chennai in the last nine months rakesh ganesan has been on a mission to make his saligramam home completely plasticfree and an important step towards achieving this goal wasnt just to stop new plastic utility from entering the house but adding a fresh lease of life to old singleuse plastic waste that was already generated so that it didnt end up at the landfillrakesh found his answer during his recent trip to dharamsala where he saw that the artefacts at some eateries serving steaming hot ginger tea to travellers were in fact recreations of pet bottles and chocolate wrappers a little research later he saw that these eco bricks made of plastic waste could be used to build some smallscale furniture toonow the 28yearold cinematographer who runs a studio for handmade textiles in the city will demonstrate what he saw and learned during his himachal trek to beachgoers at marina this sunday in a bottle brick making workshop it was an idea that made so much sense because theres no dearth of raw material to do it says rakesh plastic bottle bricks are made hard and strong by stuffing them with single use plastic waste that comprises chocolate wrappers and chips packets they are then plastered using duck tapes araldite and other plastictoplastic adhesives each brick takes about 45 minutes to make and a small stool can be constructed in less than five hours he sayson november 24 rakesh along with his fellow traveller and friend amit roy cleaned the marina beach stretch from 6am to 10am and the waste that was collected will be used to make the eco bricks arun krishnamurthy of environmentalist foundation of india says eco bricks are gaining popularity around the world but must be used as a complimentary addition to construction and furniture and not a substitute to brick and mortarwe too have furniture made of plastic bottles but we have seen that they need a solid wooden or brick and cement base to become sturdy the shelf life of this furniture depends also on the usage he says however it is a creative way to tackle the plastic problemthe bottle brick workshop will be held at the tie dye studio chennai from 4pm to 8pm on november 29