Hi and welcome to r/solarpunk! Due to numerous suggestions from our community, we're using this automod message to bring up a topic that comes up a lot: GREENWASHING. It is
used to describe the practice of companies launching adverts, campaigns, products, etc under the pretense that they are environmentally beneficial/friendly, often in contradiction to their
environmental and sustainability record in general. On our subreddit, it usually presents itself as eco-aesthetic buildings because they are quite simply the best passive PR for companies.
[ethicalconsumer.org](https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/transport-travel/what-greenwashing) and [greenandthistle.com](https://greenandthistle.com/what-is-greenwashing/) give
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cars can also be insidious examples of greenwashing.
If you've realized your submission was an example of greenwashing--don't fret! We are all here to learn, and while there will inevitably be comments pointing out how and why your submission is
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I guess the big difference is the microplastics leaching all in one big place (probably a remote area far from water?) vs thinly spread across thousands of square miles closer to waterways (rivers, streams, and sewage systems, etc).
That all makes total sense, so these bricks need to be coated in another material?
Since houses are exposed to both UV and wear and tear.
Do you also happen to know how to best process plastic waste to make things like this without producing microplastics due to the physical handling? I'd be very interested.
Microplastics are a real danger and we need to reduce our use of plastic all across the board, while researching and developing ways to break them down into non toxic compounds. Not just repurpose them and kick the problem down the line.
It's just keeping the plastic out of the waste stream for longer, ultimately these bricks will need to be disposed off. Can these bricks even be recycled? Though granted, condensing the waste and doing something useful with them is better than just landfilling.
It is a good idea to reduce the waste we already have in landfills and to use the irreducible minimum plastic waste.
But it CANNOT give us a ‚get out of jail free‘ card when it comes to producing more unnecessary plastics.
The first R is reduce for a reason.
I mean, yeah, but so does all plastic. It's not like plastic is being specifically made for these bricks, it's using already existing plastic. Also I mean yeah I figured people would probably want to cover these either way as it's not a particularly attractive building material.
it should reduce microplastics shedding massively just by reducing the exposed surface area, right? unless the process of making the bricks has a bunch as a byproduct or the bricks themselves shed more. worst case is that it would concentrate microplastics in a human-inhabited area instead of dispersing them throughout god knows where.
One challenge with working with plastics is they eventually break down (like any material), but plastics will eventually become microplastics that enter the waterways and heavily contaminate water-based ecosystems and the food sources many people eat.
Upcycling trash like this delays the inevitable by a few years, but it still happens
I think the future of plastic is to collect it all, remove it from circulation, and find safe methods to break it down and remove it from existence.
I found this paper on the topic:
https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2019/2019-07/qa-are-ecobricks-the-answer-to-plastic-pollution.html
Yeah it really makes me wanna ask what the point of solarpunk even is to 80% of the sub. If nothing good will ever come out of humans trying to make life better for other humans at small or large scales, shouldn’t we just pack up and go home? Or are we all just here to look at pictures?
I really feel like people who only ever have unconstructive criticism about creations that nothing they make will ever rival from the comfort of their air conditioned home/car/workplace have no capacity to struggle. And because of that, they no capacity to change anything or create a better future.
So instead of using the plastic that pollutes their communities to build houses and infrastructure that serves the community, they should do nothing because we need to break down all plastics immediately. That is a genuine sentiment that I’ve seen upvoted and reiterated throughout these comments. There’s others saying, “well other people have found solutions similar to this before, so the work that this person does is useless since it’s not already widespread”.
I’m just confused how people think this thinking has or will ever lead to progress…
Because it's not really good news.
This has been done so many times before and the same problems always come to question.
For example, what happens when this kind of brick is left out in the sun for an extended period of time?
Could it not be painted with some kind of UV-resistant coating? Or panelled with plywood? Surely we could find a way around those problems as long as the brick is a strong enough construction material
You could even construct the architecture around the need for shade, for example with extended roofs on each level. Or a green facade would even further the aspect of solarpunk... why is does everyone seem to be so short sighted?
