Mexico ranks as the 12th largest plastics consumer in the world, consuming over 5 million tons of plastic each year. Growing up in the state of Puebla, Carlos Daniel González remembers the prevalence of this pollution and its damage to his community. In 2013, he founded EcoDomum to build durable, affordable homes using recycled plastic. Furthermore, González decided to employ his environmental solution to address another serious problem in his country—Mexicans living in extreme poverty. http://unreasonable.is/ecodomum-story/ Great use of waste. Although, there is a huge risk if these houses catch fire. Dubai, methinks, has issues with fires because they use plastic in wall panels.
A good idea. As far as I know, the fire problem isn't really much worse than for buildings made of wood. The surface of the bricks, blocks or panels is comparably low, so the plastics don't burn well. Over here a bigger amount of plastic is recycled to planks and several shapes of "building blocks", not for houses but e.g. to stabilize slopes, build large plant containers and park banks. Particularly the latter frequently show traces of attempts to set them afire. The substance melts, even burns a little while you hold the lighter at it, but it doesn't contiunue to burn if you take the lighter away. Examples from Germany: Bank: https://baushop24.com/bank-jena-recycling-kunststoff-hanit--_14487_680_index.html L-Shaped stones from recycled plastic for outdoor use: https://baushop24.com/L-Steine, Winkelelemente aus Recycling-Kunststoff_373_625_index.html Noise protection wall made from recycled plastics: http://www.kommunaldirekt.de/content/1magazin/archiv/2003/2003_4/bau/09.html I think our regulations do not allow the use of recycled platics for homes. But other than that, there are plenty of attempts to make use of the material, also for construction purposes. The good side is, that a lot of waste platics can be used this way, since the blocks or planks have big volume.
