Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Our journey begins in Panama, on the island of Colon.

We're landing in the island capital Bocas del Toro

The island is green, covered in thick jungle,

actually a true holiday paradise.

But then...plastic bottles. A whole mound of them.

Plastic is a problem on the island, there is no recycling system.

Robert Bezeau is battling against the plastic waste.

The locals either burn it or just let it rot.

This takes 450 years.

- I am sad that this is going on everywhere on the planet.

This makes you realise, we are 7.3 billion humans

on the planet now. If each of us would drink

only one bottle a day that equals

to 2.66 trillion bottles a year.

NARRATOR: Robert’s mission - giving old plastic bottles a new purpose.

And he will show us on his property how he is intending to do so.

His plan is to build houses from the old plastic bottles.

Preferably on an industrial scale right away.

- Our dream is to build 120 houses out of plastic bottles from garbage.

It will be a green sustainable village.

NARRATOR: Houses made out of plastic waste and a green village?

How does this fit together? Robert shows us around his property,

a whole 33.5 hectares of jungle.

Here he wants to build his village.

The first prototype of a house is already finished.

The walls are made from plastic bottles, mostly still unplastered.

But it won’t stay this way. We will take a closer look in a minute.

- This is the first house I built.

It is a prototype. From a dream to reality,

but this house contains 10.000 bottles.

NARRATOR: House walls made from plastic bottles -

how do they have to be constructed that they are sturdy?

In the workshop we meet Felix.

He has been working for Robert for six months.

Inside it, the plastic bottles are so tightly packed

that there are almost no spaces left between them.

- This is one of the major pieces of the system.

It’s all cages with bottles trapped inside that we attach one together,

one to the other. It’s like the blocks for kids.

NARRATOR: The bottles don’t only vanish in the house walls,

they also have another important property.

- When the sun shines on one side of the panel and on the cement,

it cannot transfer to the other side because it is difficult,

because each bottle contains air and that air,

by the time the sun will heat the temperature inside the bottle

it is impossible, so that is why you get

17 degrees C difference.

NARRATOR: This also works the other way around.

In the winter the warmth stays in the house

and doesn’t leave the building. This is due to the fact

that the air in the bottles hardly moves

and is therefore a bad heat conductor.

Felix welds the cages with the plastic bottles shut.

Apparently it is supposed to be very durable.

Robert wants to prove this to us. A house wall throwing contest.

Slowly we realise Robert’s methods are a little unconventional.

- So, do you think seriously that this panel can resist a quake?

Imagine when you put a series of them

and we weld them together.

There is no way.

NARRATOR: The plastic bottles filled with air

make the walls flexible. This way they can resist vibrations better.

A clever construction. Robert is neither a trained architect

nor an engineer. He used to work in a factory.

All his knowledge about building houses is from the internet.

Three years ago he left Canada because he didn’t like the weather.

Already on his first day, he fell in love with this part of Panama.

But he soon realised what a huge waste disposal problem

his little paradise has.

At the moment, Robert and his employees

are working on the first house that they want to sell.

In the next month, the first inhabitants

of the plastic bottle village are supposed to move in.

The house walls made of plastic bottles

will not stay naked. They will get a protective layer of cement.

Inside the walls there are pipes with cables for the electricity,

between the plastic bottles.

Speaking of electricity, how safe is the house in case of a fire?

- We use only PET number one bottles.

Those bottles are special. They only have like 18% oil inside

so they don’t catch fire.

NARRATOR: PET stands for Polyethylene Terephthalate.

This kind of plastic is not very flammable.

Robert demonstrates.

But should it ever catch fire for whatever reason,

Robert has even installed a sprinkler system

on the inside of the wall.

And what do the locals think about Robert

and his plastic bottle houses?

We ask employee Felix.

- (speaking Spanish)

NARRATOR: The weather has changed.

But still the, new inhabitants want to visit

the building site of their new home.

Jeff and Justine are expecting a child.

When it is born they will move into the house with their baby.

And that is already next month.

- Here will be the room for your baby.

