Awesome video! I just graduated in chemical engineering and I was shocked at the lack of sustainable practices that we learned in school. You bring a great point that educating industry experts as well as demonstrating the new materials' long-term viability is of paramount importance.

I love your easily digestable delivery which is great for average people who arn't in the least bit qualified in any field of eco tech but still have to live on the same planet with people who are . There is a great need for radical change and the quicker the better !

Delighted to hear someone from outside my circles cite Kate Raworth's work! Very important for us to move forward conceptually, as well as technologically. Thank you!

Dave, I always enjoy our videos, but today's opening with the self depreciating was absolutely enjoyable. We don't often het to see your humor and its a welcome addition, lol. Take care and keep bringing us great informative content.

Captain Charles Moore, the discoverer of the Pacific Garbage Patch, stated that plastic would not have become a problem IF…we’d only have used it for things that we want to last forever (500-1,000 years or so).

The bulk shredding of plastics makes me wonder about the inevitable breakdown/leaching. As a material facing UV, heat, and cold, what will it breathe out over time? Precious Plastic on the other hand seems to have education understanding the material and the desired application. It's all wonderful resourcefulness, I just don't want to find out 15 years later I'm living in a poisonous box

There's a product that's been on the market for a while called Lok N Blok which only upcycles polypropylene into its product. But it doesn't need supports because all of the blocks interlink. There are also gaps to fish through the wiring. This makes it twice as fast to build with and doesn't require expertise to do so. But getting approval in the states has been a challenge. These are mostly used in SA.

Threading those blocks on steel rods reminds me of the "Bayko Kit" building toy I had in the 1950s.

I've been seeing variations on these plastic building bricks for at least 10 years now, they really seem to have limited uses. Bricks made of several different kinds of plastic in particular seem to border on outright useless for anything other than relatively temporary structures. The wildly different material properties of the potentially *dozens* of different kinds of plastics mean they don't typically have uniform structural properties between bricks unless extra steps are taken beyond simply shredding, at which point the processing cost of each brick tends to go up substantially. Many types of plastic degrade substantially when exposed to direct sunlight for long periods of time, so roughly amalgamated plastic bricks will *always* have to be coated with something for UV protection. This isn't necessarily a deal-breaker, but footage/images of these bricks being used raw as construction materials is misleading at best. Additionally some plastics start to experience substantial changes when exposed to temperatures as low as 50-90C, the former can be reached in direct sun here in Australia on a fairly regular basis, the latter is an extremely low temperature for a structural brick to start undergoing softening. PVC for example starts to soften right around 90C, while many biodegradable plastics start degrading at around 50-60C under the right conditions. If you're not bothering to sort your plastic before shredding and compressing it into bricks, how on earth are you going to prevent accidentally generating a brick that's made largely of a plastic unsuited for *some* application? If your bricks have wildly different material properties then the only use cases are going to be few and far between. If the plastics ARE being sorted, then that's a lot of time, effort, and expense, at which point you could do conventional recycling (Which already has a wide variety of issues). Nevermind potential issues with fire. I'd personally happily make a garden shed out of these sorts of bricks, maybe even something more substantial if I could be assured of the composition and the associated maintenance required... But I just can't see these being used on an industrial scale. And do we really want to educe a demand for what amounts to a single re-use of miscellaneous plastic? What other possible use could these be put to if they were damaged? You've essentially got a brick of mystery plastic (sounds like a nightmare) which is unusable for literally everything except possibly being turned into more questionably useful bricks. While storing plastic waste in big compressed bricks is likely better than it floating around in our oceans, I'd still much prefer a solution focused on preventing it from ever getting there in the first place.

Hi I love your delivery of information, it's funny 30 years ago I work in a small business that recycle plastic and made black ⚫️ plastic fence posts and cattle grids and clear or white was used to make the roadside match sticks 😄 😀 , there was an industrial shredder, making chips /flakes that were injection moulded, plastic milk bottles crates were great cracks 😀

Hearing about the B corporation stuff made me wonder: why should we not make every corporation a B corporation?

This is not exactly recycling and not really repurposing; its better. More like urban mining or maybe we should call it re-mining? It creates value for disposable plastics and removes much of the burden of placing the waste back into a resource stream. It seems that is just needs to be clean not pure like so many process require. Brillient!

Dave, I love your dry witness and your around about way of telling us that what you are about to say is well worth listening to. I love your presentation style. You are the man.

Shifting the mission statement of businesses to sustainability rather than shareholder profit would help. Great video, thanks!

