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James Debono
While the Maghtab rubbish hill was growing into a mountain years ago, when politicians were still ignoring the problem, engineer Michael Trapani was doing his calculations.
When he realised that over 80 per cent of mount Maghtab was made of construction and demolition waste he set his mind thinking on a possible technical solution.
Although mount Maghtab has now been closed, construction waste still poses a serious problem, to the extent that in June the government proposed the construction of an artificial island made entirely from construction waste.
Trapani and his colleague, Robert Calafato, insist that there is an alternative to these quick fix solutions.
The two came up with a solution which would reduce the generation of construction waste by. Seven years ago they registered their invention in the patents office. But until today, patent 1258 has not been put to any practical use despite the efforts of the two inventors to convince the authorities to support their idea.
Patent 1258 describes the process to manufacture low load bearing brick/panels.
The bricks and panels are composed from inert waste material available from the construction industry.
With adequate processing, this can be transformed in any shape and size.
By introducing additional additives, it can also process additional properties that would protect it from the natural elements. Thus, a sustainable cycle is created in which waste construction material can be re-used over and over again.
But lacking money and resources, they tried to persuade politicians and contractors to put their idea in practice but neither contractors nor politicians have shown a serious interest in their idea.
“Ministers always tap on our shoulders congratulating us for our idea but there is never a follow up” Trapani says. “There has to be a political will to encourage recycling through the introduction of quotas obliging contractors to use an amount of recycled bricks.”
Still the two men are convinced that their idea could substantially decrease the amount of construction waste, which is presently being dumped in quarries.
“Quarries are a finite resource and in five years there will no longer be any quarries left to fill with waste,” Trapani said.
At present, bricks are produced from gravel produced from quarries. The use of construction waste to produce bricks would also decrease the need for quarries.
“This is an ideal solution to create a cycle through which building material is used and reused without the need to dig up more quarries for gravel only to fill them again with construction waste as we are currently doing,” Trapani said.
“Since most modern buildings involve the excavation of basements and the use of high frame structures, the process is ideal as excavations create the necessary raw material while frame structures can tolerate bricks made from second quality material."
Trapani still sees a future for Maltese stone especially for the artistic decoration of buildings’ facades.
The two inventors are disappointed that politicians are more interested in quick fix solutions like artificial islands.
Trapani considers the government’s idea of constructing an artificial island a negation of the three R's (reduce, reuse, recycle) principle as the construction of these islands would involve the use of even more raw material.
“This would not be financially feasible. It would also require the production of massive concrete blocks, which would serve as a base for the whole structure,” he said.
According to Trapani, the use of these massive concrete slabs would mean the use of even more raw materials.
“We would be simply extracting more material to throw it into the sea.”
jdebono@newsworksltd.com
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