From that corner here we're going to build a wall...

coming up to here.

And then your kitchen.

NARRATOR: It only takes 50 days for the house to be completely finished.

But how did the two come up with the idea

of moving into a house made of plastic bottles?

- We went on a walk recently

and met Robert and he just inspired us.

He really inspired us to the future

and to new techniques of building and now being able to recycle

20,000 plastic bottles and turn them into a home...

it’s quite incredible.

NARRATOR: Of course, this isn’t only possible in the tropics.

Houses like these could be built all over the world. But

what is life like in a house like this?

Is there any comfort? Are there differences to a normal house?

Robert takes us to a hotel. Here he has already built a bungalow

completely out of plastic bottles.

But it doesn’t look like plastic at all

and doesn’t sound like it either.

- Nobody knows that there is bottles inside there.

You cannot tell once it is finished.

NARRATOR: Our verdict - the walls seem sturdy.

You can even simply hang pictures on the wall with the help of a nail.

Electricity - also working.

And this is supposed to become Robert's new home -

a castle made of plastic bottles.

But he has a lot more planned.

- My plan for the future is to train people

from all over the world to be able to do the same thing.

I dream that they go back to their respective countries

and start to do the same thing and they could show other people

and we could increase the usage

of the plastic bottle into the construction of houses.

NARRATOR: We think that Robert’s idea of building structures

out of plastic bottles is fantastic.

For him to be able to carry on,

we gladly leave our empty water bottles behind.

Our next mysterious place takes us to Greece.

We arrive in the land of the Gods - to be more specific,

on the Greek island of Kefalonia.

It is said that a curious phenomenon can be found here -

levitating boats. Apparently very close

to the idyllic coastal town of Sami.

But the boats that are harboured here definitely aren’t levitating.

Therefore we are driving to the Melissani cave.

Somewhere here we are supposed to be able to find them.

A tunnel leads us deep underground.

At the end of it is the only entrance to the cave.

But levitating boats? Not a single one.

There are simple rowing boats that are moored here in the water.

The cave is 20,000 years old

but has only been accessible to the public since the 1950s.

We have arranged to meet boatsman Nikos.

He has been working in the cave for ten years

and knows it inside out.

- (speaking Greek)

NARRATOR: Nikos rows into the 40m-wide dripstone cave with us.

The water is up to 35m deep.

NARRATOR: And it is really cold.

The water only catches about two hours

of direct sunlight per day.

Another factor is that it is constantly in motion.

NARRATOR: This is the first mystery about the cave -

the sea water vanishes in a hole

on the other side of the island and travels across it underground.

Two weeks later it reaches the cave that is about 30km away.

The crazy thing about this is that the water seems to flow uphill.

But nobody knows why.

NARRATOR: Mystery number two - levitating boats.

But we aren't doing so with our boat yet.

This is what it should look like. Are we doing something wrong?

NARRATOR: For this to happen the sun has to be perpendicular.

And it mustn’t be cloudy.

The chance of seeing levitating boats therefore only exists

for an hour and a half every day.

Nikos is used to waiting.

- (singing in Greek)

NARRATOR: While we are waiting for the sun Nikos shows us

his unusual working environment.

Scientists have to regularly check the statics of the cave

because about every two months, a small earthquake occurs here.

It is almost noon. Therefore we row back

into the magic part of the cave.

The sun is slowly beginning to shine into the crater.

NARRATOR: So we wait and wait and... wait.

Slowly we are beginning to ask ourselves

if the phenomenon doesn’t exist after all.

The cave is slowly beginning to fill up with other impatient visitors.

And then...

NARRATOR: And really, as soon as the sun is shining vertically

into the cave the boats begin to levitate.

It is most important for the perspective to be correct.

If you are in a boat you barely see the phenomenon.

As the boat is reflected in the surface of the water

only now do we notice all the boats are painted blue. Why?

NARRATOR: We want to have a look at this from below and go for a dive.

Underwater we can clearly see a shadow on the bottom of the cave.

But why do the right light and the correct perspective

give the impression that the boat is floating?

