Thailand’s First Classroom Built from Waste

CHIANG MAI, June 30 (TNA) – It’s hard to imagine that discarded plastic bags, often considered worthless waste, could transform into a classroom for the students of Ban Pa Kang School in Chiang Mai. This innovative building replaces their old one, damaged by an earthquake nearly two years ago. The project, supported by Green Road, a recycling initiative, utilized over 800,000 plastic bags, recycling them into plastic sheets to construct Thailand’s pioneering school made from waste materials.

The old two-and-a-half-story concrete and wooden building, the sole classroom structure at Ban Pa Kang School in San Sai district, Chiang Mai, was nearly a century old. It suffered severe damage from an earthquake almost two years prior, cracking and collapsing, necessitating its demolition. This forced nearly 200 students, from kindergarten to sixth grade, to endure challenging learning conditions in canvas tents, particularly during the rainy season.

Three months ago, the demolished classroom was replaced by a new, eye-catching 32-square-meter building. Crucially, it’s Thailand’s first school constructed from used plastic bags and snack wrappers, built after the school sought assistance from the Green Road project, which focuses on repurposing plastic waste. The project team faced the challenge of rapidly producing, assembling, and transporting the structure for installation at the school.

The materials for this building were processed from over 850,000 donated plastic bags, weighing 2,500 kilograms. These bags were meticulously shredded and fed into a melting machine at 250 degrees Celsius. The molten plastic was then pressed into molds and submerged in water to set. These sheets were then cut into shape and attached to a steel frame structure.

Upon receiving their new classroom, which took just one month to construct before installation, the children were thrilled, excited, and incredibly proud. They had actively participated in sorting the waste, especially the snack bags donated by the public, which were recycled into the building materials. This experience significantly enhanced their understanding of the benefits of waste separation.

Beyond the classroom, the Green Road project also produces school desks and chairs from plastic bottle caps. These caps are placed on trays and heated at 180 degrees Celsius before being assembled with steel frames, creating colorful, strong, durable, and buoyant tables and chairs. These are donated to flood-affected schools across northern Thailand. The project continues to accept plastic bottle cap donations, aiming to recycle and reuse them indefinitely, thereby contributing to global waste reduction. -819 (TNA)