There are three variants of the UniBricks: the basic block, a “half-brick” and a “flat-brick”. The basic brick measures 200x100x133mm (LxWxH) or 200x100x100mm when build in a wall (due to the “teeth” that interconnect, the shared space is only counted once), the half-brick is 100x100x133mm (or 100x100x100mm in a wall) and the flat-brick measures 200x100x100mm (in a wall the shared space can be up or down, therefor the flat-brick is either 200x110x66mm in height or 200x100x100mm).

A standard Unibrick weighs 2,75kg (+/- 0,15kg depending on the used sources), a half-brick is ±1,4kg and a flat-brick weighs about 2,3kg.

The basic compound is a mixture of sand and plastic with the ratio of about 2:1. To this carbon black is added and, if wanted, specific colour pigment, both in small percentages.

Quick answer: no. The detailled answer; what’s important here is whether toxic elements can and will evaporate from the material and reach toxic levels in the surroundings, both of them is not the case. First of all, the elements in the plastic (PP and PE) are not toxic by themselves and are designed to bind with the plastic. What could happen, however, is that materials that aren’t designed for the plastic production process get in the mix. Some these materials could reach the combustion temperature and that’s where possible harm can be. Examples of these materials are glue and paper, in other words the labels. This is something one can easily sort plastics on and simple cleaning processes can help getting rid of these materials.

Through the VOC tests that we’ve done, we had some counter intuitive insights; seemingly dangerous materials mean no harm when fixed in a Unibrick (think of chloride) and simple everyday materials, like paper, can be dangerous.

We’re afraid not….at this moment humanity has created 5000Mt of plastic waste (equal to 500.000x the weight of the Eiffel tower, or about a dump truck of plastic waste for every single individual on this planet). This is in landfills, but also in nature or scattered around in our living environments and this number is rapidly growing. We’ve calculated that if we would be able to make Unibricks out of it, we would be able to build about 1 billion houses, enough to kill the global housing deficit!

The Unibrick provides a couple of advantages over existing construction material and even over it’s competitors. First of all, it uses locally available and cheap resources (waste plastic and sand), next to that we produce locally, limiting the logistic-cost and creating local jobs. Constructing with the Unibricks is simple (skilled labor isn’t needed), very fast (depending on the setting, about 10-20x faster than with standard bricks) and creates a high quality construction (due to the interlocking shape the bricks automatically orient perfectly creating straight walls). A construction can be expanded or changed over time without losing constructional integrity, making the buildings highly incremental and ideal for quickly changing (urban) situations.