An eco-lodge in a village on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast is made from trash.
It began with 50 tons of forgotten rubbish, a kitchen blender and an ambitious lodge owner.
Eight years ago Debbie Sharp decided to turn the lodge's nonrecyclable rubbish into building material. The rubbish had accumulated over six months because the municipal dump was full.With a kitchen blender, Sharp blitzed the trash and cast it into a mould.
The test failed because she had used cement. She began to use different catalysts - polymers and adhesives were mixed with the waste.
"I even tried cooking the stuff," Sharp said.
Three years later she had an "epiphany of sorts" at 3am."It became clear that the chemical reaction of the different polymers was the key."
Still in her pyjamas, she ran to the chicken run, where the rubbish had piled up, and by candlelight did a mix in a bucket.
She waited anxiously for an hour until there it was: all the components solidified into a perfect block.
She "cried like a baby" when the block survived a drop from the roof of the chicken run, which was the height of a single-storey building.
"The block was named O Eco Block after my late father, Owen, who was an inspiration to me. He was a builder," Sharp said.
Once she had mastered the technology and bought equipment for R2.4-million, the blocks were approved by the South African Bureau of Standards and ready to be used to extend the lodge.
The roof tiles, blocks and paving are made from 196 tons of waste collected from the lodge.
Some 90% of the waste could be recycled; the rest went into the blocks, paving and tiles.
"One percent of contaminated plastics, nappies and cardboard was run through the permaculture system, which is a system of maggots eating away all the food residue. Once their work is done, we recover it and it goes back through the system of producing blocks," Sharp said.What do guests think about sleeping within the trash?
"These are the responses so far: Eish, you're kidding, amazing, and a few other more colourful words. But there have been mostly very positive words," Sharp said.
Sharp is implementing a zero-waste-to-landfill solution around the country.
Since 2016 she has collected 400 tons of trash from a local supermarket, hotels in the area and from ratepayers.
She has created a mobile waste-management unit that she believes can lead to job creation in rural areas and can convert rubbish at municipal landfills into blocks.
According to statistics from the Department of Environmental Affairs in 2012 (the department's latest), South Africa generated about 108million tons a year of which 20 million was municipal solid waste.
Professor Suzan Oelofse, past president of the Institute of Waste Management of Southern Africa, said the department reported to the portfolio committee in 2016 that there were 826 landfill sites of which 667 were licensed, 69 were operating illegally and 90 were privately owned and had been decommissioned.
She said it was difficult to determine the amount of waste at landfill sites.
"It is difficult to provide an answer as uncontrolled burning at landfills impacts on the amount of waste in landfills. In the 2012 baseline report it is estimated that 90% of all waste generated in South Africa is disposed of, but that does not imply that all waste is disposed of at controlled landfills, it also includes disposal to dumpsites," she said.
IN NUMBERS
• 1 ton of waste can generate 60 blocks
• R2.4-million is the amount spent to create the technology
• Owen Sharp's father, after whom the blocks are named
A LOAD OF RUBBISH
South Africa generates about 108 million tons of waste a year, of which 20 million tons is municipal solid waste, according to the Department of Environmental Affairs...