Ecobricking as a local, non-capital, Plastic solution during Covid-19

• As you are consuming plastic (i.e. removing bread from a bag or noodles from a packet) be sure to open the plastic in such a way that remains one contiguous piece.
• When opening food packaging, remove all the remaining food and store in a glass or ceramic jar (i.e. transfer extra noodles to a glass or ceramic jar for storage)
• Cut the plastic open to maximize its surface area – but make sure it is still one contiguous piece.
• Clean the plastic with your hands, using soap and water under running water for at least 30 seconds.
• Dry your plastic.

• Wash your hands and your packing tools, then cut the plastic into small pieces that can be easily ecobricked. If you’re sick, put on a face mask.
• Start packing the plastic into the bottle following the the GEA 10 Step Guide at www.ecobricks.org/how.   When your packing session is done, cap your ecobrick.
• Ecobricks must meet the density, labeling, color and all other best practice criteria.
• Once completed, seal the ecobrick with a screw top cap and log online.

• Open the GoBrik.com app to log your ecobrick
• On GoBrik.com/#log, check off that you have followed the COvid-19 Enhanced Ecobricking Guidelines.
  
• Add a C when recording your serial number on the ecobrick to confirm you’re use of Enhanced Ecobricking.
• The C can be before or after the serial number.

The conventional GEA guidelines of what not to ecobrick remain the same (no sharp metal, glass, biodegradables, etc.). For ecobricking within the Covid-19 Pandemic, we emphasize that medical waste should not be ecobricked. Designated medical waste requires special handling and is not within the scope of ecobricking. Any such waste, such as syringes, respirators, bandages and clothing should be left for hospitals and centralized waste management systems to process.  Face masks from hospitals or sick people should be incinerated.

Surgical masks are made from unrecyclable polypropylene fibers, are non-recyclable, and intended to be disposed. It is important to note that clinical use of the masks in hospitals and by the sick has medical waste designation. If facilities exist such masks should be disposed of through hospital waste and or centralized waste facilities.

However, when medical waste disposal is not possible (i.e. in remote areas) and/or where government guidelines permits household disposal of masks (as in Indonesia) the GEA recommends the ecobricking of masks according to the following guidelines:

• Immediately wash the mask with soap and water or alcohol as per WHO hand washing guidelines
• Dry the cleaned mask by hanging in the sun to dry, or in a pillowcase in a warm room.
• Once dry, wash your hands, and cut the mask into several pieces
• Pack into a bottle, mixing with other plastics, as per the Covid-19 Enhanced Ecobricking Guidelines above.

Ecobricks are ideal for earth building.  Once the Covid-19 pandemic period is over, we’ll be able to use all our ecobrick for green space and garden projects to further increase our home and community resiliency.  The GoBrik app is specifically design to coordinate ecobrick community projects.  Dream up your vision today for what you will build with your ecobricks and create the project on GoBrik so that members of your community can contribute their ecobricks.   Set the number of ecobricks required so that your friends and neighbours can work towards this goal.  When all is clear and you goal is met, you can update the project to call in all the allocated ecobricks.

Setup a Project on GoBrik

Due to the large public concern over plastic during the CoVid-19 perio, the GEA is prioritizing the release of Enhanced Ecobricking methods.  To do so, we’ve opened all our international online courses up for by-donation registration and discounted all our Indonesian Courses.  Please see our complete course listing on GoBrik.com/#courses which includes:

• A Webinar Presentation of the GEA Whitepaper that surveys the most recent research on SARS-Cov-2 and single use plastic, and the conjectures and conclusions of the GEA for ecobricking during the Covid-19 period.
• Single session Introduction to Ecobrick courses that cover the theory and techniques of ecobricking and adaptions for the CoVid-19 period.
• Four session, Ecobrick Training of Trainer Course that lead to GEA Trainer certification
• Four session training course that introduces the theory and techniques of Earth and Ecobrick Building and developing earth modules applications for the CoVId-19 period.

To learn more about the science behind these recommendations, please see the GEA white paper for a full accounting of the science behind the CoVid -19 Enhanced Ecobricking Guidelines: “Preventing the Spread of SARS-CoV-2 on Single Use Plastics through Enhanced Ecobricking”

To learn more about how to ecobrick, please see our official ten step guide.

For ourses that will cover Enhanced Ecobricking during the CoVid-19 period, please see our GEA Course listing:

Check out our ecobrick courses on GoBrik.com that we’re making available to introduce ecobricks and enhanced ecobricking.

This site and our Ecobrick Guides have been crafted by the Global Ecobrick Alliance to help you get started ecobricking and to establish best practices for the making and application of ecobricks.  Our goal is to empower you and your community with the know-how to make ecobricks and build with them and are the result of years of research, experimentation and trial and error by our trainer network around the world.

• Why Make Ecobricks?
• How to Ecobrick?
• Cradle to Cradle
• Building with Ecobricks
• The Movement
• Dropping off ecobricks?
• Ecobrick Trainings