New Hampshire company creates eco-bricks out of plastic waste
CONCORD, New Hampshire -- A New Hampshire company is redefining what it means to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Plastic Recycled makes products out of 100% plastic waste, creating a sustainable solution for the construction industry.
"We take these bottle caps and we shred them down and melt them and turn them into new products," said Plastic Recycled founder Nathan Gray.
His company creates a range of products from dog bowls to benches to building materials.
"Eco-bricks are plastic water bottles, packed tightly with soft, non-recyclable plastics. You take a water bottle, an empty water bottle, pack tightly soft, clean, dry, film plastic, soft plastic, plastic bags. It's typically the non-recyclable plastics. After they are packed tightly and reach 5 ounces for our standards, then we take those eco-bricks into construction projects," Gray said.
They can be used as a brick, inside of framing in walls, and to make furniture.
It's an environmentally sustainable solution to a problem Gray noticed when working in construction.
"I've realized how much dumpsters full of waste that we were throwing away, a lot of it being single-use packing material, or wood that was used and tossed into a landfill that didn't need to be," Gray said. "I've started moving into building more innovatively, sustainably, and it's something the community has really been a factor in."
Gray's company has been collecting eco-bricks from a number of locations across the North Shore, including some schools.
"We'll go to the schools and teach kids a simple yet effective solution for our plastic waste crisis, which is the eco-brick. And we leave them with the education of how to reduce, reuse and refuse plastic waste," he said.
"I didn't create the eco-brick. The eco-brick is used globally, all around the world, typically in nations that don't have the typical waste stream recycling bins," Gray explained. "We're lucky here that we can put it inside the recycling bin and it gets taken away from us."
With less than 10% of plastic being recycled worldwide, Gray believes this is a solution to a problem that anyone can be a part of.
"We've collected thousands of these eco-bricks, but for our shed that we're are building, we need 12,000 eco-bricks. So We need the continuous support of the community to make these ecobricks at home and the schools so we can complete our project and really have it as a model to show everyone what we can do with them."
Gray along with his company will be at the New Hampshire Maker Fest at the Children's Museum in Dover on Saturday.
