Hyderabad: A Bus Stop Made Up Of 1000 Used Water Bottles

As the usage of plastic bottles remain consistent, we find it more and more difficult to find newer ways to dispose off this non-biodegradable material.

But a Hyderabad-based social enterprise has invented a way to use the discarded bottles.

A bus stop made of used plastic bottles

Bamboo House India has made a bus stop out of used plastic bottles in the Swaroopnagar colony, Uppal, Hyderabad.

Under the ‘Recycle India’ initiative, the company which was started by two young graduates, recycles scrap such as tyres and drums to make benches and seats. In two months, they took a unique initiative and constructed a shelter using plastic bottles.

“We used 1,000 one-litre bottles for the bus stop, and each bottle costs us Rs 1.40. The shelter is 8×4 feet and the frame is made of metal,” said Prashant Lingam, a management graduate and one of the company founders, as reported by The Tribune.“The city is short of bus stops. There is a huge demand for these, but contractors demand exorbitant rates that run into lakhs. Our total cost was around Rs 15,000 and it was a knock-down model, which can be removed, if necessary,” he added.

To construct the bus stop, two artisans, working for two weeks, drilled a longitudinal hole in the bottles and ran a wire rope to tie them up with each other. The frame is made of metal, but the even the roofing has been made of bottles. Since plastic is prone to melting in heat, the makers kept checking them every day. Despite the heat touching 43 degrees, residents said that the shelter is intact.

The advantage of the bottled shelter was the gap between the bottles that allowed air to flow freely, thus preventing the bus stop from heating up.

The spot had always been a bus stop for years, however, the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) had failed to install a shelter despite several requests from residents. Bamboo House India constructed the model without GHMC permission, but the corporation has now shown interest in the initiative and is holding talks with the company for seven pilot projects before the monsoon to ensure that a bottled bus shelter can sustain all seasons.

The Logical Indian appreciates the efforts taken by Bamboo House India to find a way to use plastic bottles and also offer a shelter for people during the summer heat. We hope that their initiative is seen as a progressive move and undertaken by municipal bodies in other states as well.