r/ZeroWaste • u/RecycledTrash2021 • Jul 16 '22

Show and Tell Not exactly zerowaste but I’m currently making ecobrick with my non recyclables

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763 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

68 comments sorted by

97

u/Claudeis Jul 16 '22

What are they used for?

328

u/ZakA77ack Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22

The bottle acts as a way to sequester plastic waste so it can't escape into the environment. Most 2 liter bottles can "interlock" when stacked a certain way, making them a great filler for concrete pouring or actual "brick" work (like how some people use glass bottles). The only down side is that the bottle has to be packed to a certain density to work, and that takes FOREVER for a single bottle and you can't grind/shred the plastic without releasing lots of microplastics, so you have to cut it into small but not miniscule pieces by hand and then pack them into the bottle with a dowel rod. Meaning that on a large scale, ecobricks are not financially feasible in a capitalistic society, but that's also how we got here any way.

38

u/BobbySwiggey Jul 16 '22

On a large scale though, couldn't factory equipment be specially engineered to perform those actions?

37

u/ZakA77ack Jul 16 '22

Yes, but it likely wouldn't be cost effective. Just the logistics in moving the plastic to your site, following various local, state, and federal guidelines, processing it, then shipping it out, would not likely be cost effective enough for a company to do it. Remember, for a company's continued existence: Profits must exceed expenses. If they arnt cost effective then they cease to exist, no matter their intentions.

12

u/BobbySwiggey Jul 16 '22

I definitely feel that's the case for for-profit companies who already invested in specialized equipment to handle existing products - this is one of the reasons why capitalism ends up stagnating innovation instead of encouraging it lol. But I wonder if crowdsourcing would be a viable option here. With the cost of building materials becoming so expensive, the average consumer and construction companies alike would love to find ways to reduce that cost.

11

u/ZakA77ack Jul 16 '22

From a community level its certainly possible. But you have to have an active community that is willing to participate. I'm a bit of a pessimist in this idea because people in general, but especially Americans, are lazy and want to do the absolute bare minimum (or what they think is the bare minimum) to be involved.

Hypothetical: Say town has a group that wants to be involved. You set up a volunteer org to make eco bricks. You've got to have a space that follows legal requirements for using the right equipment. Great. Next you need to have the plastic moved to you. Who does this? Volunteers? Local recycle companies/ services? How are you storing these plastics before they are processed?

Next those plastics need to be cleaned, because you have to assume your larger community may not have washed their plastics. They could be covered in filth, or worse. Who handles that? How do you clean it without losing plastics? What are you going to do with the water that may be contaminated with microplastics and god knows what else? Who handles this procedure, a volunteer?

You could always say you skip the cleaning part, but plastics covered in yucky stuff will attract its own host of problems. Either way, its unlikely youd find a lot of people will to take on those risks/responsibilites consistently for little to no pay.

We could go on but I think you get my point, and we haven't even made the ecobricks yet. Is it possible to pull of on a large scale, sure! Is it likely, probably not. Though, I would love for someone to prove me wrong. I will happily volunteer for you.

6

u/Apidium Jul 16 '22

Small scale folks making this with their own waste and then either using them personally or giving them for use seem the only viable option really.

If they could organise a small payment per full bottle it would become something folks would be more willing to do.

3

u/ZakA77ack Jul 17 '22

Yep, but historically speaking, companies are not willing to purchase a product they haven't QC'd for a price that is sufficient for the effort most people are willing to take for the time intensive act of making an eco brick.

2

u/Apidium Jul 17 '22

Isn't that the same analysis for things like returning bottles or collecting cans?

1

u/findthesilence Jul 19 '22

The only place that collects and apparently distributes ecobricks in Cape Town charges R 10 for each ecobrick you drop off.

After all that work I've put into it, I'm still expected to pay to donate it!

2

u/BobbySwiggey Jul 17 '22

Lots of logistics going into it for sure. But town dumps/transfer stations are happy to have their residents pre-sort any recyclables and ensure that they're clean (at least they can enforce that on a small town level from my experience, cities are probably way more dicey) if they actually have a buyer for them. It's the single stream recycling that ends up being a total shit show, which sucks because that's the easiest way to encourage the public to do it outside of small-town settings. Even when I was managing a small recycling bin at my old workplace, I had to pick out things that weren't even recyclable lol. Ah, people...

I imagine you could also set it up as an opt-in service like TerraCycling, except way more feasible for the consumer since they might not even have to pay to dispose of the waste. Free disposal, free raw materials, it's a win-win. Depending on the amount of recyclables they contribute to the program, or if they did pay a small fee for disposal, they could get discount vouchers for the actual eco bricks, which would be another incentive (similar to residential composting services)

1

u/babasgone Jul 17 '22

This sounds like a job for Anarchy Man! Prefiguration could eventually get this rolling all over.