I really like that idea of just smooshing a bunch of random plastic waste into a heated mold to make LEGO bricks, I like it a-lot

really appreciate the lack of ads

I have seen various processes that recycle waste plastic. They either need to be really well sorted or they melt it (producing loads of fumes) into black goop. Hats of to the team to get the everything in and a product out work. Great vid!

These new uses for plastics are exciting - but the size of the the problems we need to overcome, is seriously depressing. 😔

What a brilliant "thinking outside the brick" Idea !

That part where you pointed off screen and was like ohhhhh was hilarious 😂😂😂

Wait, you're telling me someone thought of ACTUALLY recycling the recycling? Absolute madlads, put them in an asylum.

Ultimately, the biggest challenge will be replacing concrete foundations, and that seems to be where most cement/concrete alternatives falter.

Another great video Dave! In Lombok, Indonesia Eco-Blocks are a local company which use recycled plastic to manufacture blocks to help rebuild schools damaged or destroyed in the 2018 earthquake. It's a great initiative.

Kate’s book is excellent! Glad you mentioned it. Great episode!

Reminds me of a company/initiative or something from 20 years ago dealing with automobile tires and what to do with mountains of them piling up in a well-used and no longer useable state creating periodic havoc from mosquitos when it rained and fires when it didn't. Turned out the Germans had a machine that separated out the steel belts and then pulverized the rubber into powder from which all manner of useful items could be made. A friend of mine tried to interest the California governor of the time into subsidizing since California is a much-travelled state with an impossible amount of old tires ending up here clogging up the place. I was relocating to Amsterdam at the time, my friend subsequently died, and I never found out what the heck became of the idea. Details are probably stuck in a long-dead hard drive.

Lateral thinking doesn't question the reason for plastics in the first place. The answer is to say no to all plastics, not to build a new "recycling" industry.

Great video, thanks Dave. On this subject, the Italian Daliform Group company since years makes construction products from recycled plastics, for example their Iglù modular system for ventilated under floor cavities.

It would be good to obtain more specific information on the plastics material. Important would be results of structural engineering tests, heat and flammability tests, specific utilization criteria among other things. On the surface utilization and redirection of waste plastics at an industrial rate is a win win. First we need to find out about the life, safety and environmental cycle. Would like to see more of this.

Dave, these programs which you produce each Week, are fabulous, And full of so much new information, that they have the effect of buoying my spirts, as I realize how many people are spending money, time, and research, and one huge amount of time intelligently brainstorming, to conceive the projects, in the beginning.👍🌹🌈❤️🙏🏻 Thank yo SO much, for all the hours of work you do each week, in the creation of these super informative videos. Much respect! Me hat is off to you!😁☮️🙏🏻

One problem I see is that in the end it will still end up as microplastics, bleeding chemicals into the environment, just later time wise ..

I was extremely pleased to see you introduce Doughnut Economics. We have one Parish Council in Milton Keynes already on board with DE and I am currently encouraging my colleagues to become the second PC. It's a huge (urgently needed) change that I look forward to you covering in greater detail. Think you Dave? Nah. Thank you Dave :) PS EdB Rules!

a great idea, but we need to stop making single use plastics, and most plastic in general.

Dave, thank you for the good news about plastics. I hope that you are having a wonderful day.

I look forward to seeing your uploads most Sundays. This week I was well busy all day Sunday so had a treat saved up for Monday evening.

These are some of the best solutions I’ve seen for waste plastic, removing the need to transport waste for disposal over large distances and seemingly having relatively low energy use for production. Building certifications and education of the building industry on best practice use cases are key as you said. Sustainability and circular reuse are vital - will check out doughnuts 😊

Wonder if it could be made into a “plastic foam”? To create an insulating material, similar to fiberglass batting.

Met Dr de Bono over a decade ago- really interesting guy reusing plastic waste is fine, doing without plastic in the future will be finer

Honestly, architects and people at the design/management end of construction are often great advocates for new/sustainable building technologies. Where the construction industry encounters a lot more resistance is further down. There's back pressure from the trades and contractors specifically against trying new products or different construction practices, and not without good reason. Established practices often means low risk fiscal viability. I'm currently engaged in a research project about investigating and proposing some changes in how we frame houses, to allow for disassembly rather than demolition. A large component of which has been in discussing these ideas with both framing and demolition companies, which seem to be interested in these ideas theoretically.

i looked into donut economics last year. Id love to see it tested out and for it to be proven. It just makes so much sense to me. I do feel i didnt fully grasp everything however, so i look forwards with anticipation to a video on the theory

