Residents from the Philippine city of Binan are mixing ash spewed from the Taal volcano with plastic waste to make bricks and rebuild houses and schools.
After the Taal volcano erupted last week, environmental officials in the region tried to come up with an inventive and more sustainable response to the country's persistent problems with pollution and frequent natural disasters.
"Instead of just piling up the ashfall somewhere, we are able to turn it into something useful. And it includes plastics, too," said city environmental officer Rodelio Lee.
The mayor of Binan asked residents to collect the fine gray ash shrouding homes, cars and roads and put it in sacks to be sent to a state-owned factory.
The ash is then combined with sand, cement and discarded plastic to create around 5,000 bricks per day for local building projects damaged since Taal.
"When the ash came, we thought we'd exchange the white sand which we mix with plastics to be converted into bricks with ash. We did it and they came out sturdy," city Mayor Walfredo Dimaguila told Reuters.