US ENGRS. TO PRODUCE ECO
ROOFS, BLOCKS FROM FIBERS
By Manny Piñol
San Ramon, Zamboanga City – An American engineering company has offered to establish a manufacturing facility which would produce in commercial quantities housing materials like hollow blocks and roofs using Coconut fiber and processed dirty plastics as binders.
James Wheeler and Kirk Johnson, owners of Buskirk Engineering of Indiana, a U.S. company which produces outstanding feed mills, bio-mass facilities and dirty plastics processing equipment, said the hollow blocks and roof-making facility could give value to the coconut husks which are just being thrown away or burnt.
It will also help solve the country’s problems with dirty plastics thus producing an environment-friendly material for housing construction, they said.
The two American engineers flew in Sunday to develop projects supported by the Department of Agriculture (DA) through its agencies Bureau of Agricultural Research, Philippine Fiber Development Authority (PhilFida) and the Philippine Carabao Center, and the Department of Science and Technology.
The Philippines is the third biggest contributor of dirty plastics thrown into rivers, lakes and seas, after China and Indonesia.
The Coconut Industry, on the other hand, produces over 5-billion husks every year half of which are just burned or thrown away while the other half is processed into Coco Coir and other products using Coconut fiber.
The older Johnson, who co-owns Buskirk with Wheeler, said the Eco-Roofs and Eco-Blocks produced out of Coconut Fiber using dirty plastics as binders would be lighter and pliant, attributes which would these materials ideal for earthquake-prone areas.
The Coco-Blocks and Coco-Roofings were actually developed by engineering researchers of the Philippine Coconut Authority (PCA) in San Ramon Coconut Research Center in Zamboanga City.
The Coco-Blocks and Roofings developed by PCA Research, however, use cement as binders and the American engineers noted that the composition would allow the absorption of water and moisture.
Using dirty plastics as binders, Johnson said, would make the materials lighter and water resistant, aside from helping the country in cleaning up the rivers, lakes and seas with plastics.
The development of these housing materials is part of the research and development program of the PCA aimed at discovering other high value items which could be produced from the Coconut.
Among the products to be developed are the volume production of disinfected Coco Peat and Coco Coir, Eco-Nets, Hardboards using Coconut Shells, Coconut Water, Coco Milk, Coco Syrup, Coco Sugar, Coco Chips and Virgin Coconut Oil.
The PCA, which has been returned to the Department of Agriculture two months ago, has allocated P200-M for the establishment of facilities to be owned and operated by Coconut farmers to produce the high value Coconut products.
(Photos of the visit in the San Ramon Research Station of PCA in Zamboanga City were taken by Mayette Tudlas of DA OSEC and Clarisse Abao and Eloisa Aquino of DA BAR.)
More Stories
Breadfruit Grows Fast In My Dreamed Food Forest!
From The Town Of Hornbills To The City Of Fruits & Highland Springs!
After A Learning Tour,