The Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew temple in Thailand’s Sisaket province about 370 miles to the north east of Bangkok, is known as “Wat Lan Kuad” which means the Temple of Million Bottles.

It’s a great example of recycling went right with all the temple premises, the crematorium, the surrounding shelters as well as the toilets - all made of recycled glass bottles. And don’t think they threw out those used bottle caps. No sir! A beautiful mosaic work stands proud on the walls …

The process of collecting these green and brown coloured glass bottles started in 1984 when the monks began building shelters out of them. The result? The shiny glass managed to attract more and more people which not only visited the place but also started donating more bottles.

Structure after structure, bottle after bottle, the temple as you see it today, uses 1.5million used bottles as sustainable building material, do not fade, allows natural light to penetrate through and is easy maintenance. Kudos for the Wat Pa Maha Chedio Kaew monks for their incredible temple made of bottles. - via Inhabitat

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In the do it yourself category we have Ma Yanjun, a farmer in Mizhi county, Shaanxi province in China, that managed to build a solar water heating system using empty beer bottles. The reason he did it, was to allow his 73-year old mother to take a warm bath every day.

Since there was no warm water in the area and he couldn’t afford paying the big bucks for a hi-tech solar panel, Ma had to be innovative and instead of photovoltaic panels he used dozens of beer bottles. He finished work in 2006 and ever since, he attracted the envy of 20 other local farmers, which needed his help and skills.

We don’t care who emptied those beer bottles and want to congratulate Ma for his achievement.