"buddhism" news and stories

In addition to being a moderately decent brewer, Heineken has also flirted with becoming a force for change in the world. In the early 1960's, during a vacation in the Caribbean, one of Heineken's brewers noticed two problems that he thought might have the same solution. While the local beaches were littered with beer bottles, many people weren't able to find reasonably-priced building materials. When he got back to work, the brewer convinced Heineken to create the "world bottle" (WOBO), which also became known as "the brick that holds beer." Basically a rectangular-shaped beer bottle, world bottles were designed to fit comfortably end-to-end, making it possible to make walls, doors, and windows without resorting to glass cutting.

Heineken ended up making a small production run of the world bottles, but never released them to the public. Today, the only two WOBO structures in the world are a shed on the Heineken estate and a wall at the Heineken museum in Amsterdam. However, even though the world bottle never went into production, other people have found a way to turn left over Heineken bottles into livable structures.

Using one million discarded Heineken and Chang beer bottles, Buddhist monks in Sisaket, Thailand constructed the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew monastery. A beautiful, graceful structure, it shows that all those empties that we put in our recycling bin have the power to make a major difference!