In vast deserts of Sahara, a man named Tateh Lehbib Barika is building houses out of plastic bottles for Sahrawi refugees. Sahrawi refugee camps of Algeria are home to thousands of refugees displaced by conflict in Western Sahara. Tateh too was born in one of se camps, according to World Habitat Organisation. His work came to light after United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees tweeted a video sharing his incredible story.
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Tateh's journey in making house of bottles

"Me and my family h to endure high temperatures, rain, and sandstorms that would sometimes take roof off," saif Tateh in his Sahrawi language which was translated by UNHCR in ir video.

Most of houses in Sahara are me of sun-dried bricks and roofs of zinc. This furr enhances interior temperature. Tateh too was born in such a house, he shared in video. extreme wear conditions and sand storms in Sahara make life of refugees quite difficult. Reportedly, being housed in camps, people did not get benefit of living in secured houses. Tateh, who was worried about his family decided to take steps to make ir lives comfortable.

On 2013, Tateh was chosen for scholarship from United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) to study renewable energy. After completing his course, she set out to build a house for his family. In video, he explained that his training gave him knowledge of choosing right materials and opt for a sustainable way to build those structures. In order to make house, Tateh used recycled plastic bottles filled with sand and straw as building blocks inste of bricks. se bottles block rain, sand and also outer white coating serves a s heat reflector and insulator. He joined bottles with cement and limestone to make houses stronger and comfortable. Locals now have nicknamed Tateh as 'Crazy with bottles'.

"When I came back to camps, I decided to build a place for my grandmor to live that was more comfortable and more worthy of her," Tateh said.

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UNHCR's post on Tateh goes viral

United Nations Refugee Agency has shared both a tweet and a Facebook video sharing Tateh's story. One can see plastic bottle houses built by him in video. It was first shared in Friday and since n Facebook video has collected more than 548K views and dozens of comments. A Facebook user wrote: "Great innovation, converting waste to building materials of used plastics". Similarly, anor wrote: "What a great way to use up plastic," and a third ded: "Thanks for protecting environment".

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