The Provincial Administration Organization of Ao Nang in Krabi province and The Faculty of Science and Technology of Chiang Mai Rajabhat University have worked together in creating a great innovation that will help improve Thailand’s waste management issue. Together, the two bodies have introduced a recycle project that uses plastic waste and turns it into construction blocks.
The recycled blocks are intended to be used in building roads in Ao Nang, but in the future, they can be used for so much more and the production formula can be shared so that any provincial body can adapt it to their road and constructions building system. The project began with the goal to help manage the plastic waste issue in villages and in the province, especially the small pieces of plastic waste that end up in the oceans, further harming animals and killing them in the long run.
Professor Wetchasawan Lakard and the Faculty along with Wichet Kwankao from the Ao Nang PAO, other officials, personals from the private sector, and the Ao Nang people invested their time and energy together to help share the method used to produce the recycled blocks.
The process begins with cutting up the plastic waste into little pieces and then mixing the plastic into the sand. There needs to be 1 part plastic mixed in 3 parts of sand, a ratio of 1:3. The sand needs to be heated in a hot pan, the plastic is then poured into the pan and mixed together. The mixture is then poured into a block. Before the mixture cools down and sets into place, a hammer is used to pound the mixture into shape.
1 recycled block uses an average of 100 used plastic bags, 40 blocks are required for 1 sq.m., this means that we can recycle over 4,000 used plastic bags for each sq.m. that we build using this method. Hopefully, more roads built in the future will adopt this method as it is easy and extremely cost saving to produce compared to the conventional concrete construction blocks that we are normally used to build roads and sidewalks in the cities.
FB Caption: Over 4,000 used plastic bags can be recycled in 1 sq.m. of road construction that uses these new recycled blocks.
Source: Workpoint News
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