MUN students turn plastic bags and wrappers into 'bricks' to keep them out of landfills

Keep your Halloweencandy wrappers in your pockets and don't recycle your two-litre pop bottles: theGrenfell Waste Management Committee in Corner Brook has aplan for a DIY projectwhich many peoplecan do at home.

The idea is to stuff empty pop bottles with two-inch squares cut fromleftover candy wrappers and potato chip bags to create what are calledecobricks.

"You shove as much in as you possibly can until it reaches a density that is pretty much the same structural integrity as you would have in a brick," Jenna McDermott, events co-ordinator with the Grenfell Waste Management Committee, told CBC Radio's Newfoundland Morning.

The student-led group at Memorial University's west coast campus is planning to use the bricks tobuild a structureon campus, such as a bench, and to help divertplastics from landfills.

So far, the committee has brought about 40 people into the project, has filled around 45bottles, and has kept 20 kilograms of plastics from ending up in the dump.

But there's still work to be done. The group is expecting at least another semester's work before it will have enough ecobricks to completethe project.

But the group says project's popularity is growing, andwill givepeople a bottle to fill and a dowel to help compact the discarded plastic. A volunteer can thenbring the filled bottle back to the group.

"We get a lot of interest. Some people who have never heard of it before, they're super-excited because we have the recycling program, we have the composting program, but what do you do with everything else?" said Darrian Washinger, president ofthe committee.

"It makes you feel good. It makes you environmentally conscious. You see how much plastic can gp into a simple two-litre bottle."

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