Conceptos Plasticos

Conceptos Plasticos is the union of two passions: helping the environment and creating products that can benefit vulnerable populations. 

With almost 600 tons of plastic waste being thrown away in a landfill each day in Bogotá, Colombia, the company uses recycled plastic to build homes for impoverished communities throughout the city, while also teaching the importance of recycling and sustainability.

Conceptos Plasticos wants to promote the elimination of plastic waste and transform it into plastic bricks via a recycling process, providing a solution for a new model of decent and ecological housing.

The social enterprise is now helping to build classrooms in Ivory Coast in partnership with UNICEF.

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. Conceptos Plásticos, aims to show that what has been done in Bogotá could be replicated elsewhere in West Africa.

In Bogotá, the company's factory buys its material from 15,000 collectors, who work individually or in collectives. A larger factory in now being built in Yopougon, a suburb of Abidjan, the commercial capital of Ivory Coast. According to UNICEF: Abidjan alone generates 300 tonnes of plastic waste a day, of which only around 5 percent is currently recycled. When the factory will be 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. This will also allow them to employ more people and provide better income to women collecting the plastic.