Philippines 1st environment-friendly chapel built in Bacolod

An environment-friendly chapel, solar-powered and constructed from indigenous and recycled materials has been opened on the University of Negros Occidental-Recoletos campus in the Philippine city of Bacolod. Students and other volunteers built the chapel using mud, bamboo, rice straw and stalk, cogon grass, old wine bottles, and discarded tiles and wood.

"The chapel is the first solar-powered religious edifice in the country. It is envisioned both to have a sound spiritual and environmental atmosphere, and LED lights are used to illumine the interior,” said Brother Tagoy Jakosalem, a member of The Climate Reality Project, in an article posted on the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines news site.

“Wine bottles are incorporated in the structure, natural lighting effects emanating from the green-colored wine bottles, serving as recyclable stained-glass windows."

According to Rodne Galicha, the Philippine district manager of The Climate Reality Project, the chapel is a "sustainable spiritual edifice that reconnects people to nature, to 'what we have been.'"

The Climate Reality Project in the Philippines promotes climate change adaptation and mitigation through observance of 8-Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, repair, refuse, rethink, rainforest and reconnect.