Pakistan produces 55 billion plastic bags annually, most of which goes to landfill sites, causing a huge increase in pollution in the country. Many experts believe that one of the best ways to make plastics more efficient and to control the growing pollution of plastics is to use them in the construction industry.
It is in this context that this article by Sibyl, published on BBC Future, is being presented to the readers.
Waste plastic is a huge and obvious global problem. It is found from the highest mountains to the depths of the sea, so it seems impossible to escape.
It is almost impossible to get rid of plastic by natural conditions, but it is still dumped in large numbers around the world. The world produces about 359 million tons of plastic every year. Our environment cannot deal with the rapid dumping of plastics to prevent harm to humans.
So now there is a consensus that plastic is not an environmentally friendly material and is a big problem. But it is also possible to solve this problem.
The problem is not but our economic model in which things are manufactured and discarded after use. This model focuses on unlimited economic growth and does not focus on the depleted resources of our planet.
Plastics can be used in ways, one of which I have been working on is to make unused plastics into hard, reliable, and durable materials used in construction.
Many people believe that recycling plastic is forbidden and there are very few types that can be recycled. This is not surprising. The amount of plastic that is recycled is very small.
Five million tonnes of plastic are used every year in the UK. And of that, only 370,000 tons are recycled, meaning only 17% of the total is used.
But plastics and other similar items like nylon, polyester, etc. can be 100% recyclable. They have the ability to create the same thing over and over again. Some plastics can be reused, such as when you break an object into pieces, melt it, and reuse it.
Such recyclers have fewer mechanical properties than newly formed plastics because the larger the molecular or polymeric chains inside the plastic, the less likely it is that you will melt the plastic and undergo a process. But then this feature is restored when we add new plastic to it.
An example of this in the industry is PET or poly, ethylene used to make soft drink bottles, and polystyrene.
Everything else can be technically reprocessed and molded into new material for new work. For example, any waste plastic can be broken down and used as a filler in asphalt, or heated and converted into fuel.
Japanese company Blast Corporation is selling a machine that can easily convert homemade plastic waste into fuel.
Everything else can be technically reprocessed into new materials for a variety of applications. In the last example, any plastic waste can be cut and used as a filler for asphalt or can be to produce fuel. Melted by heating.
Japanese company Blast Corporation is already selling a portable machine to convert household plastic waste into fuel in a simple, affordable way.
The problem here is that it is not possible or even profitable to recycle this waste plastic at this time. Polymers such as rubber and waste including plastics are easily recycled by the recycling sectors that cannot be recycled.
But plastic products are growing at an alarming rate around the world. What if this waste plastic could do something useful for this society?
Many universities and business start-ups are trying to do just that. Many use different applications from the original and target plastic mix waste. For example, many groups have developed building materials that are made of plastic waste.
Plastic is strong, does not dissolve in water, is light in weight, can be easily molded into any shape, and can be reused. It has all the properties that a building material should have. So what if waste plastics were turned into building materials for low-income populations?
The steps taken at this time are promising, but it is not yet possible to rebuild it on an industrial scale.
I do research on plastic waste with the aim of finding interesting ways to get it out of the environment.
Since 2009 I have made a lot of building materials and used plastic together with the waste from the river.
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