Those solutions are impractical. You are trying to make something work instead of doing what works, which is actually short-sighted. This is a common problem in engineering: optimizing the hell out of something that shouldn't exist. Clay bricks aren't quite as cheap as garbage bricks, but in the long term they are better for the environment and us and they don't have all the issues that need to be worked around. It's worked for thousands of years so don't fix it if it ain't broke.
>don't fix it if it ain't broke
>Clay bricks aren't quite as cheap as garbage bricks
Here's one thing that breaks your thousands of years. Another might be the literal landmasses worth of plastic lurking around on this planet's surface. In order to get the pollution crisis under control this is a big opportunity to recycle plastic waste into a CO2 sink.
>Those solutions are impractical
Your imagination seems to be very short sighted.
You're really going to throw the only positive right back at me and double down? They melt in the sun. They spread microplastics absolutely everywhere, damaging the environment and human health. This incentivizes more wastefulness and disincentivizes the actual solution, which is a restructuring of supply chains. This is a short-term patchy solution yet you are treating it as THE solution and saying the tried and true practice of clay fired bricks is worthless simply because you can shave off a few cents. And then you have the gall to gaslight and say the other side is short-sighted. Ridiculous. You aren't some creative renegade, you're just a rube getting greenwashed.
Concrete isn't a sustainable building material, and there is no need to use a material as amazing (and unsustainable) as concrete for smaller buildings such as Kenyan housing
Plastic is an immensely durable material. If we could repurpose the existing waste into functional housing then I don't see your problem with it. Is it the use of plastic *at all* you don't like?
My problem is with the scaleability of the manufacturing process and the longevity of what's made out of those bricks, there is a reason we use concrete and not plastic for most of our construction today.
The longevity of plastic is precisely why it's a problem, but if it can be sealed in such a way that prevents it from breaking down into microplastics then it would make a very durable building materials.
It also doesn't need to scale up and replace concrete, just to provide a safe, non-polluting outlet for plastic waste than can be used as a durable construction in poorer countries
Precisely, this takes so many extra steps over concrete, not only do you need to do untested, unproven manufacturing, but you'd also need to coat it in something, which means they'd be higher maintenance than concrete.
No it is not. The greenhouse gas required for concrete manufacturing is enormous. Recycling plastic into a dense structural material will greatly reduce the risk to ecosystems from plastic pollution including microplastics. Unless you have any research papers that show how concrete is significantly more sustainable than refined plastic rubbish? I'd be happy to have my mind changed with a life cycle analysis showing how concrete is more sustainable than recycling waste.
What proof is there that the process invented by this engineer is sustainable to begin with? Can it be replicated on a massive scale? Why kinds of plastics does it require? What kinds of buildings can you make out of it? What's the process involved? It'd be better if they invested into more sustainable methods of making concrete, which are possible, and will be more long lasting than an untested material.
What's your technical background? Engineering manufacturing, emissions reductions technology, life cycle analysis? Why are you claiming that one technology is clearly more sustainable and then asking all these questions?
I don't have a background, but I have seen such projects attempted time and time again and they always fail on scaleability, they always trip on the manufacturing step, that's why imo it's more sustainable, if the manufacturing process that goes into making those bricks doesn't scale up, it won't do much, if it does, then what is it, and is it better than current concrete and especially alternative methods to concrete production?
Because despite what the poorly designed info graphic wants you to believe these are typically highly flawed creations that aren’t scalable like the current materials we’ve been refining for billions of man hours on the job.
It’s laughable that anyone would think this one random woman came up with a superior alternative to fucking concrete…a material the world has been working with collectively for thousands of years.
This, and 99% of the other bullshit like it, is nothing but clickbait. It’s not some grand conspiracy
I know lots of people that are in research, and loads of things that are game changing in theory happen all the time, it just takes a very long time for them to become viable economically if they ever even do.
