Plastic Free July is behind us and the COVID19 pandemic has been a mixed blessing to efforts to move away from single-use plastics (SUPs). Recent reports also indicate that the plastic pollution in the Atlantic Ocean is worse than it was previously estimated. Though microplastics are more the culprit than in the case of the more well-known Great Pacific Garbage Patch that the Ocean Cleanup team and others ("Ocean Voyages Institute returned with 67 tons of plastic waste" from the Patch early in August.) are working to shrink. The pollution from discarded PPE kits is another devastating side effect of the COVID19 pandemic affecting the environment.
Meanwhile locally and internationally initiatives are underway to clean up waterbodies and rivers of waste, especially plastic waste to strengthen water security. The Ocean Cleanup's Interceptor as well as Chennai and India's very own EFI's lake cleanup throws up the question of what to do with all the plastic waste.
While recycling ocean plastic into fabric, clothes, shoes and fashion accessories is all well and good it still relatively disposable plastics that will soon find their way back to landfills, waterbodies, rivers and the oceans. Instead turning plastic waste into building material, PET bricks, and building blocks is a more sustainable solution.
As the BBC Future article puts it, plastic waste is in fact an ideal building material that fits in with the circular economy ideals and cradle to grave closed loop manufacturing without plundering natural resources. This is high-end upcycling and epitomizes SDG12: "Responsible Consumption and Production."
Binish Desai, the "Recycle Man of India" from Gujarat is all set to upcycle the PPE waste collected from Eco-bins into a sustainable building material P-Block 2.0 in addition to the original plastic waste to building material miracle of P-Block bricks of his dream of a sustainable business BDream.
TED Talk by Binesh Desai
Meanwhile locally EFI Lake Cleanup has created its PLASTONE project
How to make a EFI Plastone
The long term solution is to move away from plastics but while we still have mountains and oceans of debris from our plastic habit of the past half century the win-win is to create shelter out of plastic waste!
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