Every water surface is transparent, as in clear.

We only recognise it as the surface

through the reflections of the surroundings.

As the blue sky is usually reflected in the water

it appears to be blue to us.

The lake is surrounded by black rocks.

They are barely reflected and the clear water remains translucent.

When the light falls into the cave through the hole at the top

at a vertical angle, nothing is reflected in the water.

The surface seems to be translucent.

Another reason for no reflections in the water -

the blue boats create the perfect illusion.

They have the same colour as the water and therefore,

we can barely see their reflection.

The boats really seem to float -

a truly fascinating optical illusion.

Our search takes us to the Australian mega city Sydney.

Known for its architectural highlights such as Harbour Bridge

and the Opera House.

In this metropolis there are over 650 skyscrapers

but one building is quite exceptional...

..the One Central Park Tower.

A high-rise that combines nature and city.

The outside is completely overgrown with green plants.

We also discover a gigantic mirror construction on the roof.

We will find out later what its use exactly is.

In order to find out what this vertical garden is all about

we are meeting facility manager Kieran McAllister.

- A couple of things that you notice with green walls around the world

is that there is usually a mark about 2m

where people go and touch and feel

so we're often doing replacements of plants

in these lower sections cos people go up to see if it's real.

NARRATOR: They are definitely real.

250 different plants grow on the facade.

They are attached with stone wool.

This gives them the necessary grip and also functions as its soil.

But a vertical garden, too, requires attention.

- Right now we have our maintenance team up there.

Our maintenance team on site consists of six full-time people.

They're undertaking some pruning, general pest maintenance

and just making sure that everything is working correctly on site.

NARRATOR: Over 36,000 plants grow here.

The vertical garden is not only an eye catcher,

it is also actively involved in improving

the air quality in the city.

- If you have a look closely at these leaves,

this is a fantastic example of what plants can do in the city.

All of this black soot and mess that you see on these leaves

is actually the particulate matter from the cars

that we see next to us. Normally this would be stirred up

into the air but plants have the fantastic ability

of actually trapping this particulate matter.

NARRATOR: Contaminants from car fumes, for example,

stick to the oily leaves of the plants.

Special enzymes then turn the poisons

into harmless substances again.

This way, the vertical garden acts as an air filter

for the city.

For this to work the plants need sunlight.

For this reason the architects have installed

this unusual mirror construction on the green skyscraper.

A total of 320 reflectors make sure that the sunlight

reaches all the levels that would otherwise

be in the shade for most of the time.

But what is life like in the breathing skyscraper?

To find out about this, we are meeting a resident.

Kenneth Lindstedt has been living on the 12th floor with his family

since the building opened.

Living sustainably is expensive. For his 65-square-metre flat

the stock broker pays $3,400 per month.

- There is an automatic watering system

so there is no maintenance required with the exterior itself.

Someone comes once a year, they come down and cut the plants

if they get too big. And that’s it.

NARRATOR: So Kenneth doesn’t have to water the plants himself.

Due to the many plants, the walls of the building

are usually in the shade. During the hot summer, a huge advantage.

Also, through the evaporating water from when the plants are watered

a cooling effect takes place. This helps save energy.

Kenneth only uses the air-conditioning

on especially hot days.

But the vertical garden does have one setback.

For spiders and bugs it is the ideal environment.

- This is Sydney, so there are many more spiders in other apartments.

I picked this apartment because is new, it is fairly Insect-free.

I think we've seen two spiders.

NARRATOR: The house also has its own water purification plant,

plant watering system and toilet - both use recycled water.

This way the water consumption of the house is even lower

than that of normal houses.

Kenneth can check his water and energy usage

via an installed home panel.

- Here we can see information that...

Electricity, how much we've used, cold water, warm water.

NARRATOR: The green skyscraper of Sydney -

a landmark for what our future could look like.

8:00am in Kiev - we're paying $300 directly

to tourist guide Elena at the bus terminal.

Today we are visiting a mysterious place, Chernobyl.

In the 1980s a catastrophe happened in the nuclear power plant there.

For $10 extra it is possible