I don’t have a lot of specifics, but this was too cool not to share. According to the Green Upgrader and few Asian news websites, a “Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to reach nirvana, using discarded bottles to build everything on the premises from a crematorium to toilets.”
The Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple in Sisaket province, roughly 370 miles northeast of Bangkok, is better known as “Wat Lan Kuad” or “Temple of Million Bottles” because of the glittering from countless glass containers on the walls. The temple first started using discarded bottles in 1984 to decorate the monks’ shelters. This attracted more people to donate more bottles to build other buildings such as a pagoda, ceremony hall and toilets. Bottle tops were also used to decorate murals.
According to Abbot San Kataboonyo, “the more bottles we get, the more buildings we make.”
Thai monks from the have used over one million recycled glass bottle to construct their Buddhist temple.
There are a dozen more photos at the Green Upgrader and you can see the amazing ways in which the monks used the bottles to create some pretty spectacular structures.
Surprisingly, there are at least two buddha breweries in the world. The Laughing Buddha, in Seattle, and Lucky Beer, in Australia, with a very cool Buddha-shaped bottle.
It reminds me of the old adage, “People in glass temples…”