The world runs on plastic — with seemingly endless products, from granola bar wrappers to plastic bags to plastic water bottles and beyond — made from the ubiquitous product. 

In total, the world produces an estimated 400 million tons of plastic pollution a year, with enough of it entering the environment annually, from rivers to oceans and beyond, to fill up Central Park with plastic up to the height of the Empire State Building. 

When Haeli Rowland, a third-year student majoring in tourism recreation and adventure leadership, was looking for an honors thesis project, she learned about an innovative way to tackle the global plastic pollution crisis: the global EcoBricks initiative, which focuses on taking plastic waste that would otherwise end up in landfills or the environment and redirecting it into plastic bottle bricks that can be used to build furniture and other practical objects. 

According to Rowland, EcoBricks “redirect your plastics away from where they could be dangerous or harmful … like the ocean, or your food, or your water.” She quickly resonated with the idea and decided to pioneer an EcoBricks project at Oregon State University. 

The project turns plastic waste into something useful, “instead of just throwing it away and just being like someone else will deal with it,” Rowland said. “We shouldn’t have someone else deal with it, we should deal with it.” 

The project works by setting up several collection bins at multiple locations around campus. People drop off non-recyclable plastic waste in the bins. Any items that are not compostable, or made of wood, paper or metal, can be put into the bins. Then, the gathered materials are cut into smaller pieces by Rowland and volunteers, before being packed into plastic bottles. Finally, the bottles are weighed to ensure they are sufficiently sturdy and uniform when they eventually become glued together. 

In total, Rowland is setting out to make over 100 bricks — her ultimate goal is to create a chair and table, maybe other items too. She hopes that the EcoBrick furniture will be put somewhere permanent on the OSU campus, where it can continually inspire the Oregon State community and visitors to become more aware of the waste the world consumes and rethink how it is used. 

Rowland has another goal too: engaging students, the OSU community and others with the project and issues with plastic waste. Her favorite part of the project is talking with others about the EcoBrick project and seeing more people get involved. 

She has discussed the project at meetings and events around campus and is looking forward to participating in a science discovery event later this term where she plans to teach middle school girls from across Oregon about the project and impart them with knowledge of plastic waste solutions. 

According to Rowland, one of the cool parts of the project is seeing people reflect on plastic use. It has forced her to see the amount of waste she creates, and she likes “seeing other people make that click too. People making the bricks and then saying … ‘that’s a lot of plastic that just went in there’” 

She has noticed that when creating the bricks, people start thinking about the waste they produce. “We have so much plastic and I didn’t realize it,” Rowland said. “But that’s the point of the project … for people to see exactly what they contribute and then to say ‘Oh my gosh where is it going?’ Who knows where it goes — throw it in a landfill and put it out of sight and out of mind. So this is a way to keep it in sight and in mind so that you know exactly where it is going because you’re the one putting in the bottle.”

Student volunteers share Rowland’s sentiments and extol the project’s ability to promote and increase sustainability. History major and volunteer Charlie Mackey says that participating in the project is a great way to “see the contribution going back into sustainability and be a part of actually creating sustainable products.” 

Another EcoBricks volunteer, Adi Lyon-Myrick, a zoology major, finds creating Ecobricks to be “a really valuable way for students to think about their plastic use and a way to do it in a different way, in a useful good way.”

The EcoBricks initiative is ongoing from Jan. 6 to March 20. Those interested in getting involved can join Haeli to help construct EcoBricks on Mondays and Thursdays from 6 p.m. – 7 p.m. in the Agriculture and Life Sciences Building, room 3005.