Taiwan Builds Plastic Bottle Structure

It's light, airy and made out of 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles.

The main exhibition hall of the Taipei International Floral Exposition -- set to open in November -- is this city's answer to the environmental degradation caused by the rapid proliferation of petrochemical-based drinks containers.

Showcasing cutting-edge technologies for green, low-carbon construction, the building with transparent walls and chandelier-like ceiling lights is called EcoARK, and bills itself as the world's first large structure fashioned from recycled plastic bottles.

It's basic building blocks, called polli-bricks, are formed from reprocessing plastic bottles into a hardened construction material.

Architect Arthur Huang says Taiwan is a natural for a building like EcoARK, because the island's well-developed plastics industry has bred a local expertise in dealing creatively with plastics products.

"From making plastics, Taiwanese have acquired the skills to process plastic bottles into useful building material," he said.

With hardly any effort, Huang lifted a panel of hollow polli-bricks interlocked into a honeycomb shape.

He said the pieces are melded together in a lego design strong enough for EcoARK to withstand major storms and earthquakes -- an important consideration in a city where typhoons and violent seismic jolts are not uncommon.

Many environmentalists have long championed low-carbon buildings as a way of fighting global warming, and Huang insists that EcoARK's polli-bricks are the next best thing to natural materials such as straw mats.