Apparently, beer brewer Alfred Heineken was far ahead of his time in “thinking green.” After a trip to the Caribbean where he noticed beaches littered with empty bottles and towns in need of cheap building materials, he joined with architect John Habraken and set out to find a way to make Heineken bottles reusable as building material. The result is an ingenious bottle design: Square, with raised bumps on each side for traction, a short neck and a matching dimple in the bottom of the bottle to fit the necks of adjoining bottles. This interlocking design was used to build a shed on Heineken’s estate in the Netherlands, and later made up a very large wall in the Heineken museum – but sadly, the idea was not supported by the brewery and it never caught on.
This is a fantastic example of how a business owner can see a way to fill a need and at the same time, cut down on some of the enormous amount of waste that we create. Let’s challenge ourselves to think differently and be part of the solution. It can be such a simple thing!
Found on Advertising Lab.
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