Tucson (Arizona, USA) has approved a contract with a California company, ByFusion, to turn disposed plastic into construction-grade building blocks. Over the next four years, the city of Tucson will spend $1 million for the initiative as well as $2.4 million for a new facility at the Los Reales Sustainability Campus. The new ByBlock facility will ​ include office or storage space. As a part of the agreement, 10% of ByBlock’s production will be supplied to the city.

​Byfusion shreds the plastic into smaller pieces. It’s then superheated using byfusion’s patented steam-based process and fused into blocks measuring 40cm x 20cm x 20cm and weighing 10kg each.​

It requires no chemicals, additives, nor fillers and it generates 41% fewer greenhouse gas emissions than concrete blocks. The byblocks also don’t crack or crumble like standard blocks.​

Tucson’s agreement will make it the first in the world to expand this program into a city-wide service. “This will be the first. It certainly will not be the last because other jurisdictions are facing the same problem that we're facing,” Council member Steve Kozachik ​ said. “Nobody has a solution for the non recyclable plastics that are simply filling the ocean, the landfill (and) the sides of the roads. We're demonstrating that there is a productive use for them.”

To collect materials for the initiative, the city will provide bins for the non-recyclable plastic waste at its four neighborhood recycling centers in addition to collection bins .

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