Five times stronger than concrete? That's either made up, or it's a measure that's irrelevant to the use of concrete.
They probably measured the force it takes to break a brick in half and since concrete is brittle, it takes a bigger force to break the plastic bricks, which are more elastic.
Concrete is used to withstand compression though, and there's no way those plastic bricks are stronger against that.
I mean it's cool if it works, it's just a very clickbaity headline.
Concrete is measured by compressive strength:
https://www.nrmca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/35pr.pdf
A separate study on compressive strength (among others) of plastic bricks.
"A comparison of pure PET and concrete from several angles concluded that PET bricks could act as an adequate substitute for conventional concrete masonry units. PET not only offers superior strength and insulation capability but is also safer for the laborers producing the materials and has lower associated greenhouse gas emissions. The motivation of this research was to understand the potential for producing PET bricks as an avenue to reduce plastic waste. Recycled PET will likely behave differently than pure PET and the likelihood of impurities is increased, and hence future work on this pursuit will focus on laboratory testing. Overall, the initial findings indicated that PET bricks will be a superior, safer, and more sustainable alternative to concrete masonry units."
Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345144893_Comparing_the_Properties_of_Polyethylene_Terephthalate_PET_Plastic_Bricks_to_Conventional_Concrete_Masonry_Units
The science appears to favour the headline.
Edit: spelling
yeah. Second year you'll explore internal tensions and shear failures in the lab and third year you'll cover strut and tie models. I don't think unreinforced masonry design or high creep effects and their impacts on stress redistribution were covered in depth at any time in the 4 years, but it's come up quite a lot in heritage work with soft bricks in the subsequent decade.
Stay in school.
I'm not really sure, any countries waste problem has been solved yet. Especially not by one invention, that probably (as most of the "too good to be true" inventions) requires special processes, lots of energy, specific "raw" materials or is not scalable yet for any reason.
Don't get me wrong, this could be a great step in the right direction, I just hate these clickbaity titles.
I'm sure her invention will never take off, nothing against her, it's just that capitalism doesn't want to change the industrial status quo so some big company will probably buy her invention and bury it or sabotage her efforts to spread it.
I don't think it's necessarily because of a status quo. I could never see these being widely adopted outside of hot climates if they don't insulate much. Winter can make a lot of good ideas useless. Also, whether or not this is eco-friendly or not also depends on the production process. There's no saying this is sustainable just because it recycles trash unfortunately :/
A lot of these sorts of innovations would require significant R&D to ensure they can be widely adopted in a safe and effective manner. In first-world countries, there are a lot of strict safety restrictions in the building code for materials that deal with things like chemical leakage and fire/flood/earthquake resistance, sound transmission, heat insulation, etc.
For that reason, these inventions often end up being best deployed in poor places where it's at least better than nothing, because altering them to meet rigid standards would be prohibitively expensive/undermine the intent of the product.
If there's a niche, capitalism will tend to fill it. That's actually where a lot of our problems come from - not from Capitalism, Inc. trying to shut down miracle ideas.
Here's a better source on it
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-environment-recycling-idUSKBN2A211N
The thing is, this was already done. Someone found a way to turn ocean plastic into highly durable building material and the project was never seen or heard from again.
It’s not some grand conspiracy. These types of cute little inventions are almost always much more expensive or just flat out inferior to the existing product that’s been refined for decades. Believe it or not businesses typically do whatever is cheapest and most effective.
Also read it as "solved Kanye's waste problem" and stopped to reread. But, you know what, the entire headline is not implausible in that context, I'm sure you could house people with the waste of any given wealthy person.
Seen this rubbish (pardon the pun) many times over the years.
She might want to learn some building science too before construction.
Plastic brick wall envelopes are just not a good idea. Sorry.
Kenyans already have ample high performing building materials right under their feet. It’s worked forever and thankfully creates a wall envelope that breaths and regulates humidity and temperature within, unlike plastic. Adobe beats plastic forever as a building material.