Dave you have a unique ability to present information interspersed with your humorous wit. Always have a chuckle as I'm learning

Thank you Dave, was getting fed-up with the adults, more reuse please.❤

As a life-long builder, I have often thought of plastics being used exactly like this. The application seems to be particularly simple for low-rise, residential consturction. I see the boo birds have already filled the comments sections with questions about the structural viability of these things and then the off-gassing and degredation of plastics in the human environment, but that already exists with most building products--particle board in particular. Also, building insulation is often insideous and pastic based in its own right. I am not an engineer, but my hunch is that the things would be more than suitable for residential consturction given that the interior walls would be covered with sheetrock (currently all sheetrock is underlain with plastic vapor barriers at the exterior walls) and then stucco walls on the outside. Just so the boo birds no, Dryvit is also a plastic product and most stucco buildings use this latex based stucco instead of actual stucco. I have gone on too long, but I will add, that these things might really be great for humid climates. It would be interesting to know the R value of the things and a few other bits about their resistance to flooding and pests like termites. Thanks for the work you do, Dave.

I love this kind of solution, the main problem is the mix nature of the plastic. To make it durable or reliable, I guess it's not the same building a brick from pvc than from bag

Problem: Plastic is flammable, burns at very high temperature, and emits thick, noxious smoke. Concrete avoids these risks.

what about using it as material for foundations. would deform under weight i guess but maybe you could figure the amount of deformation to expect and plan around that. being buried the temperature wouldn't vary too much and fire wouldn't be a likely issue

This is a _brilliant_ use of direct lateral thinking. From _waste_ to _construction material_ in one *_swell foop._*

Regardless of the potential fire and chemical hazards posed by mixed plastic blocks, the fact that plastics are called such because they yield under load makes their use for any load bearing structures a short-sighted idea, especially thermoplastics exposed to both loads and high temperatures. Doesn’t even need to reach their melting point, but a fraction of it, and they yield easily. For non-load bearing components and when fire and fumes aren’t concerns, it can be considered.

Dave, you're awesome. Your patience with all the negative comments you read throughout this series of videos is impressive beyond belief, and the humor you've used in this video shows a bit of how you've coped with it. Keep it up, man; you're doing great work.

Totally agree, I’ve often wondered why we don’t add plastic and shredded tires need to be added to things like concrete & asphalt.

I like the underlying ideas you use to present possible solutions to varying problems. Especially since the problems are existential. You bring bits of hope that ingenuity might get a chance to play out in real time.

I'm loving to see how they standardise the quality by the time they the authorities and councils spec it out of existence

@11 minss. Symbiosis is a long unused word which Humans have sadly forgotten. Great show, keep them coming 🙂

Thanks so much for releasing these on a weekly schedule! I always look forward to Sundays!

Great presentation and information as always Dave, can't wait for your video on doughnuts 😁👍 Mmmmm, doughnuts...🤤

thank you for the video. sounds like a good idea. I know plastics can have issues with offgassing, when they begin to decay. Is that something that has been investigated in this process?

Dave, you are so articulate, really covered every issue with this product and other issues too. Another big shout out and thank you!

The images of the compressed waste blocks made me instantly think of WALL-E. Great video!

Finding the solution of re-using plastic waste for building materials very good, i think this is hardly a *circular* path for the plastic, it's just a second (hopefully long term) use of the plastic. Once demolition of the building happens, most likely the whole volume will be dumped in.a landfill. I doubt that the blocks would be separated and used a 2nd time (which would be ideal). Or maybe plastic recycling is better than now. But for now, this is 2nd use, not circular. Great, but just shifting the problem into the future.

For all of us doughnuts living in the northern latitude's, get off our butts, melt your own fresh snowfall snow in the winter. Pass through coffee filter, keep in dark cool place, wala, endless supply of great tasting water without dragging home cases of 1 litre bottles of water from the store, only to end up in landfill, oceans, rivers. You get the drift.

Precious plastics are streets ahead by virtue of their use of sorted plastics. The random mixture of waste such as in the building block is a dead end preventing further re-use.

