The dream, the vision, it is getting clearer

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I've been communicating here with two posters about housing solutions in Haiti.

One of them, Tiba, has never looked at my website to see what we're offering.

It would help if he would see what we're talking about before he jumps in with only concerns for what he is talking about.

Pierre Lherrison on the other hand has been generous with good advice and serious questions and answers.

I have good news for Pierre.

We have a meeting the 25th of this month with a prestigous university's engineering department to discuss the plastic block.

We have the website up and running.

It is not perfect yet. But keep in mind it is only a week or so old.

We have a wonderful article in Mother Earth News blog about the plastic block that came out this week.

The plastic block is a block made out of recycled plastic.

It is the size of a standard concrete building block, eight inches wide, eight inches high, and sixteen inches long. The block is made by compressing all (ALL) kinds of plastic trash in a manual press.

The operation of the press requires no electricity, no fuel, no diesel, no gasoline.

It is a total manual operation.

Once the plastic trash is compressed in the machine it is bound into shape with wire. The wire is important not only for maintaining the integrity and shape of the block.

It is also important because the blocks are connected together to form a wall with wire.

One of the many benefits of the wire connection is in an earthquake the wired wall is much more flexible than the one made with mortar joints and concrete blocks.

Another benefit of the wired connection is less labor to make a better wall. The plastic blocks weigh six to ten pounds depending upon density.

Compare that to twenty five to fifty pounds for a concrete building block of the same size. The wired connection is simpler and less skill is required to make a good wall.

There is the cost of the blocks to also compare.

The material required for making the plastic blocks is trash plastic.

It is free for the taking.

The concrete blocks on the other hand use expensive imported materials and local components that is procured using expensive equipment.

Then the blocks are made which causes pollution and uses expensive electricity and fuels.

The cost of making the plastic blocks is all local labor.

These are the best dollars spent in/on Haiti.

The dollars made to make concrete blocks go out of the country for materials and machinery.

One of the considerations we had to deal with in designing the plastic block is what I call the corruption tax. That corruption might be an American company marketing a product that is inappropriate and ineffectual for Haiti.

It might be a local official that wants his percentage for processing permissions etc. It might be gangs or bandits stealing valuable commodities so they can be used for private projects.

There always will be a corruption tax. We are all human beings.

The biggest consumable used in making the plastic block with the manual machine is plastic trash.

It is difficult to see opportunity for a corruption tax to thrive with that. The machine uses less than three hundred dollars worth of steel to make in the US. The alternative uses of the machine is unknown at this point in time. The producers and users of the blocks are the poor. In the States we have a saying about milking a turnip.

It means you can't get much from nothing.

The bottom line is the recycled plastic block is the holistic answer to Haiti's housing and employment problem today.

It provides a secure and long term shelter.

It provides a mechanism for creating commerce for Haiti.

Best of all this is Haiti's. It belongs to Haiti.

Just like it belongs to Kenya, Thailand, South America, and yes, even to the United States.

The plans, the material list, photographs, and drawings for usage are all free at recycledplasticblockhouses.com

There is only one request from me if you use the website to build your own machine and start to build houses with it. Any improvements or tips and tricks you come up with to make it better you share with all the rest of us who own this concept.

I don't own this concept.

But I have equity in it and so I want to do everything I can to see it succeed.

Harvey Lacey, January 7 2011, 8:19 PM

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