Courtesy: Keralites.net

A Buddhist monk built the Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew temple with more than a million recycled glass bottles in shades of green and brown. Temple is located in Thailand's Sisaket province, about 600 km (370 miles) northeast of Bangkok. The Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to utilize discarded bottles to reach nirvana -- using them to build everything in its premises, from a crematorium to shelters and toilets. The monks continue to gather recycled bottles so they can create more buildings with them.

The bottle-collection-turned-building started in 1984, when the monks used them to decorate their shelters. The shiny building material attracted more people to donate more bottles, until eventually they had enough to build the temple standing today. Bottle caps are also integrated as decorative mosaic murals. Going beyond use of glass as a sustainable building material, the bottle bricks don’t fade, let natural light into the space and are surprisingly easy to maintain. So if you’re looking to find Nirvana in a bottle, you might want to consider making a stop at the Wat Pa Maha Kaew Temple.

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