Canadian startup PLAEX Building Systems has partnered with agricultural suppliers to collect and recycle their waste plastic, transforming it into a sustainable construction material that the company says is ‘akin to a plasticised concrete’.
The New Brunswick-based company seeks to gather end-of-life plastic to create the Lego-like bricks, in a process that CEO Dustin Bowers says is lower in energy and water use than currently available recycling methods – thanks in part to a closed-loop system.
The system consists of blocks and interlocking exterior panels, which together are used to create a fully finished wall structure. It is a global first in being a system with an interlocking watertight exterior panel system. This can be harnessed for a lot of plug and play applications, such as integrated solar technology. A prototype of the technology is currently being tested for CSA approval, with the product anticipated to be ready for commercialisation in August this year.
While the bricks will initially be certified for use in ‘non-occupied structures’ only – e.g. retaining walls, flood walls, garages etc – the aim is ultimately to have it approved for housing construction.
A seed funding round for the technology is anticipated by the end of the year, with funds raised to be channeled towards creating a new manufacturing facility in central New Brunswick. The site is near to farms and marine industrial sites where Bowers plans to source waste plastic – two industries chosen for the consistency and large quantities of plastic waste produced, providing a rich base for his team to create their blocks. Bowers offers free collection of the waste materials, in a bid to attract farmers and marine companies to participate.
Currently, global annual production of municipal solid waste (MSW) sits at around 2.01bn metric tons, with this figure estimated to rise to 3.40bn metric tons by 2050. Canada’s agricultural industry alone uses 40,000 tons of plastic each year, and PLAEX estimates around 50-80% of these plastics can be repurposed through their technology.
