“变废为宝”——联合国儿基会帮助科特迪瓦生产再生塑料砖 建造学校

图片来源：UNICEF/Frank Dejo

在科特迪瓦中部的一所学校，学生们很高兴学校里建造了一个新教室。 （2019年2月6日图片）

2019 年 7 月 29 日  Source:  https://news.un.org/zh/story/2019/07/1039011

联合国儿童基金会今天宣布，该基金会与哥伦比亚社会企业“塑料理念”（Conceptos Plasticos）合作在科特迪瓦建造的首家将塑料废物转化为模块塑料砖的工厂已经破土动工。这种易于组装、耐用且低成本的砖将用于在科特迪瓦建造急需的教室。

儿基会执行主任福尔说表示，这家工厂将为非洲儿童和社区面临的一些主要教育挑战带来智能型的可扩展解决方案。其潜力有三方面：为科特迪瓦的儿童提供更多的教室，减少环境中的塑料废物，为最脆弱的家庭提供额外的收入渠道。
科特迪瓦需要1万5000间教室，以满足失学儿童的需求。为了填补这一空白，联合国儿童基金会与 “塑料理念”企业合作，利用从阿比让及其周边地区污染区回收的塑料，计划在未来两年内为最迫切需要教育的2万5000多名儿童建造500间教室，并有可能将来建造更多的教室。
联合国驻科特迪瓦代表卡姆珀（Aboubacar Kampo）表示，科特迪瓦学童面临的主要挑战之一是缺乏教室。要么根本没有教师，要么过度拥挤，使学习成为一种充满挑战和不愉快的经历。有了塑料砖教室之后，在某些地区，贫困社区的幼儿园老师将能够首次将教室里的儿童人数减少到100名以下。他说，“那些从未想过会在学校里拥有‘一席之地’的孩子将能够在一个干净整洁的教室里学习，茁壮成长。“
阿比让每天生产280多吨塑料废物，其中只有约5％被回收利用，其余大部分最终留在低收入社区的垃圾填埋场。塑料废物污染加剧了现有的卫生和环境卫生挑战。不恰当的废物管理导致了60％的儿童疟疾、腹泻和肺炎病例， 这些疾病都是科特迪瓦儿童死亡的主要原因之一。
一旦全面投入运营，这个工厂每年将回收9600吨塑料废物，并为正规回收市场中的贫困妇女提供收入来源。  
“塑料理念”企业已经在哥伦比亚用塑料砖建造了9间教室，展示了其施工方法和材料的可行性。
砖块100％由塑料制成，具有耐火性，比传统建筑材料便宜40％，重量减轻20％，并且使用寿命可长达数百年。这种砖还具有很好的防水性和隔热性，并可抵御强风。
除了在科特迪瓦投资建厂外，儿基会还计划将该项目扩展到该地区的其他国家，因为非洲西部和中部地区占全球小学学龄失学儿童的三分之一，占中学低年级学龄失学儿童的五分之一。

Classrooms made from recycled plastic waste come to Ivory Coast

Source: https://www.france24.com/en/20190925-classrooms-recycled-plastic-waste-ivory-coast-unicef

Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24 | The prototype of a classroom built with plastic bricks at a school in Ivory Coast's Abidjan, now used as the school's nursery.

Text by: Frank HERSEY 

Plastic bricks made via a recycling process developed by a Colombian social enterprise are being used to help tackle a huge shortfall of classrooms in the West African nation of Ivory Coast.

Experts hope the environmentally friendly new technique will also provide more stable incomes for plastic waste collectors and contribute to reducing rates of serious illnesses in the country.
Nine model classrooms have already been set up in Ivory Coast (officially known by its French name, Côte d’Ivoire) by Conceptos Plásticos in partnership with UNICEF, the UN agency for children, at three test sites across the country. Built with bricks made from plastic salvaged from the streets of Bogotá, the showrooms have persuaded the Colombian company, Conceptos Plásticos, that what they are doing in Bogotá could be replicated elsewhere in West Africa.

A plastic brick made by Conceptos Plásticos. Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24

Conceptos Plásticos’ plastic brick factory in Bogotá buys its material from 15,000 collectors, who work individually or in collectives. The company is now building a larger factory in Yopougon, a suburb of Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast. Abidjan alone churns out 300 tonnes of plastic waste a day, of which only around 5 percent is currently recycled, typically by female pickers, according to Sophie Chavanel, head of communications for UNICEF Côte d’Ivoire.

