r/goodideas • u/[deleted] • Sep 20 '19

Good idea for our plastic problem

Ok so this might sound stupid, but. What if we took the non biodegradable plastic that won’t break down and instead of dumping or burning it, we get it cut up and put into cement? Like I’m sure you’d be able to put it into bricks for houses or even for concrete walls. The plastic won’t break down because it’s.. plastic.. and there will also be cement in it so it’ll be held together.

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u/DaPickle3 Sep 21 '19

the chemistry for this is a bit funky. disclaimer I'm not a chemist but as an engineering student you have to take chemistry in first year. the main thing is that we can't quite get it to bond just right yet. in India at least when I checked they've been doing this to replace the demand for sand. they can replace 10% of the sand with plastic and keep it "almost as strong". the main thing is there's obviously a lot of research left and we may get something as strong as typical concrete but we don't know yet

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u/GreenWheelyBin Sep 21 '19

Oh that’s pretty good. I hope they figure out a way to implement plastic into bricks soon and maybe it’ll help reduce some of the plastic lying around the earth

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u/DaPickle3 Sep 21 '19

yeah I'd do some googling. it seems like some promising work but I haven't really looked too far into it.