Turning plastic waste into building bricks

A l'EPFL, Selina Heiniger a étudié le génie civil. Alain Herzog / EPFL Summer series - Master's project (4). For her Master's project in civil engineering, Selina Heiniger took on a challenge that's aligned with her desire to help preserve the environment. She's developing a new building material that's made from plastic waste, concrete and terracotta. Heiniger completed high school in Bern Canton and then enrolled in EPFL's civil engineering program - but only part time, since she also held a 30% to 50% job at a Lausanne-based civil engineering firm. For her Master's project, Heiniger wanted to address two related challenges: reducing the amount of pollution caused by plastic waste, and developing construction methods that consume fewer raw materials. She therefore worked on developing bricks made of recovered plastic - polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) - along with crushed terracotta brick and recycled concrete.