Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete | Hacker News Reader

Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

peopleofcolorintech.com

258 pointslaurex189 comments

Mixing plastics with asphalt has been tried for roads in India for many years now. There is one stretch near where I live which was done 10+ years ago. There is an official policy on trying this, as a pilot, for any agency that wishes to use it. See: https://www.prakati.in/use-of-plastic-for-road-construction-...

The road which I use occasionally seems reasonably good as roads go. Unless you see the boards informing users about the mixing of plastic you wouldn't know.

I think plastic probably makes more sense as a construction material than for roads. Cars are really tough on roads. I have to imagine that plastic in roads would get shredded into microplastics and wind up all over the place.

I have to imagine that plastic in roads would get shredded into microplastics and wind up all over the place.

Wouldn't that depend on how the plastic is used? Roads are complex engineered objects made up of many parts. Putting plastic in the top layer where it would be subject to wear might not work, but putting it into one or more of the substrate layers could still make the road more durable, recycle the plastic for a second life, and capture it so it doesn't end up in the environment.

I think that's assuming the road is properly maintained.

Tires and brakes already do that. This would just do it more.

Not "just". More, more, more microplastics.

asphalt is already tar/oil anyway, wouldnt make up that much of a difference I'd think.

If it is an organic compound it is probably going to breakdown in years or decades. (Crude oil spills AFAIK only have a relatively short term impact).

Most plastics seem to take centuries before they are back to something that is less noticeable in the environment.

Wind blowing sand on the walls and the UV rays do the same with plastic. Rain extracts plasticizers, solvents and adhesives.

Would this be any worse for the environment than the petroleum in asphalt roads?

Or the carbon added to the air.

Cars are... not good for the environment.

Electric cars powered with renewables solves that problem somewhat.

Yes, noting the "powered with renewables" aspect.

and keeping in mind that any 1 ton plus vehicle is going to take substantial energy to move around (vs, say, an ebike).

> take substantial energy to move around (vs, say, an ebike).

e-bikes are an alternative to cars the same way wheelbarrows are an alternative to trucks.

they are different means of transportation, for different purposes.

I don't own a car and I try to use cars as less as possible, but every time I need to use one, an e-bike would be useless.

When an e-bike could be useful, I can walk or use public transports.

> they are different means of transportation, for different purposes.

Most people I know mainly use their car to get to work and back home. This is a need that could likely be fulfilled by an E-Bike just as well, unless the route is unreasonably long.

so while the initial statement is true, the conclusion you drew from it is false -- at least from the perspective of society.

> Most people I know mainly use their car to get to work and back home

Anecdotal evidence is no evidence.

Cars and bikes are complementary, not alternatives.

Most people I know mainly use their car to get to work and back home too, they travel 100 kms a day on an highway from one side to the other of the city.

If they had to go by bike, they had to be pro bikers, which they are very far from. Even if they took the road through the city, which is shorter, they would have to climb a few steep hills (you know, Rome it's not flat like Amsterdam and it's huge).

Starting from now there'll be 35-40 degrees celsius in Rome until august, not really the best climate to bike, also considering that arriving all sweaty at work and having to shower and change is not exactly what "most people" want do or can do.

They could, however, use the public transport.

That would solve the issue.

Bike would not.

> the conclusion you drew from it is false -- at least from the perspective of society.

Show me the proof that on average what you say it's true and I'll consider it.

In my country average commute time is 30 minutes, only in Milan, 1.5 million residents, the subway moves 400 million passengers/year.

Also in Italy there are around 10 thousand electric scooter on rental, in the past two years there have been already 2.000 incidents, mostly self inflicted.

Put those 400 million passengers / year on bikes and the next month ER rooms will look like the COVID 19 period.

To convince them to bike for 30 minutes under heavy rain, or scorching sun or uphiil, it would mean forcing them.

Cities are already bikeable, but most people prefer not to, because biking is not the best way to move for many people.

If they wanted to do it, they already would.

I think if you speak about society, bikers are some of the worst offender of common spaces, if you'll ever come to Milan I'll show you why that's the case.

One example above all: they protested for the bike lane, the city made the bike lane, they are not using it because they "don't like it" and now they bike on the sidewalk.

And they also think they have the right to.

At that point it's far too easy to prefer car drivers, at least they don't drive where it's clearly signaled that the space is pedestrians only.

Cars and bikes are a bad solution to long commutes. The best solution is short commutes or WFH. In that situation bikes are fine and even cars are less bad.

> Cars and bikes are a bad solution to long commutes

Yes, exactly.

