Millions of tons of sargassum wash up on beaches across North America every year. Exposure can lead to breathing problems, and it costs millions to clean it up. Now, one Mexican entrepreneur is building houses out of bricks made from the invasive species.
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00:00 These bricks are made from seaweed.
00:05 The secret is sargassum, an invasive species washing up and rotting on beaches around North America.
00:14 The massive waves can lead to respiratory problems and can cost millions to clean up.
00:23 But where most people see a problem, Omar Vazquez saw potential.
00:29 He turns the seaweed into bricks strong enough to build homes that he says can withstand hurricanes.
00:37 Omar and his family immigrated to the U.S. with nothing in their pockets when he was just 8 years old.
00:49 Now, he uses his bricks to build homes for low-income families like the Lopezes.
00:55 We each have our own room. It's nice because we've always dreamed of it since we were little.
01:01 Could this invention help other countries clean up their coastlines?
01:05 We went to Mexico to see how entrepreneurs like Omar are making the most out of a stinky situation.
01:11 Omar and his team start collecting the seaweed at 5 a.m.
01:18 Today, they're in Puerto Morelos, a small beach town about 25 miles from Cancun.
01:24 When the sargassum arrived, the first thing people did was complain.
01:27 It smells bad, it stinks, it has fleas, it has everything.
01:33 Hotels pay them to get the seaweed off the beach and out of the view of tourists.
01:38 They collect about 40 metric tons of sargassum every day, enough to fill two of these containers.
01:43 It accumulates overnight. You have to work hard to finish the sargassum. It's increasing more.
01:53 The idea to turn seaweed into bricks came to Omar in 2018, when more than 50,000 metric tons of sargassum overran the coast.
02:01 Omar makes the bricks, which he calls "sarga blocks," at his workshop, 10 minutes from the beach.
02:17 Workers grind the dry sargassum into a fine powder by smashing it with rocks.
02:22 Then they mix it with dirt, which Omar repurposes from construction sites.
02:26 They shovel a mixture of sargassum dust and dirt through a grate to remove any large chunks.
02:32 They mix the powder with water to form a thick paste.
02:35 The exact recipe is a secret, but each brick is about 40 percent sargassum.
02:39 Sarga blocks can also be recycled again and again.
02:48 With this single machine, Omar can make up to 3,000 bricks a day.
02:52 He developed eight prototypes before perfecting this one.
02:55 Now he's designing a bigger machine that could produce 8,000 bricks a day.
02:59 He has six full-time employees making the bricks, and some help build homes, too.
03:06 It's difficult, but now we've seen people's faces when they've donated their houses.
03:13 It fills you up. You forget about the rest.
03:17 Since 2018, Omar has built more than 40 homes.
03:22 The first one is right next to his workshop.
03:25 He named it after his mother.
03:32 When he was eight years old, Omar left behind a home just like this one to cross the Mexico-U.S. border with his mother.
03:38 They wouldn't have a home of their own for the 30 years they lived in the U.S.
03:57 The American dream is a very painful dream.
03:59 It was a complicated life, living with a single mother, not having a father, not having a roof,
04:06 the issue of addiction, alcohol, drugs.
04:10 But I always had in my mind and in my heart to return to Mexico.
04:14 He finally returned to his home country for good in 2014, with just $55 in his pocket.
04:20 He used it to start a business buying and selling plants.
04:25 And he eventually saved enough money to buy this lot.
04:28 Developing Sargoblox required a lot of trial and error.
04:36 Omar's business is called Vivero Blue Green.
04:46 He makes most of his money selling plants and from hotels paying him to clean up the sargassum.
04:51 He also sells his bricks and builds houses.
04:55 He has sold more than 20 homes and given away another 15.
04:58 Omar admits the houses may not be fancy, but they are durable.
05:02 That's good news for Elizabeth Del Carmen Bonola-Lopez and her daughters.
05:16 Their home was destroyed in a hurricane in 2021.
05:19 Omar helped them rebuild it with Sargoblox.
05:23 A word that was falling from my mouth, that I had nothing,
05:26 was a house in Sargoblox that we feel safe in.
05:31 My daughters and I are happy.
05:34 It doesn't smell bad, it doesn't bring bugs.
05:37 It's more comfortable than any house because it adapts to the heat and the cold.
05:42 Indeed, research shows that seaweed is a great insulator that keeps homes cool in the summer and stores heat in the winter.
05:49 Usually, Omar hears about people in need through a friend or a local.
05:53 And there's no lack of raw material.
06:01 Over the past decade, waves of sargassum have gotten so large you can detect them from space.
06:06 In 2020, the Mexican government collected 19,000 metric tons of sargassum from Quintana Roo's beaches.
06:13 In 2021, it collected twice that amount.
06:17 Before, it was three months a year that you started seeing sargassum, four months.
06:21 And now we've seen that up to nine months, we've seen algae.
06:25 Studies show prolonged exposure can make it hard to breathe.
06:29 In 2023, the Cancun Hotel Association set aside more than $20 million to remove it from beaches.
06:36 And the problem goes beyond Mexico.
06:38 The invasive weed has spread to shores across North America, in Florida, Texas, and other parts of the Caribbean.
06:46 The exact cause of the increase isn't clear.
06:48 But some experts blame high levels of nitrogen in the sea, a result of agricultural waste runoff and deforestation.
06:55 So now, Omar's business is getting international attention.
07:00 He's given TED Talks, appeared on Shark Tank Mexico, and traveled internationally to promote his product.
07:06 Investors and businesses from over a dozen countries have reached out to learn from him.
07:11 Estados Unidos, Belize, Dominicana, Barbados, Martinica.
07:15 Omar is exploring licensing and franchising the SarcoBloc recipe to other businesses.
07:20 Elsewhere in Mexico, other entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways to use sargassum, like making notebooks and even shoes.
07:29 A British startup called Seaweed Generation is using sargassum to capture carbon and store it at the bottom of the ocean.
07:38 Back in Mexico, Omar is simply grateful to be living in his home country, surrounded by the people he loves.
07:43 And after work, he returns to a home he built himself, using his own bricks.
07:48 Omar hopes his success will inspire others.
07:51 [Spanish]
08:00 [Music]
08:11 (whooshing)