{"id":78794,"date":"2026-09-19T16:03:06","date_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=78794"},"modified":"2026-09-19T16:03:06","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T15:03:06","slug":"dzw-b16a1cc1d6b8db831bf0c760db3466e86eab8818","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/?p=78794","title":{"rendered":"Tateh Lehbib Builds Resilient Homes from Recycled Bottles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Engineer Tateh Lehbib<\/a> developed an innovative solution for ecological housing within the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf, Algeria<\/a>. Beginning in 2016, Lehbib constructed circular homes using plastic containers filled with sand, a project documented by the UNHCR. The initiative arose from the urgent need to rehouse thousands of families after torrential rains in October 2015 devastated the five Sahrawi camps, destroying nearly 17,000 homes and over half of collective facilities. Traditional mud-brick houses, common in the desert, proved vulnerable to water damage and disintegrated when exposed to rain.<\/p>\n

Lehbib, a graduate in renewable energy<\/a> from Tlemcen with further training in energy efficiency, sought a free, durable, and readily available material. He identified plastic bottles, abundant in the camps, as the ideal resource. For his grandmother's home, he filled 6,000 bottles with sand and straw, stacking them like bricks before covering them with cement and lime. This cylindrical design naturally resists desert conditions, with no sharp angles for wind to exploit, and its sand-filled walls keep interiors cooler, often by about five degrees Celsius, providing crucial relief from the Saharan sun. Each structure is estimated to cost around 250 euros, approximately four times less than a conventional earth house, and incorporates nearly 80% recycled materials. Lehbib stated that "a plastic bottle is twenty times more resistant than an adobe brick."<\/p>\n

The success of the initial home quickly led to wider adoption. With support from the UNHCR Innovation Fund, Tateh Lehbib expanded the project, building 25 additional homes across the five camps, primarily for elderly and disabled individuals. What began with some calling him "the bottle madman" gained recognition, culminating in the project reaching the finals of the World Habitat Awards in 2018. Each house reuses approximately 6,000 plastic bottles that would otherwise accumulate as waste in the camps. The method has since been embraced by other families, who are now transforming plastic waste into construction material, turning a common discarded item into durable shelter and protection in a region where about 90,000 Sahrawis have lived in exile for over four decades.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Algerian engineer Tateh Lehbib has pioneered ecological housing in the Tindouf refugee camps, utilizing sand-filled plastic bottles to construct resilient and cost-effective homes. This innovative approach provides durable shelter while repurposing thousands of plastic bottles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":78793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-algeria"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=78794"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78794\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78795,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78794\/revisions\/78795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/78793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=78794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=78794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dzwatch.dz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=78794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}