Long commutes are the problem.

> The best solution is short commutes or WFH. In that situation bikes are fine and even cars are less bad

Except for traffic jams, I agree.

The more time people spend on the road, the more accidents are going to happen.

It's true for cars, bikes, mopeds, motorbikes, but not for walking or using the subway.

So every time a person says "we should all be cyclist" is only expressing an opinion, not a fact!

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For those who want some crude numbers.

Stop here if not interested

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An e-bike that goes 20-25mph in a park full of people, it's actually more dangerous than a moped at the same speed, also because mopeds don't access to pedestrian areas usually.

In my country every year a report on pedestrian accidents is released.

The most recent issue is about year 2019, that says:

- 352 bikes were in accidents involving a pedestrian, they killed one and injured 366 of them.

- 325 mopeds in the same period killed no one, injured 271.

- 1,831 motorbikes killed 26 people and injured 2,131

But there are 7 million motorbikes, going around every day, while bikes are only 1.5 million and most of them aren't used daily.

E-bikes are basically mopeds, but are statistically more dangerous than mopeds for pedestrian and have a death rate that's only 20% of the deaths by motorbikes, that are much heavier (15x) and can run a lot faster (10x).

If there were as many bikes as motorbikes (4.6x) it's possible to predict at least 352 * ( 7 / 1.5) = 5 deaths and 1,685 injured people.

Add that a safe +20% If they traveled for as long as motorbikes (5 days a week instead of 1 or 2), and you get 2.022 injured and 6 deaths, worrisome numbers if you ask me.

Also, due to COVID-19 and people ordering delivery more than ever (usually delivered by bike), Milan have seen an increment on bike accidents of 30% year on year, in the face of only a 7% increase of traveled distances.

In this case it can't even be said it's because of cars, cars could hardly run during the lock downs!

The problem with short commutes is most people are part of what we call a "family". Most have two people with jobs. The shorter the commute the harder it is for both to find a job within range.

WFH is nice for those who can do it, but there are a lot of jobs that cannot be done from home.

> Anecdotal evidence is no evidence.

Everything you wrote was just as anecdotal, so you've just categorically dismissed all your arguments too. Well done.

> Everything you wrote was just as anecdotal, so you've just categorically dismissed all your arguments too. Well done.

if you look enough, there are numbers.

I know it's hard for an hardcore bike fan to act intelligently, but you can try!

If you actually think that i'm a hardcore bike fan from these comments, than you're really mentally challenged. For the record: I think I've driven about 10km with a bike within the last 12 month. Really, if anyone is arguing under false pretenses it's you.

None of your numbers have citations, which make them hearsay and effectively anecdotal at best

> than you're really mentally challenged

stay classy!

never said that you are, just that hardcore bike fans are.

apparently you just proved that sometimes even non hardcore bike fans are.

> None of your numbers have citations

most of them are in Italian, I doubt you can even pronounce bruschetta correctly.

If I'm mentally challenged for giving you numbers, what would you define yourself that can't even verify those numbers that are publicly available, using Google?

Anyway, since you asked

Always glad to help people that had it worse than me.

https://www.aci.it/archivio-notizie/notizia.html?tx_ttnews%5...

https://roma.aci.it/notizie-e-informazioni/notizie-ed-eventi...

https://www.asaps.it/70913-_3_rapporto_annuale_sull_incident...

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/-/d...

https://www.istat.it/it/archivio/263507

https://www.atm.it/it/IlGruppo/ChiSiamo/Pagine/Numeri.aspx

That's true, but it seems to me that, in many circumstances, people are using a truck when all they need is a wheelbarrow.

I recommend reading this in Lucasarts gaming style text:

Meanwhile deep in a laboratory somewhere deep in the Caribbean…… several scientists hell bent on solving the landfill problem work frantically on bacteria which are capable of breaking down plastics as their primary food source.

I imagine solving landfill problems with a plastic bacteria just compounding our problems: A 400m-wide hotpot of bacteria, some of it escaping, people being infected in their house, spreading to a few blocks, kids not playing together “because his toys have the disease”…

good opportunity for metal toys

Or wood.

Yeah but then plastic would rot, and it wouldn't be worse at many things.

Yea but I don’t think anyone wants their bricks to rot

Its also what happened to a rather oversupplied underdemanded album by Robbie Williams back in 2008.

https://www.contactmusic.com/robbie-williams/news/rudebox-to...

I believed that was actually common practice already, especially near crossings, in order to make the asphalt more elastic, so that it bends under the weight of a standing car and then goes back to its old shape.

