Buddhist temple built with beers bottles on the wall...

[sonamdhargey]

There’s this very cool Buddhist temple in Thailand built entirely from one million recycled beer bottles. Buddhist monks built the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in the Sisaket province of Thailand from Heineken and Chang Beer bottles.

Source: https://www.recyclebank.com/live-green/one-million-buddhist-beers-wall-one-million-buddhist-beers/

[Jessie Fong]

It all started off with Alfred Heineken of the Heineken Brewery.  It was stated that he came across a lot of beer bottles littering the beaches of the Caribbean when he was vacationing there in the 1960's.

Another scene he came across was the lack of affordable housing. Then he came up with the solution of turning the beer bottles into the shape of interlocking bricks.




After much experiments, they came up with the brick/bottle design.  A few houses were built, some of them still standing on the Heineken estate.

[fruven]

This is a very great concept and very unconventional. Out of the box thinking! We are used to think that we need wood, brick and steel to build buildings. It shows what is impossible is possible. Sometimes we need to push the boundaries and challenge the conventional of doing things to create something better. In the process we learn new ways of doing things and become better ourselves. The glass temple is a very creative example and it goes well with spirituality that we can be creative and spiritual at the same time.

[Tenzin K]

Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew, also known as Wat Lan Kuad or 'the Temple of a Million Bottles', is in Sisaket province near the Cambodian border, 400 miles from the capital Bangkok.

The Buddhist monks began collecting bottles in 1984 and they collected so many that they decided to use them as a building material.

They encouraged the local authorities to send them more and they have now created a complex of around 20 buildings using the beer bottles, comprising the main temple over a lake, crematorium, prayer rooms, a hall, water tower, tourist bathrooms and several small bungalows raised off the ground which serve as monks quarters.

The bottles do not lose their colour, provide good lighting and are easy to clean, the men say.
A concrete core is used to strengthen the building and the green bottles are Heineken and the brown ones are the Thai beer Chang.

The monks are so eco-friendly that the mosaics of Buddha are created with recycled beer bottle caps.
Altogether there are about 1.5 million recycled bottles in the temple, and the monks at the temple are intending to reuse even more.

Abbot San Kataboonyo said: "The more bottles we get, the more buildings we make."
The beer bottle temple is now on an approved list of eco-friendly sight-seeing tours in southeast Asia.

[DS Star]

This is so ironic... to think that Buddhist monks are not allowed to drink alcohol yet a Buddhist temple is built with beer bottles..!

"Thai monks from the Sisaket province have used over one million recycled glass bottle to construct their Buddhist temple. Mindfulness is at the center of the Buddhist discipline and the dedication and thoughtfulness required to build everything from the toilets to their crematorium from recycled bottles shows what creativity and elbow grease can accomplish.

The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple is about 400 miles northeast of Bangkok in the city of Khun Han close to the Cambodian border. Using Heineken bottles (green) and Chang Beer bottles (brown) the monks were able to clean up the local pollution and create a useful structure that will be a visual reminder to the scope of pollution and the potential we can make with limber minds."

http://youtu.be/gp2fbob9zw4
	Small | Large

The temple monks had done great deeds of clearing the discarded beer bottles and help with creating awareness for the community to preserve their environment. This is Buddha Dharma in actions, a real practice of compassion. The monks not only preach but they walked the talk...

[Benny]

Incredible feat of engineering and recycling , this Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew, also known as Wat Lan Kuad or 'the Temple of a Million Bottles. This is really a landmark achievement for many more to emulate, not only is it environmentally friendly and costs effective but aesthetically pleasing.

The fact that beer bottles are used should not be of any issue at all, if anything it only serves to amplify the fact that Buddhism is a very tolerant and dynamic religion. Thank you Sonam dhargey for sharing this. 

[bambi]

Hehe.. Monks are not allowed to drink yet they built the temple with beer bottles. I find it amazing though. Its actually very unique despite what people will say about monk and beer. Besides, it wasnt planned and they were recycling the bottles. They are really smart to have thought of it although Alfred Heineken thought of it first. But the creativity is the most important. Simply magnificent!

