Bricks made of plastic? Yes, they exist and not only do they have the same constructive properties as traditional ones, but even they are better heat insulators. An Argentine organization and a US company produce this material, which saves bricks in half compared to regular bricks. Houses are already built with these blocks.
The Center for Experimental Affordable Housing (CEVE), a research center located in the city of Córdoba (Argentina), is where this innovation was developed, along with many innovations related to the reuse of plastic materials. The team of Rosa Gaggino, architect and director of CEVE,Bricks made of disposable PET bottles crushed in a special millthese are then incorporated into a cement mix.
“The manufacturing process is simple, similar to concrete blocks, but in this case the sand is replaced with crushed plastic until it is three millimeters in size,” Gaggino told the newspaper La Nación. Patented in 2006, it originated 24 years ago at the institute to help reduce environmental pollution.
Among its main advantages are Gaggino, “they are more heat insulators than ordinary terracotta bricks, because With a 15-centimeter-thick wall, the same results are obtained as a 30-centimeter wall made of ordinary bricks.”
He also noted that all tests for resistance to compression, bending, fire, weathering, moisture and frost were carried out in the laboratory, “all of which gave satisfactory results, and for this it is possible to obtain a thermal ability certificate of this component.”
Gaggino stressed out A PET brick is made from 20 disposable bottles, which highlights the environmental importance of the project. He added that they were completed with portland cement as the binder, “plus a chemical additive that increases the adhesion of plastic particles.”
Construction and management technologies are transferred from CEVE, and local and provincial governments, public and private institutions, cooperatives and non-governmental organizations are trained on the application of technologies. Thanks to these transfers and 50 trainings, Houses were built in the cities of Junín, Buenos Aires, Mendoza and Altagracia.
Other manufacturers in the USA
But these Argentine bricks aren’t the only bricks on the planet made of plastic. An American company, Byblock, also produces blocks from this material, which is characterized by ease of processing.
The manufacturer has created modular machines that are easy to transport. performing the entire crushing and compaction process. This means they can be installed just about anywhere, from businesses to government buildings. produce bricks on site.
One of the reasons for this versatility is that the plastics used no cleaning or sorting required.
In this way, every ton of plastic from waste is used to produce one tonne of plastic bricks.
ByBlock brickmaker has reached an agreement to implement its technology in the Boise metropolitan area in Idaho. Thus, the deal will work up 72 tons of plastic It was sourced from local landfills to produce these recycled blocks.
However, plastic is proving to be a raw material of unexpected importance in the construction industry. New applications are known every day. In some cases these are experimental prototypes such as Trashpresso. This mobile recycling plant process plastic bottles and turn them into tiles for homes and buildings. The machine uses solar energy to realize the whole process.
Another example is the use of plastic for paving roads, if not buildings. Under the name MR6, a Scottish company has launched an asphalt mix that reduces the bitumen used in conventional asphalt production by 10%.
Finally, there are already companies that use the plastic in disposable coffee cups to make insulating walls or partition walls.
All these crates, from slabs to plastic bricks, common denominator of the circular economy. In other words, the pursuit of zero waste in production and consumption in order to achieve a more sustainable economy.
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Contact address of the environment department: [email protected]