Main content

Covid-19: Recycling PPE to build homes across India

Every year, the world produces more than two billion tons of waste, according to World Bank estimates. If all this waste was put on trucks they would go around the world 24 times. And the surge in single use Personal Protection Equipment has increased that amount even more. Now an Indian environmental activist has decided to build something useful out of all that waste. From Valsad in Gujarat, Dr Binish Desai explains how the bricks are 'twice the size and half the price' of usual bricks, and are made from over 50 percent of PPE waste, as well as having insulating and insect-repelling qualities. Thousands of toilets and homes across rural India have been made from these bricks so far.

Photo: Binish Desai; Credit: Binish Desai

Release date:

Duration:

3 minutes