Happy level 4, wave 3, stage “who knows anymore”?

Last week’s “family meeting” left us all feeling a little defeated and rightly so.

Life was seemingly heading back to some form of normality. Playing sport, small social gatherings with friends and family, as well as regular load shedding – only for us to be reprimanded once again and sent back to the naughty corner.

Due to the new adjusted level 4 restrictions affecting so many aspects of our lives and how we do things, we’ve had to really put our creativity to the test – and no, I’m not talking about brewing pineapple beer.

I’m referring to Mandela Day. This iconic day is something that we as a team look forward to each and every year. It’s an opportunity to put aside all the negativity we South Africans encounter on an almost daily basis and focus our energy and resources on making a difference in our communities. Unfortunately, with the aggressiveness of this new Delta variant, we cannot put our staff’s lives nor the lives of the people we’re wanting to help at risk.

So, this year from the 18^th of July, we will be adopting every day as Mandela Day until the end of 2021. We believe that our chosen cause requires far more than 67 minutes of goodwill on a single day and the actions we take, will hopefully have far-reaching effects for generations to come.

Plastic pollution is a pandemic we’ve been fighting long before Covid was here and we’ll continue to fight against its’ destruction long after it’s gone. Instead of discarding non-recyclable plastics in a bin, we have created designated collection points here at our offices. This waste will in-turn be used to create versatile ECO Bricks.

With this in mind and knowing all the sacrifices we have all made as a result of Covid, we have challenged our staff to simply make a small change to their daily habits (at work and at home).

What are ECO Bricks you may ask? An ECO Brick is simply a 2L plastic cold drink bottle filled with non-recyclable plastic waste such as: chip packets, sweet wrappers, plastic shopping bags, food packaging, etc. These bricks can then be used to create functional structures like houses, schools and even furniture.

To put this project to the test, I started collecting items from home over a period of a week – items that typically ended up in the bin, and was shocked as to how quickly I filled up a refuse bag with these items.

We’re hoping that by the end of this year, we will have managed to create an impressive stack of ECO Bricks containing plastic waste that would’ve ended up in our waterways and oceans.

• A stick – make sure it doesn’t have a sharp end as you don’t want to pierce your bottle
• A 2L plastic cold drink bottle
• Non-recyclable plastic items

TOP TIP

Be sure to use soft plastics for the base of your ECO Brick. This will allow you to fill the uneven base of the bottle.

Here’s a simple video on how to make ECO Bricks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQYsXxHKgMk