The Use of Plastic Waste Products for Building Materials to Reduce the Housing Shortage - Essay Example

Through an examination of plastic as a toxic product for the environment, it becomes clear that an alternative to disposal is necessary to preserve the planet. One innovation that has potential is the use of disposed of plastic products as building materials, either through recycling or repurposing, to provide inexpensive products that can help to reduce housing shortages. The Dalit communities are groups that belong to one of the castes of the untouchables. These groups have suffered under oppression for centuries, the traditions of the social structure keeping them in poverty and despair, struggling for scraps of food and limiting their ability to earn a living to working in the ‘unclean’ professions. One of those professions is in the waste disposal of the cities, meaning that the communities of the Dalits are in direct contact with plastic waste products.

Systems of creating plastic waste products into building materials through various means of technological innovations have presented a use for the waste materials that the Dalits have access to solve one of their biggest problems – housing shortages. This thesis intends to explore the nature of the production of building materials through the recycling of plastics to address the issue of housing shortages, which will also present the communities with opportunities of an entrepreneurial nature that can help to curb the poverty in those regions.

Through an examination of the nature of plastic from production through its disposal, the environmental impact will be explored so that the benefit of repurposing the product for building materials can be more thoroughly understood. The focus of this research will be on the nature of plastic, with information about the social structure of the Dalit communities explored to address the potential for introducing recycling systems for creating building materials.