• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, May 8, 2016

In November 2015, the Fundao Dam collapsed in Brazil, destroying hundreds of homes, schools, hospitals and more. In addition, the disaster covered miles and miles of land with mud. Grey Brazil decided to turn the disaster into something positive. 

Working with engineers and ecological brick factory Ecobrick, the agency launched a program whereby the mud was used to manufacture ecological bricks. which are said to be 7 times stronger than regular bricks. So far, more than 3,000 bricks have been manufactured by hand. 

Plans are in place to ramp up production in a factory setting with a local workforce that will transform over 11 million pounds of mud into 1.2 million bricks by the end of 2016. The bricks will be used to rebuild structures damaged by the collapse.