Unfortunately I think that the frequency of stories like these happens because people incorrectly assume that plastic is cheap and plentiful. I learned this because of a paper about remarkable properties of an alumina-PMMA composite: when I investigated the material costs, I learned that PMMA (aka acrylic) was more than half of the price, even though it was only 20% of the composite by weight.

Plastic has always been a suitable building material. But it's expensive to produce in bulk. It just happens that a fraction of a gram of polyethylene can still make a useful grocery bag, which leads to there being a lot of small pieces of plastic scattered all over the world.

As a method of waste management, this could prove useful. But 500 metric tons of plastic bricks per year (the supply of waste from the article) will only build a few houses, and won't make a noticeable dent in the demand for building materials in Nairobi, a city of millions.

The most interesting variant of polymers in construction I've heard of is the use of fiberglass-reinforced polymer rods as rebar in reinforced concrete. This should be more corrosion-resistant than steel, allowing reinforced concrete structures to last longer. This allows you to use smaller amounts of plastic to make larger amounts of buildings.

I bet sourcing all that sand will be a bigger problem than they expect as sand is a rare and nonrenewable resource that's heavily in demand for concrete and sourcing it has all sorts of environmental issues of its own.

They should look into replacing that with something that's also cheap waste. Maybe crushed glass would work?

Certain shapes of sand are rare compared to global construction, sand in general isn't. Unclear what this method needs.

glass is made from sand, there is less glass in world then sand, and again, why lock more precious commodity in another product which we are already making from other less precious commodity ?

It's the shape of the grains of sand that's bad for concrete, not the chemical composition. It gets less angular and more round when it moves in the desert and it doesn't bound well with cement. Sand that is good for concrete is rare and making it is expensive. The "bad" sand that is common everywhere is still perfect to make glass.

twenty-five percent of Africa is literally covered in sand. Sand comes in different granularity and compositions, but for concrete this is often irrelevant.

Uh, for concrete the granularity and composition is VERY important. In fact it's one of the most important parameters you can tweak in a concrete mix.

To the point that weird stuff like this happens quite frequently:

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Saudi-Arabia-imports-s...

My local DIY store here in the UK carries some 8 different types of sand, all for different purposes.

Actually it matters quite a bit. That's why countries which are literally filled with desert sand import river/sea sand for their construction. Finding a way to make desert sand usable for construction concrete would be significant.

This is brilliant. It's like asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar. This is that same idea but using plastic not oil/tar.

Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

The bricks will aspirate toxic chemicals when exposed to direct sunlight:

"...Plastics leached twice as much pollution in sunlight as in darkness, they found. One bag leached 263 different chemicals in the dark but more than 13,000 when exposed to light! Others leached even more. And the longer bags were exposed to sunlight, the more chemicals they leached. ..."

https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/everyday-plas....

Clay and other concrete based bricks must be cheap enough already, and work well.

If we intend to reuse plastic in bricks, maybe use those bricks for building things in and around landfills or things like storing nuclear waste - so that toxicity is concentrated. Otherwise, plastic bricks seem like one of those things that will be discovered to be toxic eventually.

The world is allegedly running out of sand appropriate for use in concrete products. 99% Invisible (podcast) has a episode on the topic I suggest checking out https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/built-on-sand/

Not saying that I want plastic in construction materials or roads though: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/may/19/environm...

The bricks in the story are made of sand, too.

Article states this is “plastic that otherwise would be dumped in the city’s overflowing garbage heaps.” Environmental impact of these plastics should be weighed relative to the impact of those same plastics sitting in said garbage heaps. It’s likely safer sequestered in a processed brick optimized for durability than it would be rapidly degrading from e.g. thin plastic bag material into microplastics leaching into the soils and water tables around the dump.

The environmental impact of garbage in dumps is extremely low, by spreading these bricks over a much larger area they would probably become a significantly larger environmental issue.

Dumps in operation look disgusting, but long term they end up looking like a regular hill and can avoid contamination of the local water supply etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Trashmore_Park#/media/Fi...

Mixing graphite into HDPE appears to make it immune to UV photo-degradation.

There’s even a company that capitalizes on this by making durable boat hulls with it: https://tidemanboats.com/

Not sure how it holds up in plasphalt, but it could be worth exploring graphite additives.

Exactly. It's called uv stabilization. When spec'ing a resin for a product a designer can choose to go with a UV stabilized resin, which is ok in the sun. Basically they add dirt, titanium oxide, other oxides to the plastic to mechanically block the uv waves.

