Brighton group creating bricks out of plastic for community projects

The Ecobricks Brighton gathering at Hove seafront

Bixie Knight started the Ecobricks Brighton group on the social media site, teaming up with Mary Bacchoo who has been working on the project for several years.

The Brighton group, which is part of a global Ecobricks campaign, has grown to more than 1,000 members in just over a month.

Bixie Knight with her daughter and an ecobrick

The ecobricks are made out of plastic bottles which are filled with plastic waste and then can be used as reusable building blocks for community projects.

Bixie is currently building a wall for her garden, and Mary is working on using her bricks for an allotment project in Shoreham, giving single-use plastics a more permanent purpose.

The idea is to use a plastic bottle and pack it with waste collected over a month such as food wrap as well as chopped up plastics such as yoghurt pots.

Bixie said: “It’s easy for every single person to do and educational to get the kids involved.

“By making even one brick you are taking personal responsibility for the plastic you have used and prevent it going to landfill where it will otherwise sit for hundreds of years.”

At the start of December, the group held a symbolic event on Hove beach, making a spiral out of ecobricks collected so far – many from Mary’s work creating ecobricks in the community over the years.

It showed how much plastic the group had already saved from landfill – 1,000 ecobricks in total.

On starting the Facebook group, Bixie said: “When it started it was just supposed to be for friends and family.

“People started talking about it saying can we do it as well. It’s about 1,000 people now.”

Bixie is hoping more people will get involved and ecobricks can be used for more community projects in the area, saving tons of plastic waste from landfill.

She is planning to run workshops in Brighton next year to help people create their ecobricks and to give advice on brick building.

To get involved join the Ecobricks Brighton UK group on Facebook.

To find out more about the global Ecobricks movement , visit: www.ecobricks.org