IT USED to be unthinkable of a world without plastics. Once the darling of modern industries, they are used in numerous packaging applications including containers, bottles, drums, trays, boxes, cups and vending packaging, baby products and protection packaging.
Now we hear, read, and how this modern invention has turned into Dr Jekylls into Mr Hydes.
Now we are told that humankind are exposed to all kinds of plastic and hundreds of additives, from hormone disruptors like BPA and BPF to brominated flame retardants, every day. There is no escape. These chemicals give plastics characteristics such as plasticity, color, malleability, durability, and the hardness that some products need. Many of these additives are endocrine disruptors which have been shown to have harmful effects on life, especially when exposure occurs in developmental stages.
Then these plastics are poisoning our marine life-and human consumers who end up consuming them in our body system up in the food chain.
More bad news on top of previous news. When will it end?
Well, the residents of Talisay City are giving a try. Residents of Barangay Zone 10 in Talisay City in collaboration with punong barangay and City Councilor Resty Tuvilla found means on how to make those plastic wastes useful again.
Residents are encouraged to gather plastic wastes from their homes and immediate vicinity in exchange of staple rice.
As the old slogan goes, "may pera sa basura.now dubbed as "BARTER BUGAS SA BASURA," residents collect, dry, cut-up in small pieces and tightly-packed into 1.5 liter bottles ready to be used as building block for ecobricks. Turning trash into cash.
"For every kilo of bottle bricks, our barangay barters two kilos of rice," residents have cleared waterways in the area since July 2019 as un-clogging measure against urban floods, as well as an educative way of promoting segregation and getting underway the discipline among households on how to keep track of their plastic consumption.
Talk about the 3Rs (reuse, reduce, recycle). These chopped-chopped PET bottles are to be used as building block to mold eco-bricks. The bottle bricks are used around the world to build benches, houses, school buildings and other multi-functional structures. These bottle bricks will be used to construct the first playhouse for the children of Barangay 10.
Bottle bricks are stuffed with unrecyclable plastic and has been gaining momentum in the development of construction materials in other parts of the world. When packed with other materials like sand, earth, gravel or solid wastes, bottle brick is claimed to be four times stronger than a regular hollow block.
Let's see how Negrenses can convert plastics into asphalt.
(bqsanc@yahoomail.com.ph)