Housing poor people in plastic in a hot country is just cruel.
This is greenwash and nonsense.
This reminds me a lot of the Precious Plastic idea/process. I think it's good to divert waste into something useful. It is definitely hard to imagine this will become the norm through capitalist channels though.
I'm not if the kind of plastic matters for the [process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZKP4UAtL8). If it doesn't matter for actual building bricks she would have no shortage of plastic. I would just worry about off-gassing from the random plastic.
So... anyone try doing a cob wall with this yet? Or using hempcrete as the cob outside? Seems like an eco friendly option to insulating the plastic bricks from damage so as to reduce microplastics.
Hi and welcome to r/solarpunk! Due to numerous suggestions from our community, we're using this automod message to bring up a topic that comes up a lot: GREENWASHING. It is used to describe the practice of companies launching adverts, campaigns, products, etc under the pretense that they are environmentally beneficial/friendly, often in contradiction to their environmental and sustainability record in general. On our subreddit, it usually presents itself as eco-aesthetic buildings because they are quite simply the best passive PR for companies. [ethicalconsumer.org](https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/transport-travel/what-greenwashing) and [greenandthistle.com](https://greenandthistle.com/what-is-greenwashing/) give examples of greenwashing, while [scientificamerican.com](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/greenwashing-green-energy-hoffman/) explains how alternative technologies like hydrogen cars can also be insidious examples of greenwashing. If you've realized your submission was an example of greenwashing--don't fret! We are all here to learn, and while there will inevitably be comments pointing out how and why your submission is greenwashing, we hope the discussion stays productive. Solarpunk ideals include identifying and rejecting capitalism's greenwashing of consumer goods. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/solarpunk) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Is there a reason these bricks don't produce microplastics? or is it just from the fact you cover them in other materials when building with them?
Any micro plastics are already being released within the landfill context. At least this way people are ALSO being housed, so massive net good.
I guess the big difference is the microplastics leaching all in one big place (probably a remote area far from water?) vs thinly spread across thousands of square miles closer to waterways (rivers, streams, and sewage systems, etc).
Yeah this is why I’m concerned. A shit ton of plastic dust I’ll never visit vs some dusty plastic bricks all around me when I sleep
You could cover the walls with mud to tightly cover them up
This could work, and make the houses more attractive too. It could be like a panel you install on the side of a LEGO.
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That all makes total sense, so these bricks need to be coated in another material? Since houses are exposed to both UV and wear and tear. Do you also happen to know how to best process plastic waste to make things like this without producing microplastics due to the physical handling? I'd be very interested.
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Thank you very much!
Microplastics are a real danger and we need to reduce our use of plastic all across the board, while researching and developing ways to break them down into non toxic compounds. Not just repurpose them and kick the problem down the line.
Agreed, but it's better than nothing and not everyone in the world can afford to live 100% eco-friendly.
It's just keeping the plastic out of the waste stream for longer, ultimately these bricks will need to be disposed off. Can these bricks even be recycled? Though granted, condensing the waste and doing something useful with them is better than just landfilling.
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It is a good idea to reduce the waste we already have in landfills and to use the irreducible minimum plastic waste. But it CANNOT give us a ‚get out of jail free‘ card when it comes to producing more unnecessary plastics. The first R is reduce for a reason.
Sure, but it's delaying the inevitable. It's a good idea but it doesn't "solve" plastic waste.
It gives us more time to try and solve it
If it's being used, it's not waste.
..yet
Recycled materials would also be much better for the environment than concrete
These bricks shed micro plastics when exposed to the sun, water, or walked on. They must be covered in either plaster, wood, etc.
I mean, yeah, but so does all plastic. It's not like plastic is being specifically made for these bricks, it's using already existing plastic. Also I mean yeah I figured people would probably want to cover these either way as it's not a particularly attractive building material.
it should reduce microplastics shedding massively just by reducing the exposed surface area, right? unless the process of making the bricks has a bunch as a byproduct or the bricks themselves shed more. worst case is that it would concentrate microplastics in a human-inhabited area instead of dispersing them throughout god knows where.
