A Rotarian builds a house from plastic waste

Remember the good old song by Andy Williams that was so popular in the early 1960s?

Number fifty-four

The house with the bamboo door

Bamboo roof and bamboo walls

They’ve even got a bamboo floor

I was reminded of that song when a mail landed in my inbox from a Rotarian from RC Chandrapur, RI District 3030, Dr Balmukund Paliwal, describing how he had built a two-storeyed house of plastic from all kinds of waste material such as discarded chips packets, old shampoo bottles, medicine wrappers, milk pouches, torn polythene bags, cans, and so on. Recycling and reprocessing about 13 tonnes of single-use plastic waste, this passionate environmentalist has created a beautiful, and yet sturdy, prefabricated, rust and termite-proof, fire resistant 625sqft plastic house located in a botanical park in Chandrapur, which is about 180km from Nagpur.

Oh yes, the floor tiles, walls, windows, doors, toilet and the veranda are all made from reinforced and converted plastic waste, using a special process. From the balcony on the first floor, you can get a view of much of the surrounding garden.

An anaesthesiologist by profession, he was greatly influenced as a child by watching his mother’s novel, interesting and innovative ways of using plastic waste. “I watched my mother, who in the 1960s, used to wear polyester sarees, recycle them once they were old and worn out. She would burn them and mix the burnt fabric with ash from the chullah (earthen stove) and make a thick paste.” This paste, she would ingeniously spread on the multipurpose bamboo soop that most housewives used in an era gone by to remove dust, and little stones from the foodgrains. This paste would strengthen or reinforce the bamboo implement that was imperative those days in every household, so that it would remain durable for a much longer time.

The fascinated child also watched her use this paste to fix broken pots and pans and other vessels. At an early age the boy learnt that you don’t need to go to school to be smart and improvise. Her novel ways to use plastic remained etched in his memory and resurfaced in 2014 when the Indian government launched the cleanliness drive titled Swachh Bharat Abhiyan. As he was growing up, he was always troubled by the monumental amount of waste that was being poured into landfills, and discarded plastic bags that were destroying marine life, and choking animals on land.

Over the years, as public welfare schemes were thought of and initiated, the zilla parishad reached out to him when the government housing scheme — the Prime Minister’s Awas Yojana — was launched.

In an interview to Rotary News, Dr Paliwal, now 68, disclosed that though he has been interested in recycling and reusing plastic waste for 22 years, and has been experimenting with it in some form or the other, he seriously started working with the idea of using/converting plastic waste into a durable and usable residential structure about eight years ago.

Over the years, as he kept churning ideas in his head on what to do with the mountains and mountains of plastic waste that was generated in our homes, he came out with various ideas… on converting plastic waste into benches, containers to grow plants, flower pots etc. “I put together a team and have made over 1,000 benches for the nagarpalika, for the garden, for the use of policemen etc.”

Next, he thought why not convert tonnes and tonnes of plastic waste into durable material for building a house. Asked about the design element, he says that a local artist/craftsman called Santosh Jadhav is a very good sculptor and used to work on different kinds of idols (moorthis) using plaster of Paris, but saw his orders slump during Covid. That is the time he joined ­Paliwal’s team, which has eight people working on different components of converting the monumental heaps of plastic waste into material that can be used to build a home.

Asked how he zeroed in on the idea to use plastic waste as construction material, Paliwal says that for long he had been thinking about what could replace concrete as the basic building material for houses, offices etc. “Now Santosh is not an architect but he is a very good sculptor and during Covid, when he had no work, he joined me and now handles the entire work.”

On the process involved in turning plastic waste into aesthetic building material he says, “First, we get the plastic waste, then dry wash it, shred it into small pieces using machines, and after that melt it in the melting machine. Once this is done the material becomes semi-solid and just like you shape kumhar ki mitti (the potter’s clay) into any shape or form you want, you can give this material any shape… the worker working on it can make it either into a diya or a statue… depending on what mould you put that material into.”