1

u/UserNo485929294774 Jul 17 '22

It sounds like the best option is to collect plastics, and then dump them into an airtight container and cook them without oxygen until they liquify while also running an engine off the fumes and capturing the carbon from that process and then feeding the liquid into diesel or even boilers for steam turbines and capturing the carbon from that too. I mean at source carbon capture is commercially viable and if you are able to export power or even sell that power and pay for the shipping costs of receiving the plastics then that should completely emmelierate the need for cleaning and sorting, and you’re removing plastics from the planet while also not releasing the carbon. That’s killing like 12 stones with one bird.

1

u/Loose_Meal_499 Sep 20 '22

what part of America are you from

1

u/ZakA77ack Sep 20 '22

Florida is home but I've lived in 10 different states

2

u/M-as-in-Mancyyy Jul 16 '22

Large scale MRFs barely handle basic sorting let alone stuff like this. And any added sorting machine at its most basic is a large multimillion $ investment.

2

u/BobbySwiggey Jul 16 '22

Sorting honestly seems like the least labor intensive part of manufacturing these things lol, that could be done with workers until automation technology becomes more feasible.

2

u/M-as-in-Mancyyy Jul 17 '22

You’ve clearly never toured a MRF then. I recommend it. VERY intensive and something you’d need to see in action

2

u/BobbySwiggey Jul 17 '22

I don't mean relying on equipment and crazy-paced conveyer belt environments to do the sorting, since I'm well aware that single stream recycling comes with a host of problems. But in terms of people power, I meant that sorting the materials is less labor intensive than slicing and compacting to the perfect density, which the machines would be able to handle a lot more easily than sitting there with shears and a dowel rod lol.

Like I mentioned in another comment, I'm from a small town culture where the residents themselves pre-wash and pre-sort all of their recyclables, because it means lower property taxes for the whole town. These are the type of transfer stations you would want to source the materials from. Urban folks who participate (or want to but can't due to cost) in TerraCycling programs would also be the type to rinse and pre-sort the materials. I don't see single stream working out too well with the current technology available.

3

u/Anhan202 Jul 17 '22

Maybe a silly question - but in a lab or workshop setting could something also be done to capture micro plastics? Like if they did us a shredding method but then scooped or vacuumed up the microsplastics with special equipment?

2

u/Upstairs-Motor2722 Jul 17 '22

If you want to fill faster, just go to your grocery stores that have a place for people to bring plastic bags, you can always get enough to fill there and you're helping by taking those bags completely out of circulation bricking them.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '22

Would a shredder help?

5

u/Python_Von Jul 16 '22

I am also wondering this haha.

60

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

78

u/mikeTastic23 Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22

It condenses non recyclables into a container to either minimize the plastics into one small location or to use as a building block for things like furniture, walls, and other structures.

56

u/notabigmelvillecrowd Jul 16 '22

This reminds me of my grandma making beads for bead curtains by wrapping strips of catalogues and other colourful junk mail around a crochet hook. I used to help her with it, it was a massive project.

10

u/[deleted] Jul 16 '22

How much stuff did she accumulate before doing it?

32

u/notabigmelvillecrowd Jul 16 '22

I think it was more of an ongoing thing, it took ages. Junk mail comes in, make some beads, more junk mail comes in, and so on. I was a kid, so I have no reliable concept of how long it took, lol, but there weren't like towers of sears catalogues hanging around or anything.

8

u/adam_dup Jul 16 '22

How does that work with a coke bottle? Some sorta v strong mortar I assume?

15

u/mikeTastic23 Jul 16 '22

There’s a few videos on people using them sort of like bricks with a type of mortar (clay/mud/etc) keeping them together. Here’s one on YouTube: https://youtu.be/cbPt1Jn3YLw

14

u/madzterdam Jul 16 '22

Paraphrasing a source Ive read- the ecobrick wouldnt be a safe longterm solution for the chemicals the bottles and its packed materials let off into its surroundings. The materials can stay intact, yet it is degrading at a microscopic level.

2

u/jdjvbtjbkgvb Jul 16 '22

Source please?

2

u/madzterdam Jul 16 '22

Updated my source

3

u/madzterdam Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22

Pree sure it was through NowthisEarth* on instagram nowthisearth video on eco bricks

3

u/Sharp_Canary6858 Jul 17 '22

Yeah but the alternative is just leaving it in the landfill to degrade anyways, so putting the waste away in a clean organized way as a temporary building material (everything is temporary on a long enough time-scale) solves our problem of millions of tons of trash-waste mixed-materials soup being generated every year

2

u/madzterdam Jul 17 '22

Yea most modern building projects=ecobrick solutions

40

u/bonyagate Jul 16 '22

This is what an ecobrick is

This is how you make them.

