TARGET 100922

What to Do With Your
Old Beer Bottles

Build a temple to God

The Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew temple has found a way to bottle-up Nirvana, literally. The temple, which sits in Thailand’s Sisaket province, roughly 370 miles northeast of Bangkok is made of more than a million recycled glass bottles. True to its nickname, “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” features glass bottles throughout the premises of the temple, including the crematorium, surrounding shelters, and yes – even the toilets. There’s an estimated 1.5 million recycled bottles built into the temple, and as you might have guessed, they are committed to recycling more. After all, the more bottles they get, the more buildings they are able to construct.

A closeup of the construction

A concrete core is used to strengthen the building and the green bottles are Heineken and the brown ones are the Thai beer, Chang.

Fifty years ago the Heineken Beer company looked at reshaping its beer bottle to be useful as a building block. It never happened for the general public or normal construction, but some enterprising and artistic people have made beautiful homes from beer, wine, and other bottles. In reality, they are excellent building materials.

The temple and reflecting pond

The Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew temple, which sits in Thailand’s Sisaket province, roughly 370 miles northeast of Bangkok is made of around 1.5 million recycled glass bottles (at last count). True to its nickname, “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” features glass bottles throughout the premises of the temple, including a complex of around 20 buildings comprising the main temple over a lake, crematorium, prayer rooms, a hall, water tower, tourist bathrooms and several small bungalows raised off the ground which serve as monks quarters....

the crematorium..

..the poarches..

..the rooves..

and yes, even the bathrooms and toilets.

The bottles do not lose their color, they provide good lighting and are easy to clean, the men say.

There’s an estimated 1.5 million recycled bottles built into the temple, and as you might have guessed, the monks have become very committed to recycling more. After all, the more bottles they get, the more buildings they are able to construct. In fact...

.....the monks are so eco-friendly that even the mosaics of Buddha are created with recycled beer bottle caps.

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To learn more about The Bottle Temple, take a look at the following web sites:

Inhabit.com
Treehugger.com
The Telegraph
The Daily Mail