Ecobricks—A Sustainable Solution to Plastic Waste

The present work focused on the use of plastic bottles and plastic wrappers to make ecobricks which can be used as a building material. PET bottle of sizes, 250 ml (cylindrical), 750 ml (cylindrical) and 1 L (cubical) has been used in the present study and were filled with shredded and compacted plastic wrappers to prepare an ecobrick. These ecobrick can accommodate 170 to 350 gm of plastic wrappers waste. Plain ecobricks and ecobricks with mortar havebeen tested for compressive strength and then prototypes have been created using both types of ecobricks. Plain ecobrick showed strength in the range of 25–45 MPa, however with mortar the strength in the range of 27–31 MPa was noted. The strength of plain ecobrick and with mortar has been found to be more than the first-class brick and thus can be used as construction building blocks. It can be concluded that ecobrick is an economical construction material for social projects in region where litter and informal dumpsites are a common problem and industrial recycling might not be yet available. Using ecobrick as plastic disposal measures shall help in achieving the sustainable development goals 2030, namely SDG:11 Sustainable cities and communities, SDG13: Climate action, SDG14: Life below water and SDG15: Life on land.