At first glance, the 1,000 sq-m property situated on a bustling Jakarta, Indonesia street looks like a regular brick making factory. There are stacks of paving bricks of varying colors, sizes and shapes sitting on its front yard, ready to be shipped – hexagons, octagons and rectangles. The factory park showcases the factory’s best products that demonstrate the many possible interlocking patterns and arrangements.
The open-air factory is shaded by a 10-m-high suspended metal sheet roof . There are large concrete mixers and brick-making hydraulic presses. But Rebricks’ factory is different—there is a mountain of domestic waste at one section of the property and sacks of finely shredded plastics in a far corner.
Over the past year, Rebricks has been making paving bricks out of multi-layered plastic from packaging of instant coffees, snacks, cookies, single-use shampoos, detergents, and liquid soaps. Known for being difficult to recycle, these plastics and aluminum foils are normally sent straight to landfills and incinerators, or end up polluting rivers and beaches.
Ovy Sabrina, Co-founder-Rebricks, told Channel News Asia (CNA), “No one is recycling these multi-layered plastics. It is too difficult/tedious to separate all of the different kinds of plastics and aluminum foils for recycling, and the process can be so expensive that recyclers don’t want to deal with them. It is quite scary actually. This means that with every food we consume, we are creating waste which will go straight to landfills, rivers, and oceans and will not degrade for decades. In fact, 50% of the trash [from beach clean-ups] are in [our] packaging.”
Sabrina and her long-time friend and co-founder Tan Novita were determined to find ways to recycle these discarded packets.
Novita said, “We chose to make building materials because Ovy’s family owns a paving brick-making factory. So, to some extent, we have the knowledge and resources to start producing recycled bricks—we were not starting our business completely from [scratch].”
TRIAL & ERROR
But, despite having the experience and machinery necessary to make conventional concrete bricks, producing the construction material out of multi-layered plastics proved to be a challenge.
“We must have tried 100 different methods and formulas. It took us one and a half year of trials and errors! There were moments when we felt like giving up,” recounted Navita, the 35-year-old former Non-governmental organizational (NGO) worker.
Navita said Rebricks EXPERIMENTED:
1: Melting multi-layered plastics to create paving bricks. “But the process produces toxic fumes, and it was so complicated that we only produced two square meters of bricks a day,” she said.
2: Tried producing bricks completely out of cement mixed with shredded plastics. But the end product was in a paving brick which could easily crumble and left finely shredded plastics polluting the soil underneath.
3: Finally settled on creating bricks with 2 LAYERS:
TOP LAYER is 100% concrete—the one which comes into frequent contact with automobiles, pedestrians, and the elementS
BOTTOM LAYER is produced out of a plastic and cement mixture.
WORK TO BE DONE:
However, they still needed to come up with the perfect plastic and cement mixture which is:
Durable
Fire retardant
Environmentally safe
Able to withstand weight of 250kg per square cm—the Indonesian standard for paving bricks used in parking lots, pavements, parks and jogging tracks.
This meant building dozens of prototypes and sending samples to laboratories for testing. “We went to the labs so many times, I think the technicians got tired of seeing us,” Novita said, adding that Rebricks spent thousands of dollars to test the many samples they produced.
In November 2019, after one-&-a-half years of experimenting, Rebricks finally launched its first line of paving brick products.
“Today, our bricks contain 20% waste. We wish we could put in more (plastic), but we have to consider our products’ quality and production cost. But we will continue to innovate and improve (the bricks’ waste) percentage,” Sabrina said.
OVERWHELMING RESPONSE
After Rebricks’ launch, the two co-founders immediately got to work to find a steady supply of waste for recycling.
They set up 3 collection points where people can send their discarded plastic packets:
Jakarta—2 collection points
Serpong—the city’s western suburbs
“The response has been overwhelming. We got so many people sending us their waste. We are actually amazed that people would go to the trouble of sorting out their trash and have them sent. It’s not cheap sending them here. It makes us realize that people actually care about this issue. They just don’t know where to send their waste!” Novita said.
She added that in the morning, there is trash waiting for them before they even open up the factory. “By the afternoon, our office will be full of waste,” she said.
“But we can only take so much. We’re just starting and demand (for our bricks) is not that much yet. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, construction has slowed, it is difficult for the budding business to market its products. But, [because everyone is spending more time at home], people’s consumption and thus waste produced [has increased significantly].”
“We even had to [temporarily] shut down our factory because of the lockdown. We couldn’t travel and meet potential clients. But, thankfully, demand is growing, despite the situation right now,” she said.
Sabrina said, in the beginning, they could only sell 12 sq m worth of bricks each month to individuals looking to refurbish their yards and gardens, but through word of mouth and social media, interest has been growing.
“Right now, we can sell 100 sq m to 200 sq m a month. That is still far from our production capacity of 100 sq m a day. But we are grateful, every month demand is higher than the month before,” she said.
Rebricks has also attracted interest from corporate clients and big developers. “We have worked with one food manufacturing company. They send their waste to us, we convert the waste into bricks and they bought the bricks so they can use it for their CSR (corporate social responsibility) program,” she said.
“We are exploring this kind of collaborations so we can sell more bricks and recycle more waste.”
FUTURE INNOVATION
Sabrina said Rebricks is exploring the possibility of recycling waste into HOLLOW BRICKS which are used as building claddings and interior walls. “We can use more waste for our hollow bricks because the strength requirement is actually lower than paving bricks. We don’t need to worry about the bricks crumbling and causing waste to spill because these bricks are usually plastered in cement. We have tested (hollow brick) samples and the results are promising. We just need to test the finished product. Because of COVID-19, the labs are closed. Hopefully, we can launch our hollow brick products next year.”
Rebricks is also trying to find ways to improve its paving brick products to INCORPORATE MORE WASTE. “We want Rebricks to provide a solution for our waste problem and for people looking for a more sustainable and green way to constructing their buildings,” she said.
Rebricks Website: www.incubationnetwork.com/circular-innovation-jam-2020/rebricks-indonesia/
INSTAGRAM: www.instagram.com/rebricks.id/?hl=en
For the CNA Asian International Online News article, please go to: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/indonesia-plastic-waste-to-paving-bricks-environment-13349346
For the Bahasa Indonesia article, please go to: www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/daur-ulang-sampah-limbah-plastik-paving-block-rebricks-13381882
Photos:
1-A sack of coarsely shredded plastic food packaging at Rebricks factory, Jakarta. The plastics will used to produce paving bricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
2-Rebricks founders Ovy Sabrina (left) and Tan Novita posing in front of a stack of bricks containing recycled multi-layered plastic at their factory in Jakarta. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
3-A worker at Rebricks factory in Jakarta dislodging jammed plastics out of a shredder. The plastics are used to make paving bricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
4-A worker at Rebricks factory feeding multi-layered plastics into a shredder. The plastics are then used to make paving bricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
5-Paving bricks produced by recycling company Rebricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
6–Rebricks co-founder Tan Novita showing off a paving brick produced by the company. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
7-A worker at Rebricks factory feeding multi-layered plastics into a shredder. The plastics are then used to make paving bricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
8-Boxes of food packaging sent by shops and individuals at Rebricks factory in Jakarta. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)
9-Rebricks co-founder Ovy Sabrina showing the shredded plastics used to produce paving bricks. (Photo: Nivell Rayda)