Evaluation of household waste materials for façade components in primary educational workshops. Mechanical and fire properties

Abstract An important amount of human household waste can be reused, as it is presently done all over the world in numerous social initiatives such as “Do It Yourself” proposals. Some waste containers have sufficiently good mechanical properties that make these containers promising candidates as some architectural elements. For example, this waste can become non-load bearing facade components, which have to withstand much smaller stresses than structural elements such as columns and beams. This article is part of a broader research project that is developing low-cost new solar control devices for school facades reusing household waste. These facade components will be assembled during workshops by elementary school communities. This present research paper studies this cladding use of the household waste and analyzes these waste-based components mechanical and fire properties by carrying out laboratory tests. These test results will be the base of future simulations and friendly-use tables for children during the aforementioned workshops. Conclusions for this research article are: a) that plastic waste materials have similar properties to new plastic materials for construction although they have been built for packaging purposes and their implementation in facades requires further studies and caution; b) tetra pack has particularly interesting properties which had been largely unexplored.