Ecobricks (Recycling)

Anyone saving their plastic?

My niece introduced me to this. Not heard of it before. Seems like a really good initiative.

https://www.ecobricks.org/

tl;dr
Thin, non-recyclable plastic (film wrapping etc...) is stuffed into empty drinks bottles. Bottles are collected then used as building blocks.

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Trying to. It's a great idea and rams home just how much bloody plastic we get through, but it's super hard to make the bottles reach the required density/overall weight. Wooden spoon is indispensable in ramming plastic down the bottle.

My brother in law uses a broom handle. Some recommend cutting plastic into shreds. Seems like too much work though.

Also worth highlighting this place. Which is great: https://preciousplastic.com/

I'd think my time is better spent complaining to supermarkets about their excess packaging.

Which reminds me, I need to hassle someone at Coop for their boxed and wrapped cherries.

How would those "bricks" be used? Petg (plastic for bottles) tends to do pretty badly in sunlight.

on one of those grand designs a person used glass bottles to make a wall, real thick and due to some wierd hot cold effect at the open end of the bottle was a tremendous insulator

i'm sure these plastic bottles could be used in a similar way and all the layers stuffed inside should trap heat nicely, just plonk them down and slather them with lots of wattle and daub and you've got a cheap building

just need to generate lots of plastic waste to do it, now where are those plastic wrapped oranges to be found

I guess that depends on the user. I'd imagine they'd be best used in place of breeze blocks (similar weight/density). Breeze blocks are usually covered in plaster, another layer of bricks or not in sunlight.

¿Por qué no los dos?

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This was on countryfile yesterday.
The lady doing it said it didn’t meet a lot of planning here, had been used in developing countries and they were using it as a way to demonstrate to people how much plastic waste was about. Looks like a good idea.

The plastic two parter on iplayer with Hugh fernley and Anita rani is worth a watch.

It’s an interesting idea, but I genuinely don’t think I use enough plastic packaging to build enough bricks to build anything substantial.

Generally aim for glass packaging, for things like yoghurts etc.
Don’t fancy trying to stuff plastic from blister packs in plastic bottles...

Because I have a small flat and I already pay for recycling collection. Why scatter bottles around my place? I'd rather skip plastic packaging altogether. We've made a start but need to get more militant on it.

I won't be building anything. On the website I linked there are collection points who will use the ecobricks for projects.

@hippy If you can find a donation point nearby then you'd only need to have one bottle on the go at a time.

I doubt many people will be building anything that requires planning consent. Most projects I've seen (not in developing countries) are small low walls, benches, paths. That sort of thing.

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I'll send it to the missus and see if she can find space in the kitchen. :)

Gluing together ecobricks to make modular blocks that can be used to create objects (chairs, benches etc.) seems like a good plan, but can't be used outside, since they may well degrade in the sun and weather.

Using them as a proper building material seems like a very strange approach, since you are effectively burying big chunks of plastic. You then have to think about what to do at the end of the building's life. They specifically say that you shouldn't use them in cement structures, because they get ruptured when/if the building is destroyed. This leaves using them in cob structures, but mud is not a material in short supply, so you are effectively just using the opportunity to bury plastic, which seems... odd. Yes you are reusing them, but you are also just storing them until they can be disposed of properly, while incurring some risk that they will break and scatter plastic all over your house/playground/park etc.

Funnily enough, on the grand designs that @dicki mentioned they also used a rammed-earth technique with old tyres as the stabilising part, which is actually a similar approach, since tyres are a substantial contributor to plastic waste.

No. I like to burn my plastic collections.

Brilliant. We’ve ran out of landfill and ocean space, let’s get the plebs to dump plastic in their homes. If people really gave a shit about plastic we’d stop making the stuff. Let me know when that happens.

The only brick I recognize is the Scoblebrick™.

@dicki, @ffm it sounds like you are describing earthships

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship

I think of them in places like New Mexico but some in the UK, one in Brighton at Stanmer Park that has open days