Tried to look up "aspirate", but it didn't clarify: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aspirate

Note that "twice as much" doesn't mean it's a lot. Nor does the number of chemicals indicate danger.

In this context it means ''to suck in', 'to absorb'

From context, it seemed clear that OP meant the opposite:

That this material would leak out potentially dangerous chemicals.

How does one even begin to address concerns about toxicity with so many different chemicals? Go in order of concentration? Most to least likely to be biologically active based on models? Cluster them and evaluate the clusters?

Slowly make less every year, the goal of rohs, reach, etc. Then work to sequester/store/recycle/breakdown what we've already made in a responsible, economical, and non planet destroying way.

Depending on the stream (source) and chemistries there are ways to separate out plastics of concern (POCs) but they aren’t fully at scale yet depending on stream. It’s also very hard.

You go by separating valuable fractions out first.

The article you cite indicates that many of these chemicals come from plastic additives. Couldn't these be removed in the process of preparing the plastic,y? The OP indicates they have to select out only the plastics that bind well with the concrete.

This is where “new car smell” comes from too.

And it's worth noting that this problem that the OP brings up is literally present in every plastic product in our modern world. It's easy to pick apart new ideas with problems that are true for every other existing product. People are like wait, this isn't X, or Y, but it's like neither is the existing status quo, but it is incrementally better in X and Y, so it's going in the right direction, therefore worth doing.

I think the incrementally better argument is missing the idea that we could do something else with the material or fix it before we start using it. By making buildings or roads or whatever out of material that leaches toxic chemicals over time, we are still putting toxic waste everywhere which can slowly have large effects to our environment.

Just imagine being alongside Henry Ford and him making the same argument, "Yeah, gasoline stinks a little but it's definitely better than horse droppings!" Then fast forward to our current global climate problems.

They could paint them once installed, like nearly every building on the planet. Simple problem, simple solution.

> They could paint them once installed, like nearly every building on the planet. Simple problem, simple solution.

perhaps with a lead paint! that'll make everything better.

"sealing" a toxic material is not a solution when that seal can be broken by scraping it. let's face it, this is a toxic material that doesn't belong in our homes or our society.

Then get rid of everything plastic you own.

I actually don't have all that much in comparison - packaging is still hard to get rid of, since most of it is non-recyclable.

but, telling others to get rid of plastic while praising plastic (in other comments) doesn't really help the issue that it is a pollutant, flammable, and an overall problem for our environment.

I'm not telling you to get rid of plastic. I'm trying to highlight the hypocrisy of your comment

Just because you think you don't use much plastic in your everyday life, you do. Let's say (god forbid) you go to the hospital or need other health services. Plastic.

Let's say you go to Starbucks amd order a croissant. The croissant is handed to you in a paper bag that to your eyes isn't plastic, but is in fact Coated on the inside with a layer of plastic making the paper not recyclable. That croissant came to that Starbucks in a plastic bag that was thrown away before it was handed to you.

On and on, if you choose to live in our modern world, not as a hermit in the amazon, you are dependent on plastics weather you realize it or not.

> Then get rid of everything plastic you own

followed by:

> I'm not telling you to get rid of plastic. I'm trying to highlight the hypocrisy of your comment

then you give examples of where plastic is. I'm acutely aware of exactly how much plastic I consume, and make a concerted effort to not do so. the Starbucks example? easy to avoid when you don't go to Starbucks. if I want coffee, I can safely either make it myself or take my reusable mug (which, yes, has one of the few plastic items that I care to consume with as a lid) to my local barista. and yes, I know how much plastic went into the production and transport of the beans.

believe it or not, not everyone chooses to go through life with their heads in the sand, but instead try to make a difference. so, before you continue on this line of thought, perhaps you should remember that not everyone in the world are idiots.

some of us (and likely more than you realize) do understand the impact, and make choices to have as small of an impact as possible while realizing exactly how much plastic there is around them (typed on plastic keys).

I'm trying to point out there is plastic consumption where you don't even know, or can't get rid of. In your starbucks example for example. Using a reusable mug and making your own coffee is obvious. What is not obvious is all the plastic and petrochemical derived products used in getting that coffee to your grocery store, or door. It's sent to your grocery, or you, in plastic bags, the mug was fired with natural gas, on and on. You can't avoid it unless you sail to the tropics in your own sailboat, pick the beans, process them into coffee, and sail back.

