Welcome to our Earthbench

The Black Hill community built this Earthbench entirely from recycled and repurposed materials and earth as a symbol of the need for a more sustainable and peaceful world. During the fall of 2014, 263 volunteers came to the site to make bricks, build the structure, form the bench with cob, and decorate it with mosaic tile. The bench was a partnership involving Black Hill Nature Programs, the Friends of BHNP, Harvest Collective, artist Sue Stockman, the "So What Else" program, local school children, and hundreds of volunteers. Building an Earthbench is a multi-step process that can take several days to months to complete, and more than 1,100 volunteer hours went into this one. The first step created bricks from old plastic soda bottles filled with recyclable material, and these bricks, along with bamboo and broken concrete, formed the foundation. Cob, a mixture of sand, straw, clay, and water, was then applied over the bricks to form the bench, and as the cob dried, broken pieces of tile were added as mosaic decoration, including a butterfly, bat, beaver, and peace sign embedded in the design. Earthbenches call attention to the need to find sustainable options for trash; the typical American produces 4.4 pounds of trash every day, and through activities such as recycling and composting, 87.2 million tons of material can be kept from becoming trash.

Clarksburg, Maryland · United States