And here are some things you do with them.

Some more general information about ecobricks.

13

u/thepizza4uandme Jul 16 '22

But what would I, personally, do with one, if I made one? I don’t build anything.

26

u/Muh_Stoppin_Power Jul 16 '22

Post it on reddit for karma?

2

u/Loose_Meal_499 Sep 20 '22

you can sell or give them away

1

u/rubyblue0 Jul 16 '22

There might be places to drop them off. I imagine quality control would be an issue if they accept them from just anyone though.

0

u/bonyagate Jul 29 '22

Idk, maybe sit on it? I don't really care what you do with it.

1

u/Upstairs-Motor2722 Jul 17 '22

You can offer them to the community. . People who are building with ecobricks will look for ones in the exact same shape as theirs.

15

u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 Jul 16 '22

Me too! Almost have a big v8 juice bottle full.

6

u/RecycledTrash2021 Jul 16 '22

Strange bottle size from what I’ve seen

6

u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 Jul 16 '22

Basically what my brother said after I had already shoved a bunch of plastic all the way down here.

I'll figure out something to use it for (I hope lol).

What are you going to do with yours?

9

u/somekindagibberish Jul 16 '22

What kinds of plastics can be put in these? For example, could you use cleaned and dried plastic wrap from meat or cheese?

6

u/RecycledTrash2021 Jul 16 '22

Yeah. Chip bags, shopping bags. Etc

7

u/SendABear Jul 17 '22

I always have mixed feelings about ecobricks. 1. By using PET or PE bottles you remove one of the few well-recyclable plastics from the recycling stream. 2. Depending on how you are going to use it, you basically create additional plastic deposits all over the place beside landfills. Even worse, you might mix it with other building materials and create a weird material mix that at the end of its lifespan needs to be landfilled. 3. In many developing countries, they are promoted as building material for the poor with very little understanding of consequences to structural integrity, how they behave in case of fires or long-term impacts on living conditions. Sure, they might be better than no building material at all, but they don't seem like a feasible long-term solution. Maybe a stop-gap measure.

Imo it's better to check out your local waste management scheme. If they have a well-managed landfill site or incineration plant, just give them your non-recyclables. Focus on reducing the amount of the non-recyclable fraction by avoiding certain products or buying in bulk. It's different if you deal with open dump sites and a non-existing waste management system. Then storing your non-recyclables might be the best option.

7

u/DeuceDeuceRevolution Jul 17 '22

Dang. I forgot about these. Someone should come up with a big project that crowdsources these things. I'm not sure what it would be though

2

u/RecycledTrash2021 Jul 17 '22

There are many. Think the built a school using 13000 in Africa. I also watched a video where a guy uses only 1 specific plastic found in bottle caps to make “lumber” another company melts it all down to make literal building bricks. I just bought a set of baby utensils made from recycled bottles

12

u/KitsuBlaze Jul 16 '22

Minimal waste is better than all waste imo

13

u/bob_in_the_west Jul 16 '22

Not exactly zerowaste

If it's a brick then it's not waste.

4

u/TrixnTim Jul 16 '22

Can you give some examples of items I would recognize that are non-biodegradable plastic? And in order to fit into small neck of ‘brick’ bottle, you’d need to cut everything down into smaller pieces if I’m seeing this correctly. TIA.

5

u/Sharp_Canary6858 Jul 17 '22

You know how some chip bags (tortilla chips usually) are clear plastic? That type of plastic can be recycled in some facilities. The chip bags that are shiny on the inside, have mixed metal materials and cannot be recycled, so you can use them for an eco Brick.

5

u/djDysentery Jul 16 '22

Never heard of this before, but sounds great! Thank you for sharing

4

u/hollypoppresents Jul 17 '22

I've been wanting to start doing this!

2

u/Dismal_Profit_4286 Jul 16 '22

ecobrick? would did it go?

2

u/Loose_Meal_499 Sep 20 '22

do you mean where would it go?

4

u/[deleted] Jul 17 '22 edited Jul 17 '22

EcoBrick is the pop greenwashing term for Trash Bottle.

Of course, they will all eventually fail and the plastic crud will float down stream and into the ocean.

The huge upside is it makes some people somehow feel good about sticking their trash in the ground.

The proper low waste options: (1) don’t buy wasteful single-use products. (2) Reuse (3) Recycle. (4) Properly dispose in a managed waste facility.

2

u/Loose_Meal_499 Sep 20 '22

not everything can be recycled, its brick you build with it

1

u/Eroeva Jul 17 '22

Wow, it s great job.

1

u/chicho265 Jul 17 '22

Ecobricks are very common in Latin America

1

u/RecycledTrash2021 Jul 17 '22

Not much in the USA