Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew ( th, วัดป่ามหาเจดีย์แก้ว; , literally ''Wilderness Temple of the Great Glass Pagoda''), also known as the Temple of a Million Bottles, is a

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

temple A temple (from the Latin ) is a building reserved for spiritual rituals and activities such as prayer and sacrifice. Religions which erect temples include Christianity (whose temples are typically called churches), Hinduism (whose temples ...

in Khun Han district of

Sisaket ) , leader_title1 = , leader_name1 = , leader_title2 = , leader_name2 = , leader_title3 = , leader_name3 = , leader_title4 ...

province,

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. The temple is made of over 1.5 million empty

Heineken Heineken Lager Beer ( nl, Heineken Pilsener), or simply Heineken () is a pale lager beer with 5% alcohol by volume produced by the Dutch brewing company Heineken N.V. Heineken beer is sold in a green bottle with a red star. History On 15 Febr ...

bottles and Chang

beer Beer is one of the oldest and the most widely consumed type of alcoholic drink in the world, and the third most popular drink overall after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of starches, mainly derived from ce ...

bottle A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material (such as glass, plastic or aluminium) in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal stopp ...

s. Collection of the bottles began in 1984; it took two years to build the main temple. Thereafter, the

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s continued to expand the site, and by 2009 some 20 buildings had been similarly constructed.

History

The story of the temple's construction states that the local

monks were seeking a means to help

waste disposal Waste management or waste disposal includes the processes and actions required to manage waste from its inception to its final disposal. This includes the collection, transport, treatment and disposal of waste, together with monitoring ...

and help the local area lead a greener lifestyle. Through the collection of

glass Glass is a non-crystalline, often transparent, amorphous solid that has widespread practical, technological, and decorative use in, for example, window panes, tableware, and optics. Glass is most often formed by rapid cooling (quenching) of ...

s, it was decided that they could be used as a construction material. They now continue to build using bottles to reduce

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

emissions and to keep the bottles out of

landfills A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

. According to the ''

China Daily ''China Daily'' () is an English-language daily newspaper owned by the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Overview ''China Daily'' has the widest print circulation of any English-language newspaper in China. T ...

'', "The Thai Buddhist temple has found an environmentally friendly way to utilize discarded bottles to reach

nirvana ( , , ; sa, निर्वाण} ''nirvāṇa'' ; Pali: ''nibbāna''; Prakrit: ''ṇivvāṇa''; literally, "blown out", as in an oil lampRichard Gombrich, ''Theravada Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benāres to Modern Colombo.' ...

Construction

Million Bottle Temple Detail (7447385740)

The main temple has a concrete core, with collected bottles used as construction materials. Two types of bottles are used; green

bottles and brown Chang bottles. After the local monks began to collect them in 1984 for use as a building material, the local government sent additional bottles. In addition to the bottles themselves, the

bottle cap A bottle cap or bottle top is a closure for the top opening of a bottle. A cap is sometimes colourfully decorated with the logo of the brand of contents. Plastic caps are used for plastic bottles, while metal with plastic backing is used for gl ...

s are used to create

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

s. there were a total of 20 buildings constructed in this fashion; in addition to the temple there were a

crematorium A crematorium or crematory is a venue for the cremation of the dead. Modern crematoria contain at least one cremator (also known as a crematory, retort or cremation chamber), a purpose-built furnace. In some countries a crematorium can also be ...

, a series of

prayer room A chapel is a Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. Firstly, smaller spaces inside a church that have their own altar are often called chapels; the Lady chapel is a common type ...

s, the local

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

, bathrooms for the use of tourists as well as several raised bungalows which are used as housing for the monks. The main temple took two years to construct, but as the materials were still available the site is continually expanded. By 2009 there were more than 1.5 million bottles in use in the construction works at the temple site, leading to Wat Pa Maha Chedi Kaew also being known as the "Temple of a Million Bottles." In 2015, it was named one of the ten leading examples of

sustainable architecture Sustainable architecture is architecture that seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings through improved efficiency and moderation in the use of materials, energy, development space and the ecosystem at large. Sustainable ...

by travel website When on Earth. Parenthetically, 50 years ago the Heineken company looked into changing their bottles so that they could be used as building blocks, a construction material. While nothing came of that, the monks found a way.

References

{{reflist, 30em Buddhist temples in Thailand Visionary environments Sustainable architecture 1984 establishments in Thailand Glass bottles Sisaket province Religious buildings and structures completed in 1986 Glass buildings

History

Construction

See also

References