11 Jul 2024
The MSC community in Manila, capital of the Philippines, have been working on an ongoing project where discarded plastic bottles are repurposed and made into “ecobricks”, finding new life as fences, planter boxes, outdoor furniture, altar decorations, and even chapel walls.
Part of the “Sowing Hope for the Planet” campaign, a worldwide movement to promote environmental awareness, the ecobricks project is just one of many efforts in the MSC mission for ecological sustainability and care of our common home. MSCs in the Philippine Province are also extremely active in the Laudato Si’ Action Platform, a Vatican initiative based on Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, not least with the remarkable efforts of the community at the MSC Centre for the Poor and their accompanying agricultural co-operative.
Fr James Espuerta MSC was rector at the Manila seminary from 2018 to 2023, where he led countless workshops in the construction and use of the ecobricks. Each brick is comprised of a 1.5 litre plastic bottle, which is then stuffed with smaller pieces of plastic, all compressed with a bamboo stick. Often, the plastics and bottles are painted in bright, appealing colours. The creation of a single brick is time-consuming, and can take a full day to be produced.
MSC Philippines EcoBricks Project 2024 (Image via ncronline.org)
MSC Philippines EcoBricks Project 2024 (Image via ncronline.org)
MSC Philippines EcoBricks Project 2024 (Image via ncronline.org)
“If we have plastics, instead of throwing them away or into the trash or to the garbage cart, better to keep them and then organize ecobrick-making,” says Fr James.
A recent article by Earthbeat reports how the MSC ecobrick initiative began in 2019, at the seminary in Manila, and has since expanded into 15 parishes in the care of our MSC brothers. A chapel in Santo Nino Parish, on Camotes Island in Cebu, has been constructed using ecobricks, and several plastic banks are in operation, whereby people in need can trade plastic they bring from home, or pick up on the street, for food.
Ecobricks help to reduce the costs of building materials while also promoting recycling and ecological awareness, and MSCs in the Philippines are very much aware of the need to reduce the use of single-use plastics in addition. “We have to care for our common home. And plastics destroy creation,” explains Fr James. “Human beings are not the only residents in the world. We also have our brother creatures, and we have to take care of them.”
“Being responsible for the use of the plastic could be a good way to save our environment,” Fr James says. With the support of our mission friends here in the Irish Province and around the globe, MSCs in the Philippines continue in their mission to work in harmony with the natural world, while developing sustainable and self-sufficient lifestyles for the vulnerable and disadvantaged communities in their care.
Original article and images via Earthbeat:
https://www.ncronline.org/earthbeat/science/philippines-catholic-priests-tackle-plastic-waste-brick-brick
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