For their part, UNICEF staff are confronted with serious health issues for the country’s children: malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia. “We were looking for a way to fight plastic pollution that exacerbates diseases that can potentially kill children, mainly under 5 years old,” Chavanel told FRANCE 24.

Not only does plastic litter contribute to dirty water and associated illnesses, it also provides a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which carry malaria and can easily reproduce in rainwater collected in plastic detritus.

Plastic bottles held in a mosquito net in Abobo-Baoulé, Abidjan. Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24

Five tonnes of plastic bricks, each around 50cm long and much lighter than other types of building block, are required to build a classroom. When the factory is at full capacity, its 9,200 tonnes of brick will be enough to build more than 1,800 classrooms a year. UNICEF has agreed to buy enough bricks from Conceptos Plásticos for over 500 classrooms.
UNICEF estimates the country will need 15,000 new classrooms by 2021 and 30,000 by 2025. Using the plastic brick technique is approximately a third cheaper than conventional construction.
In a poor section of Abidjan, parts of which were recently torn down by the government for development, the École Primaire Publique (EPP) de Gonzagueville (public primary school) in the Port Bouët district is hosting several model classrooms, including the first prototype, identical to the ones used in Colombia. When it was built, staff, children and parents were asked for their feedback and when the next classroom was built alongside it, a wooden structure was incorporated for the roof, allowing for improved airflow.

The improved classroom with wooden roof structure built at EPP Gonzagueville following consultations with teachers and parents. Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24

“When I’m in my own classroom, I really want to just be in here instead,” one student called Abigail said, referring to the model, “Because here it’s really nice, there’s lots of things, it’s well decorated.” Her traditional classroom is noticeably hotter inside, featuring rows of benches.
Sitting in the prototype classroom that serves as the school’s nursery (the only public nursery in the district), EPP Gonzagueville head teacher Tirangue Doumbia echoed her student. “They’re almost beyond comparison. They’re like night and day,” she said. “Teachers and pupils can move around in these rooms, which they can’t in the others. Some of the other classrooms have over 120 pupils,” says the teacher. “It’s difficult.”
While the classrooms are welcome, the school needs more, plus toilet blocks and child-sized toilets. For now, teachers have to hold the smallest children over the latrines to prevent them from falling in.

“There’s no problem finding teachers, it’s classrooms we need. Teachers are being trained all the time and some can even do rapid training courses to help us,” adds Doumbia.

Children inside one of the traditional classrooms at EPP Gonzagueville. Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24

Plastic classrooms can be built in just a couple of weeks using trained workers, since the bricks are put together without using cement. The result is cooler and sturdier than structures built with traditional building methods and does not require repointing after the rainy season. The plastic walls are non-toxic, since no PVC is allowed in the mix. They can be left bare or finished with plaster or wood and, unlike with concrete walls, hanging items or affixing shelving is a simpler task.
The bricks’ lightweight quality also means that in remote areas where truck delivery would be impossible, the bricks can be carried using animals or even by hand. The addition of solar panels means the rooms can be built wherever there is a need. Teaching staff will be provided by the government’s education ministry.
“For UNICEF it’s an innovative way to partner with the private sector. In this partnership, Conceptos Plásticos brings the technology to Côte d’Ivoire, employs people from Côte d'Ivoire, provides better income to women collecting the plastic and contributes to clean communities,” says UNICEF’s Chavanel.
Local plastic pickers are already being introduced to the innovative concept. Women are being approached, says Chavanel, because: “We know that when you empower women, when they have a better income, it often goes to their children." Pickers currently earn around 1,000 FCFA (West African CFA francs) per day [approximately €1.50], but are at the mercy of middlemen. Currently, it’s difficult for pickers to determine which type of plastic middlemen will want to buy in a given week – flip flops, sheeting, or bottles.

Mounds of plastic belonging to individual waste pickers at Abobo-Baoulé, Abidjan. Frank Hersey, FRANCE 24

“We set out at 5am,” says picker Mariam Coulibaly, surrounded by heaps of plastic each belonging to a different picker on a patch of wasteland in Abobo-Baoulé, Abidjan. “We’re back by 10am. then have to see to the housework, then sorting, going out again picking at night from 7 until around 9pm, when we head home. Every day.”
She hopes that when they can sell the plastic they collect directly to the factory, conditions will be better: “They’ve said we’ll be able to sell the things it’s hard to sell normally like broken buckets and plates, and they’ll take them quickly." Coulibaly and the others in her cooperative each sell around 50kg of plastic per week, a figure which stands to increase, since the Conceptos Plásticos technique can employ any type of plastic.