Help students earn with ecobricks
I HAVE been interested to see two articles about ecobricks in Talk of the Town recently.
I am the arts and crafts trainer at Enkuthazweni Special Needs School and Training Centre in Nemato, where some students have already made ecobricks.
It has been great to see the younger students being quite competitive about making them.
They have also been out to collect plastic waste discarded near some of the shops in Nemato.
We have started to make multi-purpose stools/coffee tables from ecobricks, recycled newspaper and cardboard as part of our skills development and income-generating initiatives. The staff of Enkuthazweni would like to encourage the students in their work by giving them ecobricks equal to the number they make themselves.
Our first stools will contain some ecobricks made by students at El Shaddai Christian Academy.
The ecostools are about 40cm high and 34cm wide. They can hold up to 70kg, according to a local engineer who tested one recently by sitting and standing on it.
Readers who would like to help Enkuthazweni students earn an income and help save the environment, can drop off ecobricks and large corrugated cardboard boxes at the Assumption Convent, Caxton Lane, Port Alfred.
If you would like to make ecobricks, here are some suggestions of what to put in them, and what to do with recyclables that should go elsewhere:
Filling for ecobricks (not easily recyclable): Chip packets and chocolate wrappers, bubble packs from pills, clingwrap, instant soup packets, polystyrene trays.
Can be recycled by IWARS (opposite FNB in Port Alfred): Plastic bags, plastic bottles, plastic fruit and vegetable trays, glass, metal (including aluminium trays), cardboard.