VIDEO: Turning Plastic Bottles Into Eco-friendly Cairo Home

Egyptian builders are recycling bricks, tires and plastic bottles to build green homes. Watch them make an eco-friendly home that will have at least three bedrooms, an underground theater and a swimming pool. Edward Baran reports from a Cairo suburb.

Video Transcript:

Timur al-Hadidi and his team of workmen are leaving no stone unturned.

They're using discarded bricks, tires and plastic bottles to build an eco-friendly home.

Having viewed hundreds of properties in Cairo's city center, al-Hadidi decided to buy a plot of land on the outskirts of the Egyptian capital.

And create his dream home from recycled materials.

(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LAND OWNER TIMUR AL-HADIDI, SAYING:

"We've moved on from traditional design. We've found very good workers and excellent builders who help us build using any materials we find. So we look for different materials, such as broken pieces of cement or leftover pieces. We use wood, plastic bottles and car tires. We use all of this to try and build something new, not knowing how it will end up and not knowing if it is right or wrong."

One property that is already complete is a two-bedroom house, built using 3,000 plastic bottles and driftwood, and cement to reinforce the structure.

And this is where al-Hadidi lives while his new home is being constructed.

(SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) LAND OWNER TIMUR AL-HADIDI, SAYING:

"With recycling, everyone can pick what they like. If you decide to buy a house in a compound worth millions or hundreds of thousands, and you can cope with being on the treadmill and then buy a house for that price, then fine. But you can also get cheap material to build with and have a really nice house that no one else in the world has."

The home in the making will have at least three bedrooms, an underground theater and a swimming pool, with rooms connected by a number of underground walkways.

Al-Hadidi expects it to be completed by 2016.