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It isn't worth that though. At least in California, there aren't any incinerators which have been certified for burning waste plastic for heat/co-generation (I'

It isn't worth that though. At least in California, there aren't any incinerators which have been certified for burning waste plastic for heat/co-generation (I've checked). As a result there is a surplus of waste plastic and it is going, typically, into landfill (at an average cost of $45 per ton). As the article pointed out, the value of sending it to China was that the cost of moving the container back there was going to paid anyway, so filling it with plastic was a kind of a win for the Chinese. The origin of this concept was Jeff Bezo's call to figure out what we could do to help the most people. So a philanthropic angle were the 'cost' was the externalities of poverty, homelessness, and the unemployable. My brother in law is a structural engineer and we were batting around ideas about recycling waste into housing for the homeless. But neither of us were looking to create the favelas of Brazil or the slums of Mumbai, to be successful we thought the homes should be, to the greatest extent possible, "normal" homes. And how would we build those out of cast off materials while employing people who might have few skills and perhaps mental health issues that made working traditional jobs difficult. So how could you build a self sustaining community that was doing something good for the world so they could take pride in their work, anyone could contribute in some way, and facilitated a higher standard of living. So what is the value of that? Versus the cost of the waste plastic? (and glass, and metal) San Francisco spends nearly $200 million a year on helping the homeless. They keep raising the garbage rates because the cost of landfill is going up too. Add in the costs spent by San Jose, Oakland, and Los Angeles on similar programs. And you have some fraction of over $1B/year that could be going toward a program like this rather than stop gap measures. That is the idea at least.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
I may have missed the essence of your post - you have a plan to make low cost housing with waste plastic, but the buildings can be put up by low skilled labour? (I may have missed quite a bit ...) On the other hand I visited London Zoo yesterday with my kids and we sat on picnic tables that were moulded (I presume similarly to your method) from waste plastic water bottles (that otherwise would be chocking penguins, the point the zoo was making)
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  No, I don't think you missed it. My point was that consumers see recycling differently than people to process goods to be recycled. That is often glossed over in these discussions. I would love to see how those benches turned out, furniture is something that works as well (caveat a good covering) The essence of my post was my discouragement that the only reason to recycle things is to profit from it. That is the point of view of the recycling plants. I'm discouraged by that because I think if people looked at the bigger picture they would see other opportunities. I even wrote my congressperson suggesting that the plastic bricks idea could be a way to get something positive out of the wall idea that the President is pushing. It wouldn't be any more effective at border security but it would take a lot of plastics out of the ecological streams they are now polluting. I could get behind spending $5B on sequestering waste plastic in a way it won't do any future harm to the environment. The concept of using it to build housing was context for why I was thinking about this idea in the first place, thinking "outside the box" as it were on multiple problems at once. Combining solutions for the biggest bang for the buck. Noting that even a 4 year old can build a house out of Lego bricks, what would it take to do that for "real?" and could we make bricks that would make for actual houses? A bit of research on the structural characteristics of the various plastics in the recycling stream (and even those that are currently excluded) and yes, it is technologically feasible.
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    Apart from wanting to see the play of emotions over Trump-like politicians (Wall=Good,Recycling=Liberal,face=???) I think the "sequester but usefully" idea is interesting. Something like IEEE to get externalities properly priced so that there is incentives to do recycling "properly" might help too
michaelt 8y ago
Worthy goals! I don't know about where you live, but where I live plastic is out of fashion as a building material, after incidents like [1] highlighted its flammability, the sticky burning droplets of melted material that cause fire spread, and the dangerous smoke some plastics give off. Doesn't completely rule it out as a building material, but I hope you're not making your buildings very tall! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire
- ChuckMcM 8y ago
  That was a pretty horrible fire. That said, there are chemicals that you can mix with the plastic as your making bricks that will make them self extinguishing (and its fairly important that they are, otherwise you get the "pile of recycled tires on fire" problem.) The chemicals can change the plastic's tensile strength (but leave the compression strength alone) so they generally not included in sheets like building cladding. Self extinguishing plastics were made popular by Dow Chemical in the late 60's.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago

I may have missed the essence of your post - you have a plan to make low cost housing with waste plastic, but the buildings can be put up by low skilled labour? (I may have missed quite a bit ...) On the other hand I visited London Zoo yesterday with my kids and we sat on picnic tables that were moulded (I presume similarly to your method) from waste plastic water bottles (that otherwise would be chocking penguins, the point the zoo was making)

ChuckMcM 8y ago
No, I don't think you missed it. My point was that consumers see recycling differently than people to process goods to be recycled. That is often glossed over in these discussions. I would love to see how those benches turned out, furniture is something that works as well (caveat a good covering) The essence of my post was my discouragement that the only reason to recycle things is to profit from it. That is the point of view of the recycling plants. I'm discouraged by that because I think if people looked at the bigger picture they would see other opportunities. I even wrote my congressperson suggesting that the plastic bricks idea could be a way to get something positive out of the wall idea that the President is pushing. It wouldn't be any more effective at border security but it would take a lot of plastics out of the ecological streams they are now polluting. I could get behind spending $5B on sequestering waste plastic in a way it won't do any future harm to the environment. The concept of using it to build housing was context for why I was thinking about this idea in the first place, thinking "outside the box" as it were on multiple problems at once. Combining solutions for the biggest bang for the buck. Noting that even a 4 year old can build a house out of Lego bricks, what would it take to do that for "real?" and could we make bricks that would make for actual houses? A bit of research on the structural characteristics of the various plastics in the recycling stream (and even those that are currently excluded) and yes, it is technologically feasible.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  Apart from wanting to see the play of emotions over Trump-like politicians (Wall=Good,Recycling=Liberal,face=???) I think the "sequester but usefully" idea is interesting. Something like IEEE to get externalities properly priced so that there is incentives to do recycling "properly" might help too

michaelt 8y ago

Worthy goals! I don't know about where you live, but where I live plastic is out of fashion as a building material, after incidents like [1] highlighted its flammability, the sticky burning droplets of melted material that cause fire spread, and the dangerous smoke some plastics give off. Doesn't completely rule it out as a building material, but I hope you're not making your buildings very tall! [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire

ChuckMcM 8y ago
That was a pretty horrible fire. That said, there are chemicals that you can mix with the plastic as your making bricks that will make them self extinguishing (and its fairly important that they are, otherwise you get the "pile of recycled tires on fire" problem.) The chemicals can change the plastic's tensile strength (but leave the compression strength alone) so they generally not included in sheets like building cladding. Self extinguishing plastics were made popular by Dow Chemical in the late 60's.