I'm not trying to pick on you, or your lifestyle, quite the opposite. I'm just trying to point out its not so simple as to say don't use plastics, or all plastics are evil, because they're inherent in our modern life. You couldn't read this comment without plastics. My other comments in this topic talk about reducing our consumption, making more responsible decisions on how we use our resources, all of that is in line with your goals. We just can't be so extreme to say get rid of all plastics, because we're simply all not willing to roll thr technology clock back 50 years across our entire society. It needs to be a gradual weening off, a gradual March toward responsibility.

Should be an ideal to strive towards, truthfully.

agreed, and not a throwaway comment trying to make someone look "smart".

we should all be aware of how much plastic we consume, and work toward consuming less of it, and lower the impact of what plastic we cannot avoid.

Will wall finishing techniques (water resistant barrier, rain screen & cladding, lime render, drywall, etc) help manage this?

> asphalt, which is just concrete (cement, sand and lime) with some of the cement replaced with oil/tar.

As far as I know, asphalt concrete doesn't contain any portland cement, at least usually. It's just gravel, sand, and bitumen/asphalt/tar.

I think this description of asphalt is in error. Asphalt itself is a form of petroleum, specifically a type of pitch, which occurs in nature and is also known as bitumen. It is used as a binder for various aggregates in asphalt concrete, which is what everyone calls asphalt. I do not think that cement and lime are involved at all.

You're right. He's referring to Asphalt concrete and confusing it with the components of cement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asphalt_concrete

> Truly brilliant. It's a new type of composite building material.

[It's been around since at least the 1950's](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978184569... ).

in "green" economy you have to MANUFACTURE carbohydrates and then produce plastic from that. no oil, should be default in current thinking.

hydrocarbons XD

I have a buddy that’s going into CU Boulder for material science soon! It’s such a cool area of study, it must be fun to work with stuff like this.

I’m interested in how these bricks work out in the medium to-long term though. Things as “simple“ as bricks usually end up being unfathomably complex in practice. Cool idea though!

But is it cheaper? (or could it be)

Wood, stone, pretty much everything is stronger than concrete. We use concrete because it's strong enough and cheap (and doesn't rot like wood, but a lot of things don't rot so that's not too novel).

>Wood, stone, pretty much everything is stronger than concrete.

Hang on, compressive strength is very, very high. Tensile strength is much lower so that’s why we add rebar and mesh.

Typical compressive strengths in concrete mixes for construction applications is often around 3000psi, which is actually about the same as HDPE. “Flowable fill” might be closer to 800-1000psi, which is close to end-grain compressive strength of some common lumber products. Special concrete mixes can be used to get almost 20,000psi, which is a bit less than steel (which has much higher tensile strength).

The real value proposition of concrete is that it’s made out of very common materials and can be produced in enormous quantities in most places in the world at low cost.

Two points:

1. The article says its "cheap" for what that's worth.

2. This IS concrete. It's a mixture of sand as aggregate and plastic as a cement AKA binding agent.

I thought this was pretty cool, but then 50% of the recommended posts are about NFTs, which are a known scam. They are also by the same author as this post. So this tells me the author isn't necessarily looking at things with the most critical eye.

they say 25% cheaper than concrete. The video posted in another comment (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFcPqXxAUWM) has a lot of details

> and doesn't rot like wood

Unless you get an alkali silica reaction (aka concrete cancer).

Great, but doesn't using plastic for surfaces exposed to a great amount of wear and tear, add to the microplastic problem?

Not more than the plastic waste the bricks are made out of.

In fact, this should reduce the problem since in brick form, less of the plastic is exposed to the elements as opposed to the plastic waste it's made out of.

Saw this on Business Insider on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFcPqXxAUWM

That's great, this is a much better explanation with a lot more details and what they are targeting the bricks towards.

Can they be recycled, or is it another dead end? Trash brick projects are popping up every few months or so. It seems more like a cheap filler material than a sustainable product.

if it's a brick, couldnt you recycle it by using it wherever else you need a brick?

> if it's a brick, couldn't you recycle it by using it wherever else you need a brick?

that's re-use and that's even better then recycling

This is a great way to get microplastic through abrasion into even more places within the foodchain.

Wonder if it burns nicely too, plastic after all is "frozen gasoline" - here mixed with sand.

/debbiedowner

That's where my mind went first, too. We don't need more plastic in our lives, quite the opposite actually.

It’s already there though.

So let's not spread it around?

It's lying around in open dumping sites otherwise - which is arguably much worse.

This is where you might use a variation of that "healing cracks" bacteria in conjunction with the "eats plastic" bacteria. If you could get the plastic digesting bacteria to excrete rigid oxides, then most of the plastic would be replaced with an interlocking 3d mesh of concrete and rock-like bacteria waste.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09500...