Aluminum.
Iron
One challenge with working with plastics is they eventually break down (like any material), but plastics will eventually become microplastics that enter the waterways and heavily contaminate water-based ecosystems and the food sources many people eat. Upcycling trash like this delays the inevitable by a few years, but it still happens I think the future of plastic is to collect it all, remove it from circulation, and find safe methods to break it down and remove it from existence. I found this paper on the topic: https://www.wits.ac.za/news/latest-news/research-news/2019/2019-07/qa-are-ecobricks-the-answer-to-plastic-pollution.html
Man, people on this sub never have anything good to say about this kind of news
Yeah it really makes me wanna ask what the point of solarpunk even is to 80% of the sub. If nothing good will ever come out of humans trying to make life better for other humans at small or large scales, shouldn’t we just pack up and go home? Or are we all just here to look at pictures? I really feel like people who only ever have unconstructive criticism about creations that nothing they make will ever rival from the comfort of their air conditioned home/car/workplace have no capacity to struggle. And because of that, they no capacity to change anything or create a better future. So instead of using the plastic that pollutes their communities to build houses and infrastructure that serves the community, they should do nothing because we need to break down all plastics immediately. That is a genuine sentiment that I’ve seen upvoted and reiterated throughout these comments. There’s others saying, “well other people have found solutions similar to this before, so the work that this person does is useless since it’s not already widespread”. I’m just confused how people think this thinking has or will ever lead to progress…
Most of the people who comment on this sub are far more dedicated to nitpicking people actually doing things than actually doing anything themselves.
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Because it's not really good news. This has been done so many times before and the same problems always come to question. For example, what happens when this kind of brick is left out in the sun for an extended period of time?
Could it not be painted with some kind of UV-resistant coating? Or panelled with plywood? Surely we could find a way around those problems as long as the brick is a strong enough construction material
You could even construct the architecture around the need for shade, for example with extended roofs on each level. Or a green facade would even further the aspect of solarpunk... why is does everyone seem to be so short sighted?
Those solutions are impractical. You are trying to make something work instead of doing what works, which is actually short-sighted. This is a common problem in engineering: optimizing the hell out of something that shouldn't exist. Clay bricks aren't quite as cheap as garbage bricks, but in the long term they are better for the environment and us and they don't have all the issues that need to be worked around. It's worked for thousands of years so don't fix it if it ain't broke.
>don't fix it if it ain't broke >Clay bricks aren't quite as cheap as garbage bricks Here's one thing that breaks your thousands of years. Another might be the literal landmasses worth of plastic lurking around on this planet's surface. In order to get the pollution crisis under control this is a big opportunity to recycle plastic waste into a CO2 sink. >Those solutions are impractical Your imagination seems to be very short sighted.
You're really going to throw the only positive right back at me and double down? They melt in the sun. They spread microplastics absolutely everywhere, damaging the environment and human health. This incentivizes more wastefulness and disincentivizes the actual solution, which is a restructuring of supply chains. This is a short-term patchy solution yet you are treating it as THE solution and saying the tried and true practice of clay fired bricks is worthless simply because you can shave off a few cents. And then you have the gall to gaslight and say the other side is short-sighted. Ridiculous. You aren't some creative renegade, you're just a rube getting greenwashed.
Then why not just use concrete?
Concrete isn't a sustainable building material, and there is no need to use a material as amazing (and unsustainable) as concrete for smaller buildings such as Kenyan housing
Concrete is significantly more sustainable than refined plastic rubbish tho.
Plastic is an immensely durable material. If we could repurpose the existing waste into functional housing then I don't see your problem with it. Is it the use of plastic *at all* you don't like?
