Plastic

jsizemore

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Years ago I saw this thing on this old house where a university used shredded plastic and old salvaged wood and made a building material out of it. What they did was mix shredded plastic and shredded wood and heated it and then pressed it into a mold and made doors, trim and so forth.
Could the same thing be done in the DR by going along the beaches and collecting the plastic there and then using bamboo or other renewable wood type product and make building material to be used for home construction?
Just a thought
John
 

Keith R

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Boy, John, you really are fixated on this composite lumber issue, aren't you? ;)

Well, there are a couple of possible problems with your scenario for the DR. One of them is that the plastic resin most often utilized for composite lumber is polyethylene (PE), usually gotten from plastic shopping bags and agricultural films. I'm not sure the volume of the former in the DR would suffice to make a go of a composite lumber production facility in the DR, and I fear the latter might be laden with pesticides where they can be found at all.

To collect the PE, companies like Trax [www.trax.com] usually rely on contracts with retailers like WalMart to get all the plastic pallet wrap they take off incoming shipments, and contracts with supermarket chains that provide recycling drop-offs for plastic shopping bags.

PET can be used in making composite lumber, but usually in small percentages and not as the main resin.

Another problem is that unless the ground wood is of a certain variety of hardwood, the resulting composite is off low quality -- looks bad and the strength of composite is not as good.
I can double check with my engineering friends, but I suspect bamboo would not work. In fact, I suspect few native woods would that aren't on the endangered list already.

Regards,
Keith
 
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jsizemore

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not fixated-pissed off

I can remember the trash in the rivers back home as a kid. I remember swimming around the floating tires and bottles. Then the tree huggers came and we straitened up. Now it takes effort to find trash in the rivers back home. Yes it is there but not so blatant. It saddens me to see that here. The DR is what West Virgia was in 1972. It deserves better and the people deserve better.
I want to be as in tune to the mountains of the DR as I was growing up in the Mountains of WV.
John
P.S. Remember Bamboo is used as lumber in the orient.
 

Keith R

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Regarding bamboo, I should re-phrase. There is "lumber" made entirely of plastic, without wood. But its load strength is considerably weaker. Any wood fiber, including bamboo, will strengthen it, I am told, but to get to the type of strength to build a deck or some other construct that must bear heavy traffic & loads over long periods, certain ground hardwoods are needed.

On the website you cited in another thread, they talk about all sorts of experiments with alternative ingredients, such as straw instead of wood and polypropylene (PP) instead of PE & PET. That's all interesting to speculate & experiment with, but for now I am told the best stuff -- both in looks and performance -- uses ground hardwoods mixed with PE & PET. The most promising alternative looks to be fiberglass fibers mixed in with plastic.

Regards,
Keith
 
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jsizemore

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undestood not cost worthy

I understand not cost worthy. There still has to be a use for the plastic besides burning it.
John
 

Keith R

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Re: undestood not cost worthy

jsizemore said:
I understand not cost worthy. There still has to be a use for the plastic besides burning it.
John
John,
Yeah, there are plenty of uses for waste plastic -- some of it depends on economics (market demand, costs), some on imagination.

Regarding the latter, you might find interesting an experiment being done by a professor and others in Brazil. They have taken the empty plastic soda bottles from the streets and trash bins that we all know -- mostly made of PET -- and used them as a building material. The bottles are filled with sand, soil, rocks, etc., sealed, and then cemented into the walls. They thus help fortify the houses of poor folks who cannot afford good cement blocks. the links on these experiments are as follows:
http://www.ecopop.com.br/publique/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?sid=5&infoid=6
http://www.ctc.ufsc.br/casa_pet.htm
http://www.abipet.org.br/2003/clipping.asp?text=35.html
Sorry, but they're all in Portuguese, although most Spanish-speakers should be able to read it fairly easily.

Another experiment underway by some Brazilian eco-designers is to make seaworthy vessels with PET bottles, to be test run between Porto Alegre, Brazil, and India.
http://www.furg.br/furg/projet/embalagens/tres/pet.html

Ground PET also can be used to make other products, such as plastic sandals or shoe soles, or in the production of polyesther fibers used in clothes/textile production. In fact, there's an interesting experiment in which a community group in the interior of Rio de Janeiro state, with little money but alot of spunk & marketing energy, has managed to form a successful business whereby a local company converts the PET bottles they collect into polyester material that the favela ladies sew into shirts sold on the streets...

Regards,
Keith

342003061815543715casapet.jpg
 
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jsizemore

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WHAT ABOUT LOG CABINS

Ok here is another thought then. Why not make palstic large lincoln logs. Preset sizes and dimensions say multiples of 3 meters. And then a few odd sizes for windows and doors. Include the right type of trim also.Then all some one would have to do is pour a slab. have a truck deliver set number of said sized logs. Get a couple of cases of beer for their buddies and put up the walls in a day. Put a roof on and then cover the whole thing with stucko. Instant housing.
Sell prefab kits to gringos.
John