It'd eliminate the plastic waste and leave much more environmentally friendly remains, and it'd be self healing.

I thought I saw somewhere it's also not a reliable load bearing material due to the random composition/possible empty pockets. I should check it they're extruding solid plastic bricks.

Asphalt also emits microparticles during wear and tear, as do tires... It needs to be tested, not assumed.

Aren't a lot of those microparticles just sand? Asphalt is basically just rocks/sand and some tar-ish cemicals to bind them together.

No you should assume it’s a problem until proven otherwise. We only have one environment and shoving anything we please into it without so much as a second thought is exactly what’s led us to our current predicament.

we know that the microparticles are a problem - the assumption that I'm challenging is that plastic is worse than conventional asphalt.

>until proven otherwise a.k.a. testing

Most tires are made from synthetic rubber which also derived from oil.

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!

There must be some applications though. Perhaps in the initial foundation which is probably waterproofed and underground?

Or internal partitioning walls that get painted or plastered over?

Coat it in concrete!

First in epoxy, then concrete, and then concrete mixed with epoxy for good measure.

plastic can be infused with chemicals to not burn, but other than that youre right.

Those chemicals are usually the worst ones, PFAs for example...

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.

The precautionary principle is a great way of slowing progress to a crawl. The only way to solve massive problems like the things you’re afraid of is to make as much progress as possible as quickly as possible.

I get the skepticism, but reality is complicated.

Plastic saves lives, conserves energy, and makes the economy faster and better. Outright removal will be nothing short of impossible.

Consumers don't want to be inconvenienced. Starbucks couldn't even keep non-plastic straws on without a massive amount of customer complaints.

Plastic alternative materials science has a long way to go to even meet the same needs. There are some interesting developments with wood and ceramics, especially in the building world, but plastics are and were nothing short of a miracle.

Unless the number of deaths directly attributable to plastics crosses some alarming threshold, nothing will be done. People would rather go about their daily lives.

It's kind of like how people continue driving cars, flying, and using coal-fired electricity despite being warned of global warming. It's not going to change until people really feel it and demand it. They'd rather keep using their iPhone and read about the issue on Twitter.

Plastic requires extraction and process of petrol which is neither clean nor energy efficient, it also requires heat to extrude and cooling to set and release from molding. Plastics have also contributed greatly to a disposable approach to consumer products instead of durable or reusable. Lastly plastics are highly detrimental to the environment as they as and breakdown into smaller plastics that contaminate the food chain. To call them lifesaving is a farce.

Read up on phthalates.

Citation?

Right on cue the microplastic doom cult shows up whenever the word plastic appears.

Let’s have a little optimism eh guys? This is not even a problem as far as anyone can tell, and even if it were it would be solvable.

Optimism or wishful thinking?

Optimism is the belief that problems can be solved. Since any solution not specifically prohibited by the laws of physics is possible, I’m going to go with optimism on this one.

Didn't I just read about an engineered enzyme to break down metric tons of plastic waste? You can’t have both these futures. Because your roads will melt and buildings will collapse. There needs to be some coordination or authority

Sure you can, for the same reason that wood buildings and gasoline can coexist. You engineer around risks, and don’t introduce things that don’t need to be introduced.

We absolutely can have both of these futures -- if people use the right tool for the right job and both of these tools can coexist (even if not used in the exact solution).

Also roads may just be the first use case for this technology but new thinkers and new people will find new usecases.

What about the malicious actors in the crowd? This is an asymmetric vector with significant latency

A malicious actor could also dump termites on your lawn, start a fire, throw a rock through your window, etc.

What you bring up is a point for the police to investigate, and maybe a few more lines in your insurance policy to cover. If you’ve made an enemy, it doesn’t really matter what your house is made of.

How about a billion dollar bridge?

Then maybe not? I’m guessing there’s a lot of risk analysis that goes into building billion dollar structures.

If it's this one from Lu et al. (20022; Nature[0]), it operates best in a 50-70˚C, pH-buffered solution. Plus, it benefits from thermal pre-treatment to break up the crystal structure.

If someone floods your house--for days or weeks at a time--with a scalding solution, I think you're going to be annoyed regardless of what else is in it.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04599-z

I don't think society really cares. Just look at how much plastic is used in food takeout and packaging and several of the many other places where it basically serves no purpose.

Looks like a story about someone trying to recycle plastic by using it as an ingredient in [polymer-concrete](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymer_concrete ).

