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Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

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31–40 of 197 posts

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#34

Not so great. Plastic is going to be seen like asbestos in 50 years.

Which deadly diseases has plastic been linked with?

Is the endocrine content of BPA any worse than drinking soy milk?

Bioaccumulation of microplastics may be a different story. It may pose an inflammation risk, serve as a safe harbor for bacterial colonies, or be carcinogenic, but as far as I'm aware there haven't been any studies showing this.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#35

Problem is, plastic can be "dissolved" and then recycled, so why lock precious commodity as plastic in bricks for decades ?

I'm not sure what your argument is here - they are recycling waste plastic to have commodity value as a building material already

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#36

Problem is, plastic can be "dissolved" and then recycled, so why lock precious commodity as plastic in bricks for decades ?

That's only economical for a small fraction of plastics, we are sending a huge amount to landfill right now. The bar for turning into brick could well be smaller, in which case it could be done with plastic which would otherwise go to landfill.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#37

When the concrete weathers, will the plastic in the bricks turn into micro-plastic?

The plastic has already been produced, so it's already an environmental problem, this repurposes it, one way or another it's going to break down and end up somewhere.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#38
post #34

Not so great. Plastic is going to be seen like asbestos in 50 years.

Which deadly diseases has plastic been linked with? Is the endocrine content of BPA any worse than drinking soy milk? Bioaccumulation of microplastics may be a different story. It may pose an inflammation risk, serve as a safe harbor for bacterial colonies, or be carcinogenic, but as far as I'm aware there haven't been any studies showing this.

Because we need studies (ideally, funded by the same corporations that poison us) to tell us that having increasing quantities of plastic in our blood, lungs and other organs is bad.

What happened I wonder to the precautionary principle? Maybe that's going to be our collective lamentation when we crash at warp speed into some sort of great filter.

Re: Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

#40
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be probably be mitigated with some sort of coating. It would be more expensive, but it would still allow for the repurposing of waste plastic.

Ah I know, coat it in epoxy!

Coat it in concrete!
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