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Sam Ngumba Ngaruiya, on the coastline of Kenya,
. . . has in recent times been working with locals in and around the town of Malindi,
. . . to gather up and recycle,
. . . the ubiquitous plastic pollution,
. . . into construction materials:
. . . . . . fence poles,
. . . . . . roof tiles,
. . . . . . road signs,
. . . . . . flooring,
. . . . . . containers,
. . . . . . etc.

This means that in 4 or so hours,
. . . around 50 kilograms of plastic,
. . . can be collected by those working on this,
. . . resulting in earnings of around $4.86.
That’s roughly “enough to eat, and feed their family for a day."

The gathered plastics are then separated into 8 different types,
. . . which are then machine-chopped into flakes around 1-cm in size.
. . . These plastic flakes are then rinsed, and dried,
. . . following which, they are then combined with hardeners, and sun-blockers,
. . . then heated to around the melting point,
. . . (avoiding going much higher limits toxic fume creation).
. . . Into this heated mass, locally acquired:
. . . . . . gravel,
. . . . . . sand,
. . . . . . coconut fibers,
. . . . . . sawdust,
. . . . . . etc., is added,
. . . with the mixture then being poured into already created moulds of the products.
“Basically we are substituting plastic for cement,”
. . . when the melted plastic cools,
. . . it absorbs, and “squeezes” the sand,
. . . creating a compact, and rather strong building material.

“These recycled plastic products can last 200 years,”
. . . the greatest “negative” of plastics, (their resistance to degradation, and decay)
. . . becomes a positive, owing to a change of context (construction materials).

12-27-2017 Source:  #Plastic Trash Used In Construction