The plan is to build two bridges; work for one of the two has commenced, whereas the other one’s construction will start in the coming year.
Montreal in Canada will soon have two recycled wine bottles bridges by the year 2021.
For the first time in history, a bridge will be built with glass wine bottles. The bottle bridge project is all set on Nun’s Island and will be replacing two overpass bridges.
This surely is unconventional thinking regarding recycling, engineering, and architecture, and makes us think of plenty of other ways we could work general stuff.
Glass Bottle Bridges
Since 2011, Montreal has already been working to reduce climate change by introducing glass bottle powder into its pavements. Now, they thought of working the same for bridge construction.
Lead designer and engineer of the project, Étienne Cantin Bellemare, said that the project’s inspiration came from the research carried out by the Sherbrooke University. The research was focused on studying ‘Novel Ultra-High-Performance Glass Concrete.’
The idea of the project dates back to 2017 when Bellemare and his co-workers started to look out ways for integrating glass bottle powder on huge scales. And the Nuns’ Island Darwin bridge project is their pilot project.
70,000 wine bottles will be put to use again, this time for a more productive one. These used wine bottles powder will be mixed with 40,000 kilograms of cement to construct the bridge.
The two bridges construction will see a 10% use of glass wine bottles. This is not only an eco-friendly initiative, but also, it’s proven great in enhancing the strength of whatever is being constructed with the content of glass powder.
Bellemare said that the use of glass powder increases the durability of the building material. It effectively enhances the life of the build and provides better resistance from ice and salt.
Construction of one of the two wine bottle bridges will be completed in the coming weeks. However, the second bridge’s construction will begin in April of 2021.
Apart from being more sustainable, these wine bottle bridges will appear to be better too. A renowned architectural firm is working along and has shown pretty nice work with the curves.