Thank you once again for your excellent communication skills and making this all more accessible to those who aren't normally engaged in this sort of thinking. For me, years ago, I decided the best thing I could do was to not use plastics as much as possible. I don't think it is a good material no matter how useful it might be, the cost in damage of it outweighs how useful it is and no amount of recycling makes that determination work out any better. The more recycling that happens to it the more particles and junk it scatters about and leaves behind. Natural materials like stone and wood have recycling pathways built right into the world. They work well enough. Glass is also a great material. If you need fabrics use plant fibers (hemp does much better than cotton). etc. Recycling is not the answer for plastic. Yes we do need to clean up the mess we're making, but the way to get that done is to stop making the plastic to begin with.

Jeebus, I've been saying someone should do this for years; I must be a _jeenyoose!_ 😄 It started when I was getting sick of replacing our garden fence panels every five years or so and wondered if it would be possible to add dyes to shredded waste plastic, place it in a form, add heat or pressure (or both) and produce an everlasting fence panel, posts, panelling, garden sheds, et cetera. I even wondered if it could be made into something structural like joists (blocks never occurred to me), although I had doubts about its strength and fire resistance. Huge kudos to all the people out there actually making this happen... now, when do I get my pre-coloured, wood-textured, maintenance-free, everlasting, indestructibl0rz fence panels?! 😂

Very good to see you mentioning ecoeconomics and Kate Raworth's book Donut economics. Thanks

Brilliant as always, with well placed wit..

OMG: "Lack of essential nutrients in my plant-based diet." I had to play that three times I enjoyed it so much. The rest of the content was welcome news as well, thank you!

Brilliant as always thank you love this idea. Recycling plastic would be a thing to look at more!

I love Precious Plastic! I sometimes imagine trying to set up a plastics shop when my back finally gives up and I can't do my normal job anymore.

The only downside to plastic block building is their flammability. During the last wave of bushfires here in Oz, structures designed to stop erosion under indigenous rock art, 000s of years old, made of recycled plastic, caught fire, sooting & incinerating the very thing they were designed to protect. I’m much more inclined to hempcrete or compressed earth blocks because of the high fire danger of where I live, & to reduce my plastic consumption as well.

To continue with currently established methods is insane. Breakthrough the barriers, already.

Great video, I was wondering about this idea myself. I hope these blocks become widely adopted by construction companies. I often think loading all this plastic onto multiple giant spaceships and aiming them at the sun would be great if we could afford to do it but ...alas..not practical.

In Canada, and just down the street from me, there is a new house foundation being made from interlocking styrofoam (?) blocks which have an open core for concrete to be poured into. The concrete and some steel rods provide the strength and the foam provides weather-proof insulation as well as a speedy way to create the forms for poured concrete. So plastic is already being used in new foundation constructions. If the waste-plastic mixes could be homogenized, this "hollow blocks" approach might remove a few of the traditional objections.

I like the idea of using plastic for building blocks so long as the building is not in a high fire zone!. Also, I've seen reports of using waste plastic in roadways which is a very bad idea as the tires will aerosolize microplastics into the air, soil, and water.

I’m struggling to understand how these plastic blocks can work ok during a fire. if it’s just recycled plastic reformed via pressure and steam won’t they produce toxic smoke?

Great video Dave. Waste plastics are surface carbons whose value are not being recognized. Proper value assign would result in drivers for proper collection, handling and subsequent reuse. At Aduro we are tackling this challenge through innovation in deconstructing polymers. Helping to bring this resource back into the circular economy and outside of our environments.

Getting architects to use these materials is the most difficult part of expanding use of new ideas.

“Precious plastics” awesome concept. Time to mine the huge floating Great Pacific Garbage Patch!

I consider this episode as your best so far .... A positive broad brush approach for our world, using what we "have" today as consumers and end products to repurpose ... as the ever looming dead end to humans broad brush approach of consumption, regardless of "source" at the expense of the planet.

I wonder how the older folk like you are so happy, funny and charming while noone below the age of 70 that I know have those traits

I love breathing and eating Microplastics every possible moment :3

I’ve been waiting for this for years. At last!!

in numerous conversations I've suggested this very concept and been called any number of combinations of "dumb" and "crazy"... glad to know I'm not a TOTAL idiot...

Great video as always. I'm somewhat skeptical of the plastic blocks as a building material. I've seen several runs at this, and they all seem to have a problem creating a product that's consistent enough to make regulators happy. I'm not for eliminating the idea, I'm just not going to wait with bated breath. As for the mind wandering problem, I don't think it is one. I often say I like to let my mind wander about without adult supervision, sometimes it comes back with some interesting things. 🤔

Love this idea, really want to see it take off!

