Chances are you’ve seen toilets sold under the American Standard and Grohe brands in your local big-box department store. The company behind those brands, Lixil Corp., is a Japanese company that makes all sorts of building materials. One of their newest materials is a concrete and wood alternative made from scrap plastic.
Lixil has found a way to turn plastic junk into an alternative building material that is still affordable enough to sell to manufacturers. They call the material Revia. Its claim to fame, so to speak, is that it can be manufactured with a variety of combined plastics, with no sorting necessary.
That is big. Sorting is one of the fundamental issues that continue to plague consumer plastic recycling at the municipal level. Sorting is time-consuming and costly. It adds so much to the price of recycled consumer plastics that municipalities have a challenging time selling what they recycle.
Consumer vs. Industrial Plastics
Consumer plastics are mainly the plastic products consumers recycle or throw away. At the top of the list are things like water bottles and food containers. But pretty much any type of plastic that could go into a municipal recycling bin is consumer plastic.
Industrial plastics are different. They are plastics produced and discarded in the industrial world. Industrial plastics include things like:
- plastic purge and cutoffs
- totes, buckets, and dunnage trays
- pipes and conduit
- pallets and other shipping implements.
Industrial plastics are easier to recycle because they don’t require labor-intense and costly sorting. It is so much easier than companies all over the country to make good money doing it.
Pick Up, Transport, and Grind
Tennessee is home to one such company, known as Seraphim Plastics. Active in seven states including Kentucky, Missouri, and Ohio, Seraphim buys scrap industrial plastic from hundreds of customers. They transport it to their processing facilities where it is sent through a series of grinders that reduce it to small pellets. The pellets are sold as regrind to manufacturers.
Seraphim can do what it does because its expenses are comparatively low. Their low-tech process is cost-effective and efficient. Therefore, they make a profit.
Manufacturing Revia at a Profit
Getting back to Lixil, the company probably could not make Revia profitable if it had to go through the same type of sorting and cleaning process that municipal recycling programs follow. It just would not be cost-effective. Thankfully, they have come up with a process that allows them to use multiple types of plastic.
Combined plastics are shredded together and then mixed with scrap wood and a proprietary binding agent that holds it all together. The mixture can be dyed in a variety of colors so that it resembles brick, concrete, or other building materials.
Revia can also be fed into 3-D printers to make tangible objects. Furniture and tools immediately come to mind. But according to Lixil, the main thing they are focusing on is Revia pavement. They hope the product becomes a mainstay for urban sidewalks, closets, and parking lots.
Another Low-Tech Solution
The most remarkable thing about Lixil turning plastic junk into an alternative building material is that doing so involves a low-tech process. While other companies are searching for high-tech solutions to break down waste plastic into its individual components, Lixil and Seraphim are utilizing low-tech methods that get the job done in a way that is profitable.
Maybe low-tech is the way to go. Perhaps we are trying too hard to make recycling a technology-driven enterprise. At any rate, the same company that made your toilet might also supply the pavers for your future patio.
