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