Can we make bricks from plastics? That sounds a good one right, but do you know, when mixed with sand, these melted plastics can become as hard as concrete, once a hydraulic press squeezes them into shape.
A Nairobi-based company intends to install these plastic bricks on the streets of Kenya’s capital. But for a country where 90% percent of the roads have never been paved, could this innovation serve as a solution to their problem? Or, is it a good idea to make roads from bricks made out of plastic trash?
Nzambi Matee started her company Gjenge Makers in 2018. And the word “Gjenge”, translates into “building yourself” in Swahili. Her factory process three out of seven types of single-use plastics. Despite having one of the toughest bans on plastics, there are still bottles and containers lying everywhere on the streets of Kenya.
Workers at Nzambi’s company can handle and sort up to 10 metric tons of plastic every single month. The crusher pulverizes the plastic into small pieces and the workers then fold the dried mix together with a shovel. The material then goes into a machine called an extruder, which heats up the sand and plastic mixture till it becomes soft enough to get molded. Each lump of this mixture is weighed by hand and smells something like new asphalt on a hot day.
The lump then goes into a hydraulic press which, is able to squeeze about nine bricks at a time. The bricks are then left to cool down at room temperature so that they can get hardened. Taking from here, the bricks go for about a five min dip in the curving bay, and here you go, your product is ready.
The bricks that come off the press with jagged edges are broken off on large stones, before getting added to the stack of final products. Right now, they are doing about 15,00 blocks a day, but the team thinks they need to increase their production, to mass-produce what they are currently doing.
A pallet of 400 plastic pavers sells at about $150, depending on its thickness, which is about 25% cheaper than the bricks made from concrete. The company is also working on manhole covers, roofing tiles, and drainage gutters. They are also targeting improving and optimizing their current technology. So far, Nzambi’s factory has already recycled 50 metric tons of plastic waste in 2021 alone. She was also recognized by the united nations in 2020, as a young champion of the earth and got awarded $10,000, and according to her, her company is about to close a half-million-dollar seed funding round.
Tazeen Fatma