Homes from recycled plastic
over 7 years ago by Im1Wt4ce
Which problem are you trying to solve?
There are two main problems we want to solve:: insufficient awareness regarding ecology and recycling, and a lack of
adequate quality housing for the needy.
How are you going to solve the problem?
By designing construction segments from recycled plastic, but not just any kind of plastic.
Plastic tubes from thermal
paper rolls from cash registers and other similar devices.
What is the impact of your project?
The main purpose of this project is raising awareness and creating little homes. A large number of people would
volunteer with collection and many companies would be envolved in many ways.
How can the project be manufactured in the OpenLab?
OpenLab is print the bases for assembling the blocks as ABS filament can also be from recycled ABS, but also engrave the
bases in recycled wood material.
Describe your project in detail
The project is based on a simple idea.
Recycle one thing enough times and you can create great things from it
The idea
of recycled plastic building blocks is not new, but making those blocks from these specific plastic tubes most certainly
is.
Why that material specifically?
The main purpose of this project is raising awareness. A large number of people
would volunteer with collection (salespersons in stores), companies could encourage employees to participate in such
recycling, and the companies themselves would be encouraged to consider how much of the thermal paper is wasted on
receipts and how they could be more compact.
A single petrol station issues up to 2000 receipts daily. If each receipt
is 1 cm shorter, multiplied by 2000 receipts daily and 2000 petrol stations in the country, in the 365 days of a single
year tens of kilometers of thermal paper are wasted.
When all the other users of thermal paper are taken into
consideration, the numbers quickly grow astronomical.
Collecting enough of the plastic tubes, the most banal object for
any company to recycle, and turning them into something of great value such as container housing units will make all the
people involved understand the necessity of systematic recycling and savings.
Recycle enough toothpicks and you can
build the Eiffel Tower.
The housing units built from such materials would be made available to organisations caring for
the needy.
Recycling and ecology awareness is more than just sorting of paper and plastic, but also active use of
measures to limit unnecessary use of various, especially material resources. We often neglect the smallest savings which
seem less important but can quickly grow substantial with repeated appearance.
The other problem encompasses a lack of
simple, cheap, durable and mobile housing for refugees, abandoned youths reaching the age of independence, poor families
etc.
Recycling plastic thermal paper tubes sends out several important messages.
The plastic tubes could also be
replaced by cardboard (still too few examples)
Non-recycled waste no matter how small creates a much bigger problem in
large quantities.
Companies must realise that there's always room for improvement with recycling even with the
least obvious items and processes.
Many people must be given the example, and therefore the feeling that recycling
doesn't just solve some abstract problem with pollution but can greatly improve quality of living when properly
focused.
The blocks would be formed by arranging plastic tubes in between base plates. They could be created in
various forms and could be designed in advance with window installment, slots for electricity and plumbing, and even
water containers for off-grid housing variants. After assembly, the blocks would be wrapped in recycled cardboard for
better thermal isolation, and in the final stage of construction they would be additionally coated with a waterproof
layer.
OpenLab cannot recycle plastic tubes, but I have already organised recycling and gathered enough material for
construction of the first blocks prototypes.
What can be done in OpenLab is print the bases for assembling the blocks as
ABS filament can also be from recycled ABS, but also engrave the bases in recycled wood material such as OSB boards and
test which means of creating the blocks is more effective.
The blocks could be easily, quickly and cheaply transported
to the required destination and would require minimal volume, and would be given the final shape and volume for the
housing unit through assembly at the destination.
The basis for the blocks, small tubes in a hexagonal honeycomb
layout, allow not only for ease of handling or low cost, but also great strength and thermal properties.
The blocks
would be assembled in geometric shapes so the housing units would also have a hexagonal shape which would allow easy
interlinking of several units on top and next to each other, providing further energy savings.
Finished housing units
would be light enough for small numbers of people to easily move without requiring heavy machinery.
A housing unit
that is not needed anymore is easily dismantled and stored until needed again or transported to a different location and
reused.
The housing units would be available to homeless people regardless of their reasons.
A home represents basic
human necessity for all people, representing safety and a starting point for improving their lives. In this context it
also has a specific meaning as the last decade has seen many occasions of people losing their homes through political
regimes, military conflict and natural disasters, and degrading climate conditions are likely to cause further distress
in the coming decades, which is a problem we wish to help solve through our contribution.
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Comments
will increase which will affect the cohesion of the building Did you think about this point ?...What are the safety
measures in this type of construction?
valve is open. Also that's why we want to make a base plate for the tubes not just from ABS but recycled wood
too.
Even so the problem of degradation of the mechanical properties of the plastic is possible. That's why we are
intending to build a prototype first.
Maybe not highlighted enough in the upper text but the building made from this
kind of blocks would be only a container like units, with possibility to stack one on other but only with a additional
construction.