He has a team of 15 people including those who collect the plastic waste material that is thrown out. With enthusiasm he adds: “Now all the members of my Rotary club send the plastic waste they generate to me, as they know it will be put to good use.”

Once he had figured out that the processed plastic material is both sturdy and durable, it was easy to expand his idea of building homes with it. Asked how he finds the time from his ­profession — he runs his own nursing home in the town — he smiles and says, “I am a full-time anaesthesiologist, but my team has full authority and led by Santosh Jadhav they do this work.”

All praise for his man Friday Jadhav, he adds that the latter has “tremendous knowledge, and can improvise, innovate and deal with all kinds of machinery. His knowledge is practical and useful; it doesn’t come with a degree. He is not an engineer but is much better than the best of engineers I know. I would thank the Covid pandemic for sending him my way; but for Covid I would not have got Jadhav!”

 

To my constant questioning on how a house made of plastic can be durable, as it is both prefabricated and portable too, Paliwal explains that the foundation is made from cement, steel and concrete but the frame is of steel, which also goes into the walls. In all, about 2.5 tonnes of steel was used in the house, which cost around ₹8–9 lakh to complete. But there are no bricks used. “We have also made a toilet out of plastic, and it is complete with all the fittings required. This house is safe during an earthquake or a cyclone, and there is no thermal or electrical conduction. This means that however high or low the outside temperature might be, this house will not become too hot or cold… basically the internal temperature is maintained, so there is less use of electricity.”

 

This way the other environmental disaster, excessive use of electrical energy, is also reduced.

The kitchen too is safe, he adds, as it takes a high temperature of 250 deg Celcius to melt this plastic material.

Right now, this model house in Chandrapur is kept in the botanical garden and is open to visitors. “This plastic house has generated a lot of interest,” he chuckles, adding, “people are really surprised and curious, many schoolchildren visit it and ask so many questions on its sustainability.”

To the important question on whether the zilla parishad which had asked him to build this house will take this scheme forward, and replicate this model, he says, “Talks are going on with the government officers, but as in anything to do with the government it takes a long, long time for something concrete to come up!”

But meanwhile, he continues undeterred. He has already put up a plastic house in Siachen; the occasion was an Indian Army exhibition and the President of India Draupadi Murmu also visited it, “found it very interesting and asked many questions about it.”

This house is 15ft by 12ft in size, was prefabricated, and first sent to Chandigarh, “from where it was airlifted to Siachen. My team members went along with it and for 15 days they stayed at the venue to put it together.”

So how much did it cost and who paid for this house, I ask him. The good doctor smiles and says, “Ab yeh mat poochiye ki paisa kitna laga aur kaha se aaya. (Please don’t ask me how much money I spent or from where that money came.) Ishwar has given me a lot and continues to give me. And anyway, recently industrialist Ratan Tata passed away… what wealth did he take with him? I believe that the more you distribute to others, the more God gives you.”

He adds that apart from plastic waste, he also converts other waste, including electronic waste, old clothes etc into building material; “whatever waste is generated in our town, it stays in our town and is put to good use.”

To the question if Rotarians from his club have expressed any interest in building such a house for any project, he says: “Oh yes, they are quite enthusiastic and are talking about it, saying let’s build another such house. Our district governor, who recently visited Chandrapur, saw the house and appreciated it.”

Apart from benches for the police and others, he and his team have also made police barricades from plastic waste, they are lighter to transport, more durable than metal ones and more convenient to use, he says.

Here is one sentence you will not come across often…. “Many people curse plastic and say it is responsible for destroying our world. But if we can use our imagination and take a little trouble to collect and convert that waste into useful material and put it to good and creative use, plastic can become a boon. I would say that plastic is the best and most wonderful gift that this world has had in a century. If we give it a chance, it can change our lives!”

So one day will he make his own house from plastic waste?

“Of course; zaroor banayege! (We’ll certainly do it),” he beams.