00:00 These bricks are made from seaweed.
00:05 The secret is sargassum, an invasive species washing up and rotting on beaches around North America.
00:14 The massive waves can lead to respiratory problems and can cost millions to clean up.
00:23 But where most people see a problem, Omar Vazquez saw potential.
00:29 He turns the seaweed into bricks strong enough to build homes that he says can withstand hurricanes.
00:37 Omar and his family immigrated to the U.S. with nothing in their pockets when he was just 8 years old.
00:49 Now, he uses his bricks to build homes for low-income families like the Lopezes.
00:55 We each have our own room. It's nice because we've always dreamed of it since we were little.
01:01 Could this invention help other countries clean up their coastlines?
01:05 We went to Mexico to see how entrepreneurs like Omar are making the most out of a stinky situation.
01:11 Omar and his team start collecting the seaweed at 5 a.m.
01:18 Today, they're in Puerto Morelos, a small beach town about 25 miles from Cancun.
01:24 When the sargassum arrived, the first thing people did was complain.
01:27 It smells bad, it stinks, it has fleas, it has everything.
01:33 Hotels pay them to get the seaweed off the beach and out of the view of tourists.
01:38 They collect about 40 metric tons of sargassum every day, enough to fill two of these containers.
01:43 It accumulates overnight. You have to work hard to finish the sargassum. It's increasing more.
01:53 The idea to turn seaweed into bricks came to Omar in 2018, when more than 50,000 metric tons of sargassum overran the coast.
02:01 Omar makes the bricks, which he calls "sarga blocks," at his workshop, 10 minutes from the beach.
02:17 Workers grind the dry sargassum into a fine powder by smashing it with rocks.
02:22 Then they mix it with dirt, which Omar repurposes from construction sites.
02:26 They shovel a mixture of sargassum dust and dirt through a grate to remove any large chunks.
02:32 They mix the powder with water to form a thick paste.
02:35 The exact recipe is a secret, but each brick is about 40 percent sargassum.
02:39 Sarga blocks can also be recycled again and again.
02:48 With this single machine, Omar can make up to 3,000 bricks a day.
02:52 He developed eight prototypes before perfecting this one.
02:55 Now he's designing a bigger machine that could produce 8,000 bricks a day.
02:59 He has six full-time employees making the bricks, and some help build homes, too.
03:06 It's difficult, but now we've seen people's faces when they've donated their houses.
03:13 It fills you up. You forget about the rest.
03:17 Since 2018, Omar has built more than 40 homes.
03:22 The first one is right next to his workshop.
03:25 He named it after his mother.
03:32 When he was eight years old, Omar left behind a home just like this one to cross the Mexico-U.S. border with his mother.
03:38 They wouldn't have a home of their own for the 30 years they lived in the U.S.
03:57 The American dream is a very painful dream.
03:59 It was a complicated life, living with a single mother, not having a father, not having a roof,
04:06 the issue of addiction, alcohol, drugs.
04:10 But I always had in my mind and in my heart to return to Mexico.
04:14 He finally returned to his home country for good in 2014, with just $55 in his pocket.
04:20 He used it to start a business buying and selling plants.
04:25 And he eventually saved enough money to buy this lot.
04:28 Developing Sargoblox required a lot of trial and error.
04:36 Omar's business is called Vivero Blue Green.
04:46 He makes most of his money selling plants and from hotels paying him to clean up the sargassum.
04:51 He also sells his bricks and builds houses.
04:55 He has sold more than 20 homes and given away another 15.
04:58 Omar admits the houses may not be fancy, but they are durable.
05:02 That's good news for Elizabeth Del Carmen Bonola-Lopez and her daughters.
05:16 Their home was destroyed in a hurricane in 2021.
05:19 Omar helped them rebuild it with Sargoblox.
05:23 A word that was falling from my mouth, that I had nothing,
05:26 was a house in Sargoblox that we feel safe in.
05:31 My daughters and I are happy.
05:34 It doesn't smell bad, it doesn't bring bugs.
05:37 It's more comfortable than any house because it adapts to the heat and the cold.
05:42 Indeed, research shows that seaweed is a great insulator that keeps homes cool in the summer and stores heat in the winter.
05:49 Usually, Omar hears about people in need through a friend or a local.
05:53 And there's no lack of raw material.
06:01 Over the past decade, waves of sargassum have gotten so large you can detect them from space.
06:06 In 2020, the Mexican government collected 19,000 metric tons of sargassum from Quintana Roo's beaches.
06:13 In 2021, it collected twice that amount.
06:17 Before, it was three months a year that you started seeing sargassum, four months.
06:21 And now we've seen that up to nine months, we've seen algae.
06:25 Studies show prolonged exposure can make it hard to breathe.
06:29 In 2023, the Cancun Hotel Association set aside more than $20 million to remove it from beaches.
06:36 And the problem goes beyond Mexico.
06:38 The invasive weed has spread to shores across North America, in Florida, Texas, and other parts of the Caribbean.
06:46 The exact cause of the increase isn't clear.
06:48 But some experts blame high levels of nitrogen in the sea, a result of agricultural waste runoff and deforestation.
06:55 So now, Omar's business is getting international attention.
07:00 He's given TED Talks, appeared on Shark Tank Mexico, and traveled internationally to promote his product.
07:06 Investors and businesses from over a dozen countries have reached out to learn from him.
07:11 Estados Unidos, Belize, Dominicana, Barbados, Martinica.
07:15 Omar is exploring licensing and franchising the SarcoBloc recipe to other businesses.
07:20 Elsewhere in Mexico, other entrepreneurs are experimenting with new ways to use sargassum, like making notebooks and even shoes.
07:29 A British startup called Seaweed Generation is using sargassum to capture carbon and store it at the bottom of the ocean.
07:38 Back in Mexico, Omar is simply grateful to be living in his home country, surrounded by the people he loves.
07:43 And after work, he returns to a home he built himself, using his own bricks.
07:48 Omar hopes his success will inspire others.
07:51 [Spanish]
08:00 [Music]
08:11 (whooshing)
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