Nigeria's first house built from discarded plastic bottles is proving a tourist attraction in the village of Yelwa.

Hundreds of people - including government officials and traditional leaders - have been coming to see how the walls are built in the round architectural shape popular in northern Nigeria.

The bottles, packed with sand, are placed on their side, one on top of the other and bound together with mud.

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The whole world should come and look at it”

Nuhu Dangote
Trader in Kaduna
"I wanted to see this building for myself as I was surprised to hear it was built from plastic bottles," said Nuhu Dangote, a trader who travelled from the state capital, Kaduna, to see the house.

"They were saying it in the market that it looks like magic, that you will be amazed when you see it, that is why I have come here to feed my eyes.

"The whole world should come and look at it."

The real beauty of the house is its outside wall as the round bottoms of the exposed bottles produce a lovely design.

But for those behind the project, its environmental benefits are what are most important.

'Bullet-proof'
Twenty-five houses, which will be available to rent, are being built on this estate on land donated by a Greek businessman and environmentalist.

Each house - with one bedroom, living room, bathroom, toilet and kitchen - uses an estimated 7,800 plastic bottles.

This "bottle brick" technology started nine years ago in India, South and Central America, providing a cost-effective, environmentally-friendly alternative to conventional building bricks.

Yahaya Ahmed of Nigeria's Development Association for Renewable Energies, estimates that a bottle house will cost one third of what a similar house made of concrete and bricks would cost.

It is also more durable.

"Compacted sand inside a bottle is nearly 20 times stronger than bricks," he says. "We are even intending to build a three-storey building."

The bottle houses are also ideally suited to the hot Nigerian climate because the sand insulates them from the sun's heat, helping to keep room temperatures low.

And because of the compact sand, they are bullet-proof - which may also prove another attraction in more insecure parts of the north.

A firm concrete foundation is laid to ensure that the structure is firm and stable - and the sand is sieved to make sure it is compact.

"You need to sieve it to remove the stones otherwise it will not be nice and it would not be able to pass through the mouth of the bottle," explains Dolly Ugorchi, who has been trained in bottle house building.

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