Recycling objects has always been an important aspect of our daily life and while many people don’t do it, there are many others who take the extra effort to make a difference. A bus stop in Hyderabad not the usual you see at every corner made from brick and mortar but a different kind that has left many people in awe of the initiative. Residents of Swaroopnagar colony in Uppal, Hyderabad had made several requests to the office of the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) to have a shelter installed at the local bus stop. However, with the requests seemingly falling on deaf ears, a local social enterprise decided to install their own shelter using 1,000 discarded plastic bottles.
The initiative is quite unique and could actually help build cheaper options rather than spending money on brick and paint. The 8-foot-high bus stop was made with a metal frame and over 1,000 plastic bottles bought from a scrap dealer. The initiative is quite unique and could actually help build cheaper options rather than spending money on brick and paint. 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.