Watch: The Colombian couple tackle homelessness using plastic pollution

euronews (in English)

John Berrio López and Kelly Rodríguez collect plastic bottles from overflowing landfills and turn them into sustainable structures like schools and houses.

Transcript

00:00It's a titanic task.

00:04We have to create something social with impact.

00:08We want to reach those schools where there are no puppets.

00:13We want to reach those schools where there has never been a children's park.

00:18We want to get there and give them that children's park,

00:21but also tell them that that children's park was built with recycled plastic.

00:27Basically, it's a building for life.

00:32My name is Kelly Rodriguez and I'm the co-founder.

00:36My name is Joan Berrio Lopez.

00:38I'm the International Director of the Foundation Botellas de Amor.

00:42BOTELLAS DE AMOR

00:53At Botellas de Amor, we seek to respond to two very important challenges,

00:59which is the problem of plastic waste,

01:02which is to show people that by filling a bottle of Amor,

01:06we are preventing plastic from reaching water sources,

01:10or that it ends up incinerated.

01:12All those plastic packages that we thought could not be used,

01:17we deposit them in a plastic bottle and we compact them very well.

01:22We collect the bottles in the collection points,

01:25we take out the content,

01:27then we take it to the transformation plant,

01:30where we put the plastic in some machines,

01:36where it softens in the heat

01:38and becomes recycled plastic profiles.

01:41Then we take those profiles to our assembly plant or carpentry,

01:47where we cut them and where the magic happens.

01:54We build housing, urban real estate,

01:57children's parks for people with scarce resources.

02:04Another amount of people who require basic elements to develop,

02:10who did not have a home, who had extreme poverty.

02:17The first days that we had the opportunity to be at home,

02:23everything was happiness.

02:26The three of us were already together.

02:29Before we did not live together,

02:31we already had a space, we did not have to pay a rent.

02:36He managed to convince his family to participate in the invitations.

02:40So we got together, we made a sandwich,

02:44we all participated.

02:46We glued the tiles, the doors, the windows, we made the floor,

02:50and all those things were bringing us together around this purpose of Juan Felipe.

02:57It's like playing with a Lego.

02:59You disassemble it, you put it on one side, on the other,

03:02or if you want to expand it, you remove a part and add new pieces.

03:12When I see my friends who live in a plastic house,

03:14they laugh sometimes.

03:15And when I take them out of my house, they get surprised,

03:17because they think they live in a garbage house.

03:22It's a super comfortable house.

03:24It has nothing to envy to a conventional house.

03:29Before, those who have a conventional house envied us.

03:33It's a fast option, safe, comfortable,

03:38and much more friendly to the environment.

03:49We practice organic agriculture,

03:52and we are in the process of reducing the impacts we have on the environment.

04:01We, as farmers, the less impact we have on the earth, the better.

04:07And this idea of plastic and plastic houses,

04:12I think it fits in the same line.

04:18We stop seeing it as garbage,

04:20and we are reincorporating it again into the productive cycle.

04:23When a family has a home,

04:25when a child receives a children's park,

04:27and has a better motor development,

04:30these things positively affect the economy of a country.

04:35Then, the circularity returns again,

04:38because that person who has a better capacity

04:40now thinks better about taking care of the planet.

04:47We are building geodesic domes

04:50so that they function as school classrooms,

04:53as spaces for people to enjoy.

04:58We are also building the first recycled plastic hotel in the world,

05:04in the form of domes, cabins,

05:06so that people can enjoy themselves.

05:09We are building the first recycled plastic hotel in the world,

05:14in the form of domes, cabins,

05:16so that people can come and experience tourism on purpose.

05:24We have impacted around 60 families with homes,

05:27more than 500 children's parks,

05:30and approximately 10 schools made with recycled plastic.

05:35Our vision is to be in the next 10 years,

05:39even in 10 countries,

05:41where we can replicate the strategy,

05:44but we want it to be in all countries,

05:46to avoid that all these plastics

05:49continue to reach these water sources

05:51or continue to negatively impact our ecosystems.

06:04NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

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