Megacrete: The Building Material of the Future

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure and Pliny Fisk III lives by this adage. Fisk is an architect in Texas and his mission “is to develop environmentally-sustainable building materials and to fundamentally change the way we build our communities”. He has recently launched a “prototype test of his latest invention -- an environmentally friendly cement and building structure” called Megacrete.

Megacrete is made “of magnesium oxide and phosphate from brine, which is a by-product of petroleum and water treatment facilities”. He is taking what would be considered waste and making into a renewable resource. Fisk hopes that ‘the cement will hold together building modules that are essentially self-contained structures created from local and regional building materials.”

Fisk is trying to reduce carbon footprints and by trying to do so, he is being innovative in process. He is taking something that was considered to be waste and turning it into low-cost building materials. For now, the prototype has just launched, but if successful there could be many positive impacts. Megacrete is low-cost so it could be used in a variety of different building opportunities. Fisk envisions it be used with local and regional building materials.

Fisk is innovative in that he is expanding upon what is already available (petroleum and water treatment facilities waste) and making those by-products and processes more valuable by turning them into an eco-friendly form of concrete. If Megacrete is successful in its prototype test, there are endless possibilities for it. If successful, it has the chance to change the building process. The paradigm would shift towards being much more eco-friendly and would do without harming the environment and at a lower cost. And since its easy to manufacture, it can be adopted in cities where there are petroleum and water treatment facilities.

At a time when people are very concerned about going green and reducing carbon footprints, this seems like it has the potential to be a huge success.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/science/10/13/going.green.pliny.fisk/index.html