The Beer Bottle Temple

In 1984, Buddhist monks in Thailand began gathering bottles to decorate their shelters.

The interest not only attracted a lot of tourists but also resulted in a flood of donated bottles to help the monks realize their luminary vision. Since then, Thai monks in the Siasaket province just 370 miles northeast of Bangkok have used approximately 1.5 million glass bottles to create their temple.

While many eco-enthusiasts have incorporated recycled bottles into their décor, these creative and dedicated monks have taken it to a whole new level. Using a mixture of green Heineken bottles and brown Thai beer bottles, the monks find that the use of bottles as building materials is a practical solution, since the bottles don't lose their color and are easily cleaned; plus the thickness of beer bottles makes them durable enough to resist wear and tear.

Image via Wikipedia

The monks have also cleverly put beer bottle caps to good use by creating stunning mosaics depicting Buddha.


Moving beyond simple sustainability and to spiritual sustainability, Thai monks have taken beer, normally associated with common culture, and have created a cultural goldmine out of beer byproducts. They've single-handedly redefined recyclability, and raised the bar in an eco-conscious world.

If a handful of monks with limited resources can create this, what about the rest of us? The Beer Bottle Temple is a testament to eco-living that fuses practicality and spirituality to create a whole new forum for aesthetic design.


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