As for polymer-concrete's history (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978184569... ):

> The history of the research and development of polymer concrete is relatively short compared with that of conventional cement concrete. The early research and development of the polymer concrete was done mainly in the Soviet Union (currently, Russia),1 the United States,2 Germany3 and Japan4 in the late 1950s to the early 1960s.

The idea of making polymer-concrete with recycled-plastic has also been around. For a random review article (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/B978085709...):

> Abstract: [...] The volume of polymeric wastes such as tyre rubber and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles is increasing at a fast rate. [...] The majority is just landfilled. This chapter reviews research published on the performance of concrete containing tyre rubber and PET wastes. Furthermore it discusses the effect of waste treatments, the size of waste particles and the waste replacement volume on the fresh and hardened properties of concrete.

> The history of the research and development of polymer concrete is relatively short compared with that of conventional cement concrete.

This history of most things is short compared to concrete.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_concrete

I think I've walked on such a material. I was walking on a sidewalk for which a few squares felt squishy. They looked like concrete with a lot of gravel, but had much more resilience.

Might have been shredded-tire playground walkway material.

Not that soft. It looked like rigid concrete, but sagged a bit.

Was it in Detroit?

https://jalopnik.com/a-detroit-bridge-collapsed-under-a-mans...

Maybe the foundation below the bricks was a bit unstable?

previously on hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26093535

Good old reportedly.. Also, seing how we're only now starting to investigate the effects (and amounts) of microplastics in the environment, it might not be entirely unreasonable to not start building giant structures of it just quite yet ?

That's nice except bricks are NOT interchangeable with concrete in 90% of building cases.

Good food for those plastic eating bacteria that will inevitably be released into the world.

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.

Plastic in a properly designed landfill doesn’t end up in people’s bloodstreams.

The company operates in Africa, where all of the plastic is just lying around.

Properly designed landfills don't exist in most of the world (Africa, Asia, most of South America).

To me this sounds like people in most of the world are getting needlessly poisoned with microplastics when a technological solution exists. Why do I doubt there is going to be a successful non-profit helping build good landfills?

Simple solutions aren't sexy enough. Heck, proper refuse collection service (garbage collection in the US) would be a start.

See this report: https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/21134/...

Rapid urbanisation and comparatively high poverty (lack of access to clean drinking water, so plastic bottles are used) lead to more and more waste without proper waste management catching up.

Almost all plastic in the ocean comes from 10 rivers - 2 in Africa (Nile and Niger) the rest in Asia [0]

[0] https://www.dw.com/en/almost-all-plastic-in-the-ocean-comes-...

It will break down much more slowly as a solid object than as separate pieces of plastic. It will likely be painted or covered with a facing anyway.

Quality weatherproof paint is expensive and needs to be maintained. That’s going to have an impact on the cost.

Plus if you ever want to modify the building you’ve got an environmental hazard on your hands.

Almost certainly.

Yes, which is why this is a bad idea.

But is its coefficient of thermal expansion roughly the same as rebar?

Plastics are polymers that are vulnerable to UV degradation resulting in the production of microplastics. This has no application in direct sunlight PERIOD.

Too much about the award and background and whatever and not enough about the bricks.

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.

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

Seems to me a great idea!

brace yourselves for lego houses

Do people of color ever roll their eyes at websites like this? Does it ever just seem silly?

edit: I am white, and my question is not for white people. I call it “peopleofcoloronhackernews” :^)

It’s a little on the nose, but the point is to be an example for other people of color. An illustration that this type of work can be done by “us”.

What I don’t like is when the claims are needlessly exaggerated.

I can understand that. I just can't not draw the comparison to the way we segregate sports by sex, since males are generally bigger and stronger than females, and I wonder if any POCs see stuff like this in a similar way.

And to clarify - I am not suggesting there is any similarity to that and intelligence, I am just pointing out that websites like this sort of make it seem like that's the case. Please don't assume this is racism, I am here to gain perspective about something I don't understand.

it's pretty offensive to me, what the huwites would call a racial bipoc

look! he did a thing even though he's one of those XYZs!

> look! he did a thing even though he's one of those XYZs!

This is exactly what I was wondering. I think I'd feel the exact same way.

No.

It's nice to see positive stories being highlighted.

"POCIT" was too good of an acronym to pass up on.

It seems like you want them to. Why is that?

I would think a good number of under-represented people would be interested and maybe inspired.

I'm genuinely curious what they think, because I am not one, and yeah websites like this do seem kind of silly to me. My question was also for them, and I'm guessing since you said "them" and "I would think", you are white, so why are you responding to it? I understand the intention; I am asking about the actual effect.

