More uses for recycled plastic bottles

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

We all know about the fleece jackets and other garments, etc., made from recycled plastic bottles. Many of us, indeed, wear those almost daily. There are also other products made from recycled bottles. Hollofil® padded filling for duvets, padded jackets and sleeping bags is another such products. Other products are “plastic wood” from which park benches, picnic tables for pub and parks, etc. are made.

Recently we heard the story on yet another ingenious use for recycled plastic bottles.

This time, a team from Temple University has combined recycled PET (that’s what’s in most plastic bottles we use) with silt and clay to create a cement-like substance.

Dr. Naji Khoury calls his new material Plastisoil. It’s an eco-friendly substitute for asphalt or concrete because, not only does it use recycled materials, but it’s porous, allowing rain water to filter through instead of creating flooding. The team is also testing Plastisoil to see if it will filter out or reduce contaminants such as motor oil.

With over 200 million plastic bottles sent to landfills each year, the more ways we can reuse them the better. According to an article at the Temple University website, “Khoury said that it takes 30,000 of the no. 1 recyclable bottles to make one ton of porous Plastisoil. He hopes to be able to use different types of recyclable plastic bottles in the future.”

An additional benefit is that it takes less energy and is cheaper to produce one ton of Plastisoil than one ton of cement.

Other permeable recycled surfaces are about but in this case we can get actually rid off waste plastic, which must be a good thing. It could also be the time now to see as to whether we can use other waste plastics too for this. The more than can be used the better it will be for the environment, until such as time that we have managed to eliminate the product, the plastic PET bottle, from our lives.

© 2011