Our addiction to single-use or disposable plastic has severe environmental consequences. Today, the world produces about 380 million tons of plastic every year. Almost half of that is single-use plastics, which is utilized only once but remains on the planet for several hundred years.
Only 9% of plastic waste is recycled Worldwide
Several solutions and alternatives to plastics have been proposed but it continue to remain a challenge.
Now, a Los Angeles-based start-up called ByFusion has come up with an innovative system to help address this issue.
It can shape all kinds of plastics, even non-recyclable ones into building materials called ByBlock
The company says its process doesn’t require any pre-treatment, sorting, or cleaning of plastics. But it uses steam and compression to reshape waste into building blocks. The super-efficient and convenient building blocks do not crack or crumble.
The blocks can also be used by engineers in construction to build almost everything that they can think of
The ByBlocks work just like cement blocks but they are susceptible to sunlight. ByFusion says that this issue can easily be resolved by coating them in clear paint or pairing them with a weather-resistant material.
ByFusion’s production facility or Blockers in L.A. can tackle up to 450 tons of plastic per year. The firm has already recycled 103 tons of plastic to date and plans to recycle a total of 100 million tons by 2030 by installing 12 more Blockers across the United States.