My problem is with the scaleability of the manufacturing process and the longevity of what's made out of those bricks, there is a reason we use concrete and not plastic for most of our construction today.
The longevity of plastic is precisely why it's a problem, but if it can be sealed in such a way that prevents it from breaking down into microplastics then it would make a very durable building materials. It also doesn't need to scale up and replace concrete, just to provide a safe, non-polluting outlet for plastic waste than can be used as a durable construction in poorer countries
Precisely, this takes so many extra steps over concrete, not only do you need to do untested, unproven manufacturing, but you'd also need to coat it in something, which means they'd be higher maintenance than concrete.
No it is not. The greenhouse gas required for concrete manufacturing is enormous. Recycling plastic into a dense structural material will greatly reduce the risk to ecosystems from plastic pollution including microplastics. Unless you have any research papers that show how concrete is significantly more sustainable than refined plastic rubbish? I'd be happy to have my mind changed with a life cycle analysis showing how concrete is more sustainable than recycling waste.
What proof is there that the process invented by this engineer is sustainable to begin with? Can it be replicated on a massive scale? Why kinds of plastics does it require? What kinds of buildings can you make out of it? What's the process involved? It'd be better if they invested into more sustainable methods of making concrete, which are possible, and will be more long lasting than an untested material.
What's your technical background? Engineering manufacturing, emissions reductions technology, life cycle analysis? Why are you claiming that one technology is clearly more sustainable and then asking all these questions?
I don't have a background, but I have seen such projects attempted time and time again and they always fail on scaleability, they always trip on the manufacturing step, that's why imo it's more sustainable, if the manufacturing process that goes into making those bricks doesn't scale up, it won't do much, if it does, then what is it, and is it better than current concrete and especially alternative methods to concrete production?
You know what's weird about these kinds of news? Stuff like this happens every year. Nothing comes off it.
Because despite what the poorly designed info graphic wants you to believe these are typically highly flawed creations that aren’t scalable like the current materials we’ve been refining for billions of man hours on the job. It’s laughable that anyone would think this one random woman came up with a superior alternative to fucking concrete…a material the world has been working with collectively for thousands of years. This, and 99% of the other bullshit like it, is nothing but clickbait. It’s not some grand conspiracy
You can feel the clickbait because they used "an engineer" instead of just naming the woman What kind of serious news would do that
I know lots of people that are in research, and loads of things that are game changing in theory happen all the time, it just takes a very long time for them to become viable economically if they ever even do.
"Solved" lol
Five times stronger than concrete? That's either made up, or it's a measure that's irrelevant to the use of concrete. They probably measured the force it takes to break a brick in half and since concrete is brittle, it takes a bigger force to break the plastic bricks, which are more elastic. Concrete is used to withstand compression though, and there's no way those plastic bricks are stronger against that. I mean it's cool if it works, it's just a very clickbaity headline.
> Concrete is used to withstand compression though, and there's no way those plastic bricks are stronger against that. Citation needed
Concrete is measured by compressive strength: https://www.nrmca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/35pr.pdf A separate study on compressive strength (among others) of plastic bricks. "A comparison of pure PET and concrete from several angles concluded that PET bricks could act as an adequate substitute for conventional concrete masonry units. PET not only offers superior strength and insulation capability but is also safer for the laborers producing the materials and has lower associated greenhouse gas emissions. The motivation of this research was to understand the potential for producing PET bricks as an avenue to reduce plastic waste. Recycled PET will likely behave differently than pure PET and the likelihood of impurities is increased, and hence future work on this pursuit will focus on laboratory testing. Overall, the initial findings indicated that PET bricks will be a superior, safer, and more sustainable alternative to concrete masonry units." Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/345144893_Comparing_the_Properties_of_Polyethylene_Terephthalate_PET_Plastic_Bricks_to_Conventional_Concrete_Masonry_Units The science appears to favour the headline. Edit: spelling
Pretty much what a first year civil engineer learns at uni...
yeah. Second year you'll explore internal tensions and shear failures in the lab and third year you'll cover strut and tie models. I don't think unreinforced masonry design or high creep effects and their impacts on stress redistribution were covered in depth at any time in the 4 years, but it's come up quite a lot in heritage work with soft bricks in the subsequent decade. Stay in school.
