{"id":7422,"date":"2020-01-13T09:38:52","date_gmt":"2020-01-13T06:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=7422"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:47","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:47","slug":"africas-plastic-brick-factory-builds-classrooms-with-plastic-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/01\/13\/africas-plastic-brick-factory-builds-classrooms-with-plastic-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Africa\u2019s Plastic Brick Factory Builds Classrooms With Plastic Waste"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p> <strong>By\u00a0Luana Steffen<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many countries don\u2019t have enough schools, while their lands\nand oceans are filled with plastic waste. A factory in West Africa is killing\ntwo birds with one stone by making use of this waste and turning it into a\nmaterial to build classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The factory in Ivory Coast,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.weforum.org\/agenda\/2019\/09\/ivory-coast-plastic-build-classrooms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">funded by<\/a>&nbsp;UNICEF and Colombian social enterprise&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/conceptosplasticos.com\/\">Conceptos Plasticos<\/a>, will be the\nfirst of its kind in Africa. By 2021, the factory aims to produce enough\nplastic bricks to construct 500 much-needed classrooms across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plastic waste will be collected from polluted areas in and\naround Abidjan, brought to the factory, then converted to modular plastic\nbricks. The material will be easy to assemble, durable, and cheap. The bricks\nwill be made from 100% plastic waste, are fire resistant, waterproof, well\ninsulated, and can resist strong winds. Additionally, they are 20% lighter, 40%\ncheaper, and will last hundreds of years longer than conventional building\nmaterials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each plastic-brick classroom will cost around $14,500 to\nbuild. The bricks don\u2019t need any cement; they just fit into place like a puzzle\npiece. \u201cIt works like Lego,\u201d said Sophie Chavanel, UNICEF\u2019s head of\ncommunication in the Ivory Coast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Henrietta Fore, the Executive Director at UNICEF, said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>This factory will be at the cutting edge of smart,\nscalable solutions for some of the major education challenges that Africa\u2019s\nchildren and communities face. Its potential is threefold: more classrooms for\nchildren, reduced plastic waste in the environment, and additional income\navenues for the most vulnerable families.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Currently, as little as one in two West African adults can read, and around 15,000 classrooms are required to meet the needs of children without a place to learn. \u201cBy turning plastic pollution into an opportunity, we want to help lift women out of poverty and leave a better world for children,\u201d said Isabel Cristina Gamez, the CEO of Conceptos Plasticos. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentliving.co\/africas-plastic-brick-factory-builds-classrooms\/\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By\u00a0Luana Steffen Many countries don\u2019t have enough schools, while their lands and oceans are filled with plastic waste. A factory in West Africa is killing two birds with one stone&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":7423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}