That looks pretty cool but I'm always skeptical. I find it hard to believe it's cheaper than conventional bricks. $7000 is a lot of money down here.
Regardless of that, something has to be done.
I think the real money-saving factor here is it only takes less than 5 days to build (assembles?) a house with these oversized lego blocks, in oppose to months. And you'll probably need a much smaller skilled work force to put them together.
There was an article a while back about a Welsh company that does the same thing, and they actually did the testings to verify that recycled-plastic bricks have four times the strength of concrete, twice the insulation, and fire/storm/water-proof.
Building a "recycled house" in Britain would cost £42,000.
It puts the fab into prefabricated. And goes some way to solving the huge problem of managing the mountains of rubbish we throw away.
For the latest use of recycled plastic is building family homes.
And the price? All yours, complete with bathroom, kitchen and plumbing, for £42,000 - although you will have to provide your own land.
A pioneering company is building three-bedroom houses with frameworks made entirely of recycled waste plastic - including thousands of water bottles.
Each house is made up of 18 tonnes of recycled plastic trash that would have been destined for waste tips across the country.
Which equals 9,000 old televisions or about 7,200 desk top computers.
And the special plastic is almost four times as strong as concrete and insulates the house twice as well, enabling house-holders to cut their heating bills in half.
It is fire, storm and wind proof and, being made of plastic, is naturally waterproof.
The firm, Swansea-based Affresol, uses material that cannot be recycled any other way, to make panels that bolt together to create low carbon homes.
Any plastic, from old patio chairs and tables to building fixtures and fittings, are ground down into small granules that are then fused together in a chemical reaction to make Thermo Poly Rock (TPR).
Forty TPR panels are then bolted together to form the load bearing frame of houses.
They can then be externally clad with brick, block or stone, with the interior insulated and plastered as any other house.
Managing director of Affresol, Ian McPherson, believes the company is solving the country's housing and recycling problems at the same time.
He came up with brainwave three years ago, after selling his IT company, and teamed up with manufacturing expert Scott Phillips and the universities of Cardiff and Glamorgan.
Father-of-two Mr McPherson, 60, said: ‘The materials are stronger and lighter than concrete.
‘They are waterproof, fire retardant, do not rot and have great insulation.
‘We estimate the life of the houses at more than 60 years and after that they are recyclable.
‘We believe there is tremendous potential for this new product particularly with the growing focus on carbon reduction, low energy affordable homes and sustainability.
‘At the moment about 50 to 60 per cent of all plastic is recycled – we take the other 40 to 50 per cent and use it to make something really useful.
‘Individuals can buy houses from us or developers can buy in bulk.
‘This is a new kind of prefabricated house which helps the environment as well.
‘As a country we put far too much waste into landfill and this goes some way to helping solve the problem of all our rubbish.
‘It’s exciting to build something new out of things we throw away.’
The company has launched a range of eco-friendly homes and portable factory units with £140,000 of backing from the Welsh Assembly Government.
Affresol aims to have a pilot scheme of 19 houses built in Merthyr Tydfil up-and-running in the next few months once they receive accreditation from the Building Research Establishment.
And within three years their target is to build 3,000 homes - mainly for the social housing market - each year using 40,000 tons of waste
There would be a wide variety of homes with a typical construction cost of a semi-detached about £40,000 to £50,000- and taking just four days to erect the framework.
The company claim the eco-friendly homes, like the detached show home at its factory on Swansea West industrial park, could revolutionise the building industry.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...w-homes-built-18-tonnes-recycled-plastic.html