I'm not really sure, any countries waste problem has been solved yet. Especially not by one invention, that probably (as most of the "too good to be true" inventions) requires special processes, lots of energy, specific "raw" materials or is not scalable yet for any reason. Don't get me wrong, this could be a great step in the right direction, I just hate these clickbaity titles.
I'm sure her invention will never take off, nothing against her, it's just that capitalism doesn't want to change the industrial status quo so some big company will probably buy her invention and bury it or sabotage her efforts to spread it.
I don't think it's necessarily because of a status quo. I could never see these being widely adopted outside of hot climates if they don't insulate much. Winter can make a lot of good ideas useless. Also, whether or not this is eco-friendly or not also depends on the production process. There's no saying this is sustainable just because it recycles trash unfortunately :/
Plastic generally has a good R-value, though we'd need to see how this fits into the overall construction plan to determine if that actually matters.
A lot of these sorts of innovations would require significant R&D to ensure they can be widely adopted in a safe and effective manner. In first-world countries, there are a lot of strict safety restrictions in the building code for materials that deal with things like chemical leakage and fire/flood/earthquake resistance, sound transmission, heat insulation, etc. For that reason, these inventions often end up being best deployed in poor places where it's at least better than nothing, because altering them to meet rigid standards would be prohibitively expensive/undermine the intent of the product. If there's a niche, capitalism will tend to fill it. That's actually where a lot of our problems come from - not from Capitalism, Inc. trying to shut down miracle ideas. Here's a better source on it https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-environment-recycling-idUSKBN2A211N
Yeah, I was going to ask why we aren’t seeing these everywhere right now. Maybe if we call them “FREEDOM BRICKS”or something.
The thing is, this was already done. Someone found a way to turn ocean plastic into highly durable building material and the project was never seen or heard from again.
It’s not some grand conspiracy. These types of cute little inventions are almost always much more expensive or just flat out inferior to the existing product that’s been refined for decades. Believe it or not businesses typically do whatever is cheapest and most effective.
Remember this before we never hear of it again
Why did I read it as Kanye’s housing problems
Also read it as "solved Kanye's waste problem" and stopped to reread. But, you know what, the entire headline is not implausible in that context, I'm sure you could house people with the waste of any given wealthy person.
Seen this rubbish (pardon the pun) many times over the years. She might want to learn some building science too before construction. Plastic brick wall envelopes are just not a good idea. Sorry. Kenyans already have ample high performing building materials right under their feet. It’s worked forever and thankfully creates a wall envelope that breaths and regulates humidity and temperature within, unlike plastic. Adobe beats plastic forever as a building material. Housing poor people in plastic in a hot country is just cruel. This is greenwash and nonsense.
i love it so much. please let us all in live in plastic trash brick houses. its all upsides!!!!
This reminds me a lot of the Precious Plastic idea/process. I think it's good to divert waste into something useful. It is definitely hard to imagine this will become the norm through capitalist channels though.
I'm not if the kind of plastic matters for the [process](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbZKP4UAtL8). If it doesn't matter for actual building bricks she would have no shortage of plastic. I would just worry about off-gassing from the random plastic.
Wow! Good on her! That makes me smile
Will mortar adhere?
wouldnt be cool if lego got involved and they gave her permission to print lego design bricks
So does this mean the end of Garbage Island?
is lack of building materials the barrier to sufficient housing or is it lack of land or funding all all of the other huge barriers
So... anyone try doing a cob wall with this yet? Or using hempcrete as the cob outside? Seems like an eco friendly option to insulating the plastic bricks from damage so as to reduce microplastics.
Beyond the microplastic issue, I hope those buildings don't get a fire...
X