I don’t really mind when people make websites about others folks like me in tech.

I do roll my eyes when people ignore the contents of an interesting article and unprompted go out of their way to inform everybody that they find the existence of sites like that to be silly.

You wouldn't approve of a "Whites in tech" blog so why be so self righteous about this?

> You wouldn't approve of a "Whites in tech" blog so why be so self righteous about this?

You mean all the other blogs?

It's safe to assume you also rail against the practice of "Wellness Rooms" being exclusively for use by nursing mothers...

There are no "Whites in tech blogs". Only certain races are allowed to do this. Point me to one? Post it on Hacker News and observe the reaction afterwards.

I don’t think anyone should or would stop you from buying a whites in tech domain, building a site around the concept and submitting your articles here.

I’m kind of confused as to why you’d ask somebody else to go through the process of building that theoretical site and posting it here though. If that’s something that you would like to exist, why not make it yourself?

>ask somebody else to go through the process of building that theoretical site

What are you talking about?

The poster claimed these types of sites exist, I only asked them to show me the evidence of it, and I implied the reaction would most certainly not be one of passive acceptance or lack of comment like we see with this one. I obviously did not say they themselves should build it.

>or would stop you from buying a whites in tech domain, building a site around the concept and submitting your articles here

I disagree, but I acknowledge someone would have to run the experiment to know for certain.

I do commend you for not being a hypocrite, and supporting others who may also "not mind" when people "make websites about others folks like them in tech".

>I obviously did not say they themselves should build it.

I’m not sure that that is obvious. You posted this bit of instruction:

>Post it on Hacker News and observe the reaction afterwards.

If the “whites in tech” site doesn’t exist, wouldn’t your command necessarily include creating it? How is the poster you’re talking to supposed to follow your instructions exactly?

>I disagree, but I acknowledge someone would have to run the experiment to know for certain.

How would someone _stop_ you from buying a “whites in tech” domain, using it to write a blog, and submitting a link to this website?

You are trying to make a bit of a fuss about a website that you say doesn’t exist, so why not build it and post about it? I don’t really understand being impassioned about something so squarely theoretical.

It would be flagged instantly.

>I'm not sure that that is obvious.

No, it is. You just missed it.

People of Color is a race?

> You mean all the other blogs? Do you mean all blogs that don't state skin colors in the domain/name are done by white people? That's one of the more racist and demeaning comments I've seen here.

I mean, all the other blogs that highlight stories of predominantly white men in tech.

If you really feel that white people are poorly represented in online literature, feel free to create a "Whites In Tech" blog.

Also, can you be racist against a ethnic group that is in the majority and wields nearly limitless power?

Hi do you have any thoughts about bricks made with plastic or are you just here to air your grievances about some perceived cultural slight?

When a blog is titled "Black Woman Engineer Turns Plastic Into Bricks That Are Reportedly Stronger Than Concrete" on a blog called People of Color in Tech, it's going to get commented on, don't be naive.

Maybe if these qualifiers aren't worthy of discussion, they shouldn't be used. If the article was titled "Engineer does X.." on a tech blog not singling out a particular race, it wouldn't be an issue. If bricks and plastic were all that mattered, they wouldn't mention race all over the website. Ctrl+F "Black" on main page... does race matter or doesn't it?

> If the article was titled "Engineer does X.." on a tech blog

The title on HN is:

Engineer turns plastic into bricks that are reportedly stronger than concrete

I clicked on it and read it because of that. I am, unfortunately for the sake of this conversation, of the opinion that it’s an article about somebody that made plastic bricks. I understand that you appear to have read some sort of referendum about race that didn’t involve engineering or bricks.

If you scroll around the rest of the responses to this article, you’ll find that many people are discussing bricks. Considering that so many of these people, myself included, have completely mistaken the subject of this article, I encourage you to continue complaining about race!

Thank you for your bravery, without your valuable input, nobody would know how important it is to be offended by this!

They editorialized the title, which they aren't supposed to do, because the real title made them uncomfortable. But forget about all that. The title on the real site is what it is.

I know it's off topic, but I'm just curious. Also, the website does seem to be silly regardless of who it's for, given that two of the top stories are about NFTs.

I think everybody can and should roll their eyes at any site that shills NFTs, no matter the race, gender or creed of the URL 8-)

No, it doesn't show up on the scale of concern over people who are skeptical of my ability and dismiss my contributions because they're blinded by bias.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com