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Bricks made from recycled plastic

John C Daley

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posted 2 years ago

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bricks from rubbish
Bricks at 1/7th the price of commercial bricks

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posted 2 years ago

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Those are neat! I'd love to see them for sale in the US!

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Luke Mitchell

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posted 2 years ago

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I'm a bit concerned about the flammability of those bricks. It sounds as though they are made from a mixture of plastics:

cereal and sandwich bags, shampoo and milk bottles, flip-top lids, ropes, and buckets

Milk bottles are usually HDPE; sandwich bags are usually PP. I wouldn't like to guess what buckets are made from... perhaps ropes are nylon?

HDPE and PP are definitely flammable and will burn easily. Whilst this is likely not a problem for some use-cases, I wouldn't want to build a home from it or pave a sidewalk.

The only environment that I can think of, immediately, that this wouldn't be a problem is underwater and then I wouldn't want to risk the plasticizers leeching out of the bricks, nor them breaking down into microplastics, and contaminating the environment.

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James Freyr

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posted 2 years ago

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Luke Mitchell wrote:I'm a bit concerned about the flammability of those bricks.

I had the same thought upon reading the title of the thread. It seems, to me, that fire codes in some municipalities may prevent such a brick from being used for constructing habitable dwellings. But there are other uses for bricks besides building structures to live in. I clicked the link above to check see what these bricks are all about, and I really like what's going on. So these bricks are the creation of a woman in Kenya to repurpose an excess of plastic wastes. I'm all for the idea, and one use for these bricks pictured on the website is their use as paver stones. To me it looks like a great use, using these bricks for patios, pathways, and sidewalks etc.

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Anne Miller

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posted 2 years ago

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This thread is along the same idea of making brick though it is making lumber:

https://permies.com/t/182758/ungarbage/Plastic-lumber-trash

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Luke Mitchell

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The idea of a flammable floor also doesn't appeal to me very much but it is definitely an improvement on using them for a living space that you might be trapped in, in the event of a fire.

I suppose that an upside to a plastic-brick floor is that it is probably a little bouncy. I can imagine this saving dropped plates in a kitchen. I bet they have quite good sound deadening properties too.

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Jay Angler

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Luke Mitchell wrote:The idea of a flammable floor also doesn't appeal to me very much but it is definitely an improvement on using them for a living space that you might be trapped in, in the event of a fire.

Considering all the highly flammable carpeting/fake wood/foams/fabrics most homes contain, within reason, this seems like a good idea. Yes - I'm worried about the micro-plastic this will add to the environment as the bricks wear, but with all the trash lying around in Nairobi and polluting streams, and building up in landfills, the micro-plastic is going to be there anyway - this puts it to good use!

Best practice is to ban single use plastic world wide, but even if that happened tomorrow, there's soooo... very much of it out there, we need uses for what already there. A local city had a fire in a lot that had a huge collection of tires waiting to go for "recycling". The pollution that created will have long term consequences. We've got some playgrounds that use a remanufactured material from similar tires. Which is better? I'd love to go straight to perfection, but I can't see anyone banning rubber tires on cars any time soon, so all these waste streams need to turn into valued raw materials somehow.

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Carla Burke

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posted 2 years ago

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I think it's a great use for already-out-there-but-otherwise-landfill-bound plastic. As Jay said, the micro-plastics are already created. Something like this would contain far more than a landfill, as far as them contributing even more to the problem, while preserving the natural resources for better uses than, say, patio bricks, or playhouse, or livestock shelters, etc.

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John C Daley

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Remember people use flammable timber all over the place.
I dont think these bricks are any different, its the way you use them and and how you live that makes them ok.

John C Daley

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Here is more information about the company.
Its fascinating. https://www.gjenge.co.ke/
They get a lot of use as pavers.

John C Daley

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posted 1 year ago

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I had another look at this topic and notice that nay sayers were quickly on the wavelength.

I have to ask if anybody actually read the link before commenting?
Words from that site;
- "A Kenyan woman is turning tons of plastic trash into super durable, lightweight bricks that cost a tenth of the price of normal bricks"
- "The plastic is shredded, mixed with sand, put through a high-temperature extrusion machine that makes it into a slurry, and then compressed into beautiful, colourful bricks."
- "The company has recycled over 20 tons of plastic waste to date, and expects that number to be at 50 tons by the end of the year."
From that site, It would appear flammability is not an issue .
Something which was listed all this time.

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