Wow. Lots of naysayers on this one. The use of plastics are not going anywhere anytime soon. Alternatives for waste plastic disposal / recycling are sorely needed in our society. Innovative solutions such as these need to be encouraged and supported in expanding their feasibility and viability. Good for these guys and sure hope more get on board.

Thanks, Dave! Another great video! 😊

Thank you

Thanks for yet ANOTHER terrific video Dave.

I wonder what they envision rendering or covering for these bricks, can't imagine much sticks to it.

Dave - YES!!! Closed loop economy. I believe the primary issue with capitalism today is no companies really deal with any waste post-sale. It is up to the consumer to deal with that, who simply discards it into rubbish. I believe all companies that make stuff should be forced to design how to receive, refurbish, reuse, and/or recycle the various components in their products. This will form the basis for closed-loop, and I believe an additional profitable "upstream" economy. So, let's say you buy a coffee maker, use it, and it stops working? You would return it to the store you bought it from and it would find it's way back to Cuisinart. Cuisinart (who would already have the infrastructure built to receive and break down the product) would diagnose that the heating element is bad, but the rest of the coffee maker is absolutely fine. They would replace the heating element, give the coffee maker a shine, and resell it as new. Cuisinart would return the heating element to the manufacturer. That manufacturer might find that the only thing that is bad is the element itself. They would replace the element and sell it as new - back to Cuisinart (or whoever). The heating element company would return the element back to their supplier, and the cycle continues until it ends up at the materials manufacture who would prepare it and incorporate it into their new products. This model would generate additional revenue, because the company that is the most prepared to reuse or recycle is the company that built it in the first place. That doesn't happen today, because there is no "upstream" process to get those products to their original manufacturers; and companies don't generally build out the infrastructure for dealing with incoming products because it's all about getting products to market (i.e. "downstream") and its seen as extra expense rather than potential extra revenue. One day perhaps!!

The use of waste plastics to make bricks sounds very sensible but will they be fire resistant, would they expand and contract a lot, how much would they deform under tensile loading and compression? Would the bricks be glued together or plastic welded? With the number of companies involved in this field, I’m sure they will find a way to overcome these issues.

I love a lot of the outside-the-box thinking in these videos, and watch your videos regularly as a person who's a science teacher and someone who has a high-level general knowledge about all the Sciences this is one of the few that I really doubt has any chance of working. When you add things into concrete they need to interact in positive ways with it in several different ways. We can add fibers to concrete like we do in hempcrete, or carbon fiber concrete because the cement in concrete and those fibers are both capable of being wet by water forming a tight interaction between the filler and the calcium and silicon hydrates in the cement. Most Plastics are difficult to nearly impossible to wet and they're going to essentially be bubbles from a strength standpoint. They're not going to stick to and add structural reinforcements. Another reason why you do it to increase the tensile strength because the material you're putting in has a good tensile strength and is in fibrous form that runs along way. Do plastic can form fibers these recycled the Plastics would have to be melted down and then spun into strong fibers that's not possible with a lot of plastics. Plastic waste is probably going to be mixed in as filler particles and is going to reduce the strength instead of increase it. We do ad killers that are particulate like sand, gravel and cobblestones to concrete, and that helps straight propagation of cracks cracks because those stones are much harder than the cement. Again plastic can't really do this because it has no attachment to the cement, is not really stronger than the cement depending upon the plastic, and is often deformable so it doesn't block The Strain on the material, the stretching of the material

Breeze blocks.... rim doughnuts?, I can barely understand this guy! Good stuff🎉

Two questions on my mind, first fire hazard. Plastics will burn like oil, which means lots of smoke. Second, decomposition. Some plastics might decompose and release gases or liquids that can be toxic.

Thanks Dave, more on donut economics please.

one to way to implement these plastic blocks could be to use them to build sheds, garages, garden walls etc..at least that way your using up some plastic waste and your saving on using concrete - may even be able to use them as lintels in houses (a lintel is a beam that is usually placed above windows and doors. The lintel's main job is to support the load from the structure above it.), just a few things off my head

The solution must start with building the disposal and recycling costs into plastic. I propose a feedback loop, the added disposal cost is proportional to the plastic showing up in landfills and the environment. Simple to implement and administer and the everyone ends up with a financial incentive to conserve, reuse etc.

Working on solid waste management here in the Philippines, the biggest issue is segregation at source. Solutions like the one presented here are only possible with good segregation. Can you make a video on the various solutions segregation at source in poorer countries ?

Thank you.

01:40 we all do :) and we love what you come up with and share too.

Building a home out of blocks of fuel seems dangerous. But then we do use wood...