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Waste to Green Eco-Construction

Description: The main objective of this project is to brainstorm, innovate and prototype not only a construction material using suitable resources that can be used to replace the natural elements which are extracted from mother earth such as sand and limestone but to also educate the on how to save the environment and realize the importance of coexisting with nature with the help of science and technology. The initiative is to provide Sustainable material that will prevent or reduce climate changes. Our innovation will be applied in the manufacturing of construction building bricks or building blocks while maintaining the required strength and durability required by the standards. This will help to reduce the severity of plastic pollution caused by the low recycling rates combined with the absence of an environmentally friendly cost-effective solution and poor government policies with a lack in funding for R&D and recycling policies. Our Innovation Waste To Green – Eco construction is in line with the Malaysian Government’s 2030 Roadmap towards ‘Zero Single Use Plastics’ and The United Nations Sustainable Development Program goals of achieving ‘Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure’ which addresses the main goal of ‘Climate Action’.

There is drastic reduction of raw materials like limestone, sand and clay which are used as construction materials. A major contribution, mining, causes destruction of mountains, trees and habitats. Sand and gravel represent about 79% of the material extraction which is almost 29 billion tons a year. The severity of plastic pollution has also increased. Almost 8 billion tons/annum of plastic waste is generated with forecast to reach 25 billion tons/annum by year 2050. Waste to Green Eco-Construction is a Novelty innovation that utilises recycled waste material to produce construction materials such as Building bricks, Roof tiles, Floor tiles, Wall tiles and Pavement blocks. This is in line with Our Government’s 2030 Roadmap towards ‘Zero Single Use Plastics’ and The United Nations Sustainable Development Program goals of achieving ‘Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure’ which addresses the main goal of ‘Climate Action’. Our Ultimate Objective is to save the natural resources and sustain mother earth. This can be incorporated into the Teaching Syllabus to create awareness for children of all ages where the innovation can be practically applied. Using research and brainstorming methods a decision was made to create construction material using waste plastic material (non- organic waste) and paddy husk (organic waste). Construction products uses cement and sand in their mixtures. The idea was to replace cement with paddy husk ash and replace sand with crushed plastic material. Recycled PP (polypropylene) and HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) were chosen as they are more readily available. These materials were crushed and used as replacement of sand. Paddy husk ash was used to replace cement due to its high silica contents. The specimens for different mixtures were prepared with different ratios. There were 3 types of mixtures produced. The PH Mixture consists of cement, sand and paddy husk ash. The HDPE Mixture consists of cement, sand, paddy husk ash, and crushed recycled HDPE Plastic. The final Mixture is the PP Mixture that consists of cement, sand, paddy husk ash and crushed recycled PP plastic. The Malaysian Standards 7.6: 1972 and British standards BS3921:1985 were followed as guidelines in the production and testing of the bricks. The processes involved in the making of eco bricks are the mould making process, followed by the burning of paddy husk to ash, crushing and separating the carbon from the ash, crushing and shredding the recycled plastic, preparing the different mixture ratios, pouring in standard measurement moulds and curing of the construction materials and samples. The samples were tested for Absorption, Compression Strength and Efflorescence. For the absorption test, bricks were soaked in water for 24 hours and the mass of the bricks were measured before and after soaking. The absorption rate must not exceed 20%, otherwise the bricks will not be suitable for construction. Next, for the compression test, the top loading method was used to test the specimen which was cured for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days. For the efflorescence test, the bricks were partially soaked in water to the height of 20mm and the water was left to evaporate. The cycle was repeated. Once all the water had evaporated ,the bricks were checked for any signs of white deposits or flakings. This is more of a visual check. The PH mixture material had the highest compression strength with an average of 9.88 N/mm2 and the HDPE mixture material had a compression strength of 3.10 N/mm2. The weakest material was the PP mixture material with only 0.81 N/mm2. The HDPE mixture had the best absorption rate of 10%. PH mixture had 13% absorption rate. PP mixture absorption rate exceeded 20%. All PP, PH and HDPE mixtures showed no signs of Efflorescence.

Organisation: SMK King George V

Innovator(s): Rahini Saieshree Surendran

Category: Environment

Country: Malaysia

Gold Award