[diablo1974]

I saw this before and its incredible. Imagine the amount of effort needed to collect bottles from garbage bins and clean them before it can be  use to build the temple. I think if there are proper lighting equipments will create some very beautiful scenes and ambient.

[Q]

Very nice! How creative!

Not only it reduces waste at the landfill, but they managed to convert something that of no value into a temple that can benefit many people!

I was just reading about how many countries are using plastic bottles to build various structures... from buildings, garden shacks, bed, wall partitions etc! I totally love this gogreen concept. It not only save the environment but also it looks aesthetically nice!

See this link, there's lots of beautiful images of structures built with plastic bottles:

http://inspirationgreen.com/plastic-bottle-homes.html

[Q]

Btw, just for your information on why it is technically safe to build with plastic and glass bottles... and also the benefits can be seen by the amount of time it takes for one plastic/glass bottle to degrade naturally. Here's the figures:

Nevada Division of Environmental Protection (www.nevadarecycles.gov)
gives degradation times in a landfill as follows:

Tin can 80-100 years
Aluminum can 200-500 years
Plastic 6-pack rings 450 years
Plastic jug 1 million years!
Styrofoam cup Unknown? Forever?
Glass bottle Unknown? Forever?

[brian]

This is classic! Real innovation and creativity to build a holy temple out of samsaric material as in alcohol beer bottles. Wonderful news for us to share around in fact. From having to crack heads thinking how to dispose soooo many bottles away to skilfully thought about  recycling the bottles into building materials. Beautiful idea for architecture,  go green project and as well as monetary costing wise. I wonder how much this structure costs.

[Positive Change]

I think this is a very cool idea... It certainly kills two birds with one stone! To build a holy place of worship AND to recycle which helps the planet. One may say is it really a good idea karmically to build a temple out of alcoholic containers? Well, if everything were to be perfect and holy to build a temple, it would never be built because we ourselves are "containers" of much negative karma!

Jokes aside, I think the colour is also very suited as some parts of it reminds me of the colour of Jade. And also the manner in which it is placed is rather artistic and certainly not easy to devise. It like working with completely different dimensions of bricks!

[Big Uncle]

This is really a creative way to build temples and the colorful hue of the bottles does provide a rather interesting way of making an offerings to the Buddha. I think that the Thais are very creative and somehow always manage to surprise us with their creativity. Thailand on a whole has been able to produce some of the world's most interesting crafts.

I notice this about Thailand and I also notice this in Bali and also in Nepal. I notice the Hindu-Buddhist culture has a very strong tradition of aesthetics and being in that aesthetic rich religious tradition has brought a whole tradition of aesthetics. I think that cultures and traditions of sculpture tend to develop an ornate and rich aesthetic tradition.

[pgdharma]

What a creative and innovative way of recycling the beer bottles for this temple. This is cost effective too as it save on other building materials. The bottle “bricks” don’t fade, let natural light into the space and are easy to maintain. I think this glass temple is beautiful when it catches the sunlight.

Monks take precepts not to take intoxicants but there are a lot of beer drinkers in Thailand and the monks took the initiative to collect the beer bottles. I would think that the Buddha would have been rather pleased that these bottles were being recycled and put into good use and transformed into something beautiful

[Manjushri]

Quite amazing how a small creative idea could have sparked such an ingenius creation. Recycling can be done in many ways and this is one of it. Instead of throwing bottles out onto empty land, it is used to make a building, a holy building.

Imagine, the contents of the bottles could have been causes to abuse, violence, broken marriages, addiction, depression, but the end use of the bottles is a place of worship, of benefit to many. What a big difference. Is there any merits arising from this? ie. does it go to the creators of the bottls? the people who collect the bottles? Funny, how one object can be an object to create merits or an object to create demerit. Just like everything we have. We can choose this or that.