War on Plastic: Fighting the Good Fight from Morocco to Manila
Plastic waste has grown to become a major global problem. It pollutes our cities, oceans, and rivers, and causes urban flooding. It can also cause harm to animals and humans through disease and contamination of drinking water. To address this threat, a lot of individuals and groups worldwide have been advocating for plastic waste solutions, from a young student in Northern Morocco who can transform plastic waste into paving stones to a surfer in Manila who founded The Plastic Solution movement.
From plastic waste to construction material
Saif Eddine Laalej, 20, designed an eco-friendly paving stone or “Paveco” made from a mixture of salvaged plastic, cement, and sand. It can be used as a cheaper substitute for concrete while providing a positive impact on the environment.
Creating floor tiles from plastic waste was the initiative of Laalej and his partner, Houda Mirouche, and was what pushed the founding of their startup, Zelij Invent.
“[Our design] represents a proven solution for the recycling of plastic, and it perfectly conforms to current industry standards for flooring products in terms of durability and incombustibility,” Laalej said.
The idea behind Zelij Invent came up when Laalej was watching a televised debate on the campaign against plastic waste. One of the speakers lamented on not utilizing plastic enough as a construction material despite ideal characteristics for the job like being lightweight, malleable, waterproof, corrosion and wear-resistant, and a non-conductor of electricity.
Laalej then started collecting discarded plastic and began conducting various experiments to test his theory. It took him three months to discover the perfect “recipe” for Paveco. The end-product is made of 80 percent plastic and is compliant with industry standards for flooring.
At the moment, only prototypes and sample products are produced in the startup’s workshop. However, it still provides a big boost in reducing plastic waste since they’re recycling plastic at 2,520 metric tons per month. After all, each square meter of paving stone requires 35 kilograms of plastic.
The plastic solution
In Manila, a movement called “The Plastic Solution” promotes the use of “eco-bricks” in order to reduce non-biodegradable trash and boost ecological sustainability. Similar to Zelij Invent’s Paveco, these eco-bricks can be used as construction material and are made from recycled plastic bottles stuffed solid with non-biological waste.
President and co-founder of The Circle Hostel and founder of The Plastic Solution Ziggie Gonzales explained that the organization was compelled to do something about the large amount of plastic in the seas and in the environment.
“It started simply as me pushing my team at The Circle Hostel to do eco-bricking on their own with the plans to make it a bigger movement online,” said Gonzales to The Manila Times.
The eco-brick initiative began in the mountain villages of the Northern Philippines and does not have any government, grant, NGO or corporation involved in its foundation. The lack of sustainable funding hurts the organization since there’s no sufficient volunteers for its activities.
“Not enough people want to courier the bottles to drop off points or start their own builds. They want to do the simplest and easiest thing which is stuff bottles but not see it all the way through,” Gonzales explained.
The movement’s main goal for this year is to build 10 freestanding structures from eco-bricks, putting away at least 6 metric tons of non-biodegradable trash in the process.
For more information on how to transform plastic bottles into something purposeful, visit www.ecobricks.org.
