As the driving force behind Da Vinci High School’s recent “zero waste week,” senior Andre Almeida found a way to ensure that all garbage produced on the campus that wasn’t being composted or recycled still served a purpose other than sitting in a landfill.

Very soon, in fact, students will be sitting on that waste instead.

Taking a cue from folks at UC Davis, Almeida and classmates have been stuffing plastic bottles with unrecyclable plastic film waste, and those “bottle bricks” soon will take the form of a bench at the Da Vinci campus on East Eighth Street.

It was last spring, on Earth Day in fact, that Almeida helped build a bottle-brick bench at the Domes. The man behind that project — Brennan Blazer Bird — will help Almeida and company with the Da Vinci bench.

Da Vinci’s version, which will sit just outside the school’s office, will be smaller than the Domes bench, Almeida said, but the method of building bottle bricks remains the same.

Using sticks, students pack the plastic waste — which includes everything from sandwich baggies and candy wrappers to cellophane and plastic gloves — into plastic bottles.

“There’s a lot that you can stuff in one bottle,” Almeida said. “You’d be amazed. It gets really dense.”

The stuffed bottles, along with earth bags, will then form the base of the bench.

Over the structure will be poured Cobb — a mixture of clay, straw and sand that students will mix themselves and that will harden to form a comfortable surface on which to sit.

Collecting all that trash to begin with required a concerted effort by Almeida and some classmates in the new environmental science class at Da Vinci, which is focused on making the campus a more environmentally friendly place.

“Andre was the driving force behind implementation of zero waste week,” said teacher Bekah Rottenberg. “(He) seized the opportunity to not only do something positive for the school, but create a lasting impression.”

Rottenberg said Almeida rallied 10 other students to implement the zero waste week, which involved setting up bins all over campus, making a video to publicize the event and spending hours every day sorting trash.

They also secured $800 from the school’s green team to buy assorted materials needed for the bench.

Almeida said it was the first time Da Vinci attempted a zero waste week, “and it was really cool.”

“Students really stepped up,” he added.

At the same time, he said, it did take a lot of effort on the part of his group, so if it were to become a regular part of life at Da Vinci, “we would have to have a group of students really committed to this to make it work (more often).”

Almeida plans a community bottle-stuffing day on Tuesday, where participants can bring their own plastic film waste and bottles and help make a lasting contribution to the school in the form of a bench. The event will take place on the Da Vinci campus, 1400 E. Eighth St., from 2 to 4 p.m.

— Reach Anne Ternus-Bellamy at [email protected] or (530) 747-8051.

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A bottle-brick bench sits outside the Baggins End Domes on the UC Davis campus. Brennan Bird, who designed and supervised the building of this bench, will help Da Vinci High School students build a similar one on their campus. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

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Andre Almeida stuffs a plastic bottle with film waste that cannot be recycled. The stuffed bottles, along with earth bags, will form the base of a bench to be built on the Da Vinci High School campus on East Eighth Street. A mixture of clay, straw and sand called Cobb will be poured over the base. It hardens to form a comfortable surface on which to sit. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

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