Two women entrepreneurs turn difficult-to-recycle food containers into cobblestones in Indonesia

JAKARTA: At first glance, the 1,000-square-meter property located on a busy Jakarta street looked like a normal brick factory.

There were stacks of pavers of different colors, sizes and shapes (hexagonal, octagonal and rectangular) in the front yard, ready to be shipped.

Its parking lot displayed the best products from the factory, intricately placed to demonstrate the many possible interlocking patterns and arrangements.

Inside the open-air factory, in the shadow of a sheet metal ceiling suspended 10 m in the air, there were large concrete mixers and hydraulic presses to make bricks.

But what makes the Rebricks factory different is the mountain of household waste in one section of the property and the sacks of finely shredded plastic in another corner.

For the past year, Rebricks has been making pavers out of multi-layer plastic, which is used to package everything from instant coffee, snacks, cookies to single-use shampoo, detergent, and liquid soap.

These empty packages, which comprise layers of different plastics and aluminum foil, are known to be difficult to recycle. They are often sent directly to landfills and incinerators, or end up polluting rivers and beaches.

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“Nobody is recycling these multilayer plastics. It is too difficult to separate the different types of plastics and aluminum foil so that each can be recycled and the process can be so expensive that recyclers don’t want to deal with it, ”Rebricks co-founder Ovy Sabrina told CNA.

“Actually, it’s pretty scary. This means that with every food we consume, we are generating waste that will go directly to landfills and will not degrade for decades. In fact, 50 percent of the trash found in beach cleaning is this packaging. “

Sabrina and her longtime friend, Tan Novita, were determined to find ways to recycle these discarded packages.

“We chose to make building materials because the Ovy family owns a cobblestone factory. So to some extent, we have the knowledge and resources to start producing recycled bricks and not start our business completely from scratch, ”the other co-founder, Novita, told CNA.

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TRY AND FAILURE

But despite having the experience and machinery to make conventional concrete bricks, producing the building material from multilayer plastics proved challenging.

“We must have tried 100 different methods and formulas. It took us a year and a half of trial and error. There were moments when we wanted to give up, ”says Novita.

The 35-year-old former NGO worker said Rebricks first experimented with melting multilayer plastics to create pavers. But the process produces toxic fumes. It was also so complicated that we could only produce two square meters of bricks a day, ”he said.

The couple then tried to produce bricks entirely from cement mixed with crushed plastics. But the end product was on a cobblestone that could easily crumble and leave finely shredded plastics polluting the soil below.

They finally decided to create bricks with two layers. The top layer, the one that comes into frequent contact with cars, pedestrians and the elements, is entirely made of concrete, while the bottom layer is made of a mixture of plastic and cement.

However, they had yet to find the perfect mix of plastic and cement that is durable, fire retardant and environmentally safe. The bricks must also support a weight of 250 kg per square centimeter, the Indonesian standard for pavers used in parking lots, sidewalks, parks and running tracks.

This meant building dozens of prototypes and sending samples to be tested in laboratories. “We went to the labs so many times that 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 a year and a half of experimentation, Rebricks finally launched its first line of paver products.

Rebricks had to make compromises, sacrificing the amount of trash they can pack into a single brick to gain structural integrity and keep prices competitive.

“Today our bricks contain 20% waste. We wish we could put more (plastic), but we have to consider the quality of our products and the cost of production. But we will continue to innovate and improve the percentage (of brick waste), ”said Sabrina.

Novita added that although the percentage may seem small, Rebricks can already recycle up to 88,000 discarded food packages every day.

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OVERWHELMING RESPONSE

After the launch of Rebricks, the two co-founders immediately went to work finding a constant supply of waste to recycle.

They set up three collection points, two in Jakarta and one in the western suburbs of the city, Serpong, where people can send their discarded plastic packages.

“The response has been overwhelming. We have so many people sending us their waste. In fact, we are amazed that people go to the trouble of sorting their garbage and having it shipped. It is not cheap to send it here,” Novita said.

“It makes us realize that people really care about this issue. They just don’t know where to send their waste. “

Novita said that in the morning there will be garbage waiting for them before they open the factory. “In the afternoon, our office will be full of garbage,” he said.

“But we can only take a limited amount. We are just getting started and the demand (for our bricks) is not so great yet. Due to the pandemic, construction has slowed down and people’s consumption and therefore waste production increases because everyone spends more time at home ”.

Sabrina said the COVID-19 pandemic has also made it difficult for the budding business to market its products.

“We even had to close our factory due to the closure. We couldn’t turn around and meet potential clients. But fortunately, the demand is growing, despite the situation at the moment, ”he said.

Sabrina said at first that they could only sell 12 square meters of bricks each month to people looking to renovate their yards and gardens, but through word of mouth and social media, interest has been growing.

“Right now, we can sell from 100 to 200 m2 per month. That is still far from our production capacity of 100 square meters per day. But we are grateful, each month the demand is higher than the previous month, ”he said.

Rebricks has also attracted the interest of corporate clients and large developers.

“We have worked with a food manufacturing company. They send us their waste, we turn the waste into bricks and they bought the bricks so they can use it in their CSR (corporate social responsibility) program, ”he said.

“We are exploring these types of collaborations to be able to sell more bricks and recycle more waste.”

FUTURE INNOVATION

Sabrina said Rebricks is exploring the possibility of recycling waste into hollow bricks that are used as cladding for buildings 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 have to worry about the bricks crumbling and spilling waste because these bricks are usually plastered with cement, ”he said.

“We have tested samples (of hollow bricks) and the results are promising. We just need to test the finished product. Due to COVID-19, the labs are closed. Hopefully we can launch our hollow brick products next year. ”

Sabrina said Rebricks is also trying to find ways to improve its paver products so they can incorporate more debris.

“We want Rebricks to provide a solution to our waste problem and to people looking for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way to build their buildings,” he said.

Read this story in Bahasa Indonesia here.