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After a visit in the early 1960s to the Caribbean islands, then known as the Dutch Antilles, Dutch businessman Alfred Heineken was struck with inspiration from a seemingly odd source: garbage discarded about the island, some of which included empty beer bottles. His idea: to turn glass beer bottles into bricks of sorts by forming the Heineken seaweed-green beer bottles into a rectangular shape that could be used to build housing. As incredible as it sounds, this claim is true and documented online by the official curators of the Heineken Collection Foundation. They wrote: Despite the promising design of the WOBO bottle, the idea never took off and was largely met with resistance from the Heineken marketing team, which was concerned that it would damage the image and open the company to claims over wrong usage of the bottle. But didn’t stop Alfred from constructing a structure of his own — a garden house found on his property: It appears Alfred may have just been slightly ahead of his time. In 1975, an author by the name of Martin Pawley penned Garbage Housing, a 120-page book that described the world shortage of resources and their overconsumption. To highlight ways in which societies might scale back their consumption, Pawley described the WOBO bottle as possible solution to encourage the concept of secondary use. The book prompted a response from Habraken, who wrote to Alfred that the WOBO initiative of ten years ago is now widely seen as the first industrial initiative to develop recyclable packaging. Although Alfred supported the endeavor, it would ultimately fall through due to logistical issues. Fast Company further detailed the design process and vision in its 2013 piece, Heineken’s Lost Plan to Build Houses Out Of Beer Bottles. You might enjoy reading:
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