment and every now and then decide to do something about it. Like the Colombian student Ricardo Alba, for example. Who developed a simple and affordable way to collect rain water by interconnecting discarded three-liter plastic bottles. Not only does his project help the environment by recycling plastic, it also collects rainwater, which is essential for adaptation to climate change and sustainability. The standard array, called Ekomuro H2O+, consists of blocks of nine bottles stacked six high. Attached to a gutter or downspout, the homemade cistern can hold 43 gallons of rainwater that’s available through a spigot at the bottom of the tower.
“It is basically a vertical tank to store water, that is how we define it. People can build it by themselves,” said Alba. “We want to teach people how to save up rain water, because climate change is an urgent issue. We felt it with the current drought, which leads to the water scarcity”
This rainwater-harvesting wall is very durable and takes up very little space, hence it can be easily implemented in an urban household. In addition, this invention is very easy to make at home, and will not only help you save water (and money), but can also be extremely useful in very dry regions, where there are water shortages. Ekomuro was awarded a top prize at the World Water Forum in Korea, was a finalist in the 2013 Technology and Innovation Competition of the Americas, and was a regional finalist in the 2012 Google Science Fair.
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