Ovy Sabrina fights plastic waste in Indonesia by spreading noodle packets, coffee sachets, straws and other trash around the sprawling archipelago — entombed in eco-friendly bricks.
Her family knows not to stand in her way on environmental issues, especially five years ago when she came up with the idea of making bricks using single-use plastic to counter pollution and the capital Jakarta's high-emissions building boom.
Using machinery from her family's conventional brick factory and tapping into her zero-waste lifestyle, Sabrina and her friend Novita Tan launched their green construction materials startup Rebricks in 2018.
"My family usually tell me to go ahead and do whatever I want. If people disagree with me, I will do it," said the 37-year-old, who regularly locks horns with her siblings over sorting household waste and recycling in their home.
With more than half the region's population living in cities and rising, Asia's urban population is soaring as wealth increases and people seek better lives — putting huge pressure on infrastructure, public services and affordable housing.
Bustling Jakarta, which has 10 million inhabitants, is dotted with construction sites that emit high levels of greenhouse gases, working on new train lines, malls, leisure complexes, apartments and offices.
As Indonesia's capital grows, waste collection and recycling services have struggled to keep pace.
Single-use plastics — such as drinking straws, confectionery packets, plastic bags and coffee sachets — are usually sent to already full landfill sites, burned by informal trash collectors, or simply thrown into the city's canals.
Looking to tackle Indonesia's twin challenges of trash and polluting urban growth, Rebricks made a breakthrough in late 2019 by creating a brick using single-use plastic waste that meets industry standards.
The company mixes volcanic ash, mountain stones, plastic waste donated from households across Indonesia and cement to make its bricks, which do not contain sand like regular ones. It supplies to charities and other groups that build affordable homes and sanitation buildings for poorer communities.
The firm's prices are competitive, while its bricks — long-lasting and strong as conventional bricks — are non-combustible, and the paving stones it also makes do not get slippery when wet, Sabrina said.
But she declined to give details of sales, adding that production is limited by the company's basic brick-making technique and labour-intensive machinery, with plastic waste donations often outstripping demand for bricks.
The startup — which uses social media to appeal for plastic waste — is in talks with the government to supply materials for subsidised housing projects.
"As a developing country, it's impossible for us to say 'don't develop'," said Sabrina. "Development will keep on going, but at least if you recycle waste at the same time, it can help."
The buildings and construction sector is responsible for about 40 per cent of global energy-related emissions — and reducing this will be vital for countries to meet their international climate and environmental pledges, industry experts said.
About half of the sector's emissions come from construction and the rest from how buildings are heated or cooled, and powered, once in use.
The industry also accounts for 50 per cent of all extracted materials, while cement production alone is responsible for seven per cent of global carbon emissions, said Lea Ranalder, part of the climate change team at UN-Habitat, a United Nations agency that promotes sustainable human settlements.
Less than nine per cent of the materials consumed by the sector are circular — recycled or re-used — leading to a "we build, we throw away" mentality, she noted.
"The buildings and construction industry is the overlooked giant when we talk about climate change and how we tackle climate change," she said.
Reforming the fragmented industry is complex. Many developers in Asia are focused on profits and affordability, with the perception that greener designs and building materials are expensive, industry experts said.
Constructing greener buildings pushes costs up by three to five per cent, depending on the type
of building, said UN Environment Programme buildings and construction expert Jonathan Duwyn.
But over time it becomes cheaper as the buildings cost less to run, he said, adding that "overall, the cost is not much higher, and the more we do it, the costs will go down".
* The writer is from the Reuters news agency