Zinc on You Tube 2018

Susanne Heisse is one of those rare people who is both a big dreamer, and very practical. She was born in East Germany in 1961 and was imprisoned there for a year when she was 19 for trying to escape. Freed via a prisoner exchange, she made her way, eventually, to one of the most beautiful spots in Guatemala – San Marcos la Laguna, on the shores of Lake Atitlan.

It’s beautiful, but very poor – and when she arrived there, it wasn’t long before she noticed the massive garbage pile that marred the village and often polluted the lake water. And that led her to a very simple, but profound, discovery – that by putting dry garbage into discarded plastic bottles, one could build buildings even as the community was cleaned up. She called these stuffed plastic bottles ‘eco-blocks’ or eco-bricks, and they have effectively started a revolution in building and waste management in many low income communities.