SECOND USE IN CONSTRUCTION FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a container for liquids (soda, water or liquids in general), made of plastic material. Said container can be recycled to end up being used in the construction field after completing its original use as a liquid container. The construction system incorporates said containers as construction modules.

The objective is that, when creating an alternative use for it, said container maintains or increases its value after performing its first function. By maintaining its value, the container is no longer a waste and said condition allows providing funds for a collection network and its final intended use.

Its final purpose is to be used as a building material in the masonry however it comprises a mold within a grid structure that aims to both reduce its cost and contribute to the sustainable construction market. In addition to setting out a specific response to the global problem of pollution caused by plastic waste, this patented invention aims to recycle a waste that turns out to be an inexpensive, standard and sustainable construction material.

Hence, its impact takes place both in the packaging industry and construction field. In the first one, the impact is environmental since containers are not thrown away to waste dumps or landfills, and it does not involve recycling costs either. The second impact is in construction, which is the responsible of its final use thereby benefiting from the fact that production costs are absorbed by the first use.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

At present, the bottling market, oriented to soft drinks, bottled water and other liquids, is strongly related to the use of plastic containers, particularly the ones of the PET type (Polyethylene terephthalate).

Currently, containers are of two kinds: returnable bottles (can be used up to 12 times before being finally discarded) and the disposable ones (which are immediately discarded after being used).

Containers usually have a cylindrical shape. Liquid containers have a traditional shape of bottle with only aesthetic considerations.

They are inexpensive; even their manufacturing cost is cheaper than recycling containers which have already been discarded. Once used containers become waste or are thrown away in landfills, a large percentage thereof ends up in streams and oceans. This means that the recycling process has not been successful, thereby creating a global and serious environmental problem.

At present, the construction field based on modular elements uses almost 100% of clay bricks and concrete blocks.

Nowadays, there have been some attempts to use waste plastic bottles in the construction field. Usually collection and storage campaigns are carried out to this end wherein bottles are filled with plastic bags and arranged parallel based on some binder in an overlapping rows pattern. This technique involves the image of buildings or houses made of waste using material not designed for this purpose, but which have been adapted and are off- standard. In addition, it constitutes a poor solution generating walls that are too thick, using too much binder, which results in the inefficiency of said materials since they are not being used as intended.

In the state of the art, there have been several attempts to provide containers wherein once their contents have been consumed, can be used as construction blocks, thereby avoiding the disposal thereof at a landfill. For example, German patent DE 19643439 discloses a bottle formed by a straight rectangular parallelepiped having on a side face a convex curvature, and having on the opposite side face a concave curvature, in such a way it allows a fitting between said curved faces to form, for instance, corners such as wall blocks. The bottom of the bottle has a cavity to house the neck of the upper face, so that it generates a dovetailing means to secure the blocks installed when forming the wall.

Document EP 0857664 discloses a system comprised of a straight rectangular parallelepiped with a square base wherein on one of its side faces the container has circular protrusions, and on the opposite face it has cavities of circular shape wherein the circular protrusions can be inserted into the cavities in order to secure the containers to each another for building walls, thereby generating a first dovetailing joint means. The bottom face of the container also having a cavity for housing the bottleneck positioned on the upper side, so that a second tongue and groove means can be generated for securing the blocks when installed on the wall.

Document U.S. 4,057,946 discloses a glass container being formed by a straight rectangular parallelepiped having a square base wherein on its perimeter faces has cavities with the shape of a flattened truncated cone and on its lower face also has a frustum- shaped flattened cone cavity; so as the neck located on the upper face can be fitted into any of these cavities in order to generate the latching means. With this system it is possible to build walls, wherein the containers act as building blocks. When necks are inserted into the cavities, said necks leave a space in-between the containers in such a way that when acting as building blocks, they can also be joined by a mortar.

Document U.S. 5,035,098 discloses a container comprised of a straight rectangular parallelepiped container being present on its protruding and embossed perimeter faces, wherein said faces act as engagement means between adjacent containers. This container can be used as building block.

Document WO 2011/020128 discloses a container that can be used as a building block, when it is empty. The container consists of two parts, a lower and an upper portion. The lower portion is a straight rectangular parallelepiped having on two of its perimeter faces, square-based protrusions and on the other two lateral faces has a square-base cavities in such a way, the projections fit into the recesses, thereby creating a tongue and groove joint means. The upper portion arises from the upper face of the first portion and is formed by a cylindrical projection, from which a portion in the form of a truncated cone terminating in a neck is originated. The lower face of the lower portion has a cavity that is the negative portion of the bottom portion, that is, where the neck is located. Both the tongue and groove means as well as the neck engagement (neck fitting) in the lower face of the lower portion are latching means for the container to be used as building element.

Document DE 19753179 discloses a container comprised of a straight rectangular parallelepiped, which on its upper face has a neck and on its lower face has a cavity for housing a neck of an adjacent container when said container is being used as a building block. On the lateral sides, the container has a plurality of circular cavities, which require a pin to effect the locking between two adjacent containers. In a second embodiment, the container is provided with a locking tab, which fits the upper edge of an adjacent container to obtain a blocking means. In a third embodiment, the container which was originally intended for storing bulk material, such as granular or powder tea or coffee, food, cakes and small objects of all kinds, can also be used as a building element. Each container has at least one annular collar surrounding a filling and dispensing opening defining the container neck and a corresponding slot on the opposite side of the container. All the aforementioned in order to use said containers as building blocks. All containers of the state of the art, used as building blocks when empty, have the disadvantage that they cannot act as a structural element, given the fact they are conceived as blocks of the LEGO® type, which makes its application limited.

Considering that plastic is not a resistant nor a suitable material for construction, the present invention proposes solving this problem by using the containers in a layout to bricks or concrete blocks, but instead, in a way they work as inner molds within which it is possible to introduce rebar (reinforcement steel bars) and mortar to create concrete walls with less material thereby forming a cross-linked structure. Said container is provided with grooves to allow the outer mortar to adhere while the modules remain hidden inside the resulting concrete wall. Thus allowing the concrete to comply with its structural function, and allowing the brick/module to be part of the inner mold, which allows for the insulation and the reduced amount of used material to act as a kind of inner voids system similar to the ones resulting in the concrete blocks system. Unlike masonry, where the bricks are part of the wall and function structurally with it, this system while assembled in the form of masonry, is actually a mold of a reticular concrete system similar to a concrete blocks wall.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention has several advantages since the environment is an increasingly important issue for consumers, and this container maintains a value in itself and a second use that reduces and potentially eliminates the problem of recycling as well as its associated costs.

Bottling Companies have a tremendous debt with the environment. This new container allows stopping the impact of the waste of plastic containers by also bringing innovation to the field of construction.

The implementation cost is low at the beginning and marginal in the medium term as this container maintains basic characteristics of a container without changing its material nature. The first use pays for the product the second use is obtained almost for free so it has the advantage of having its final use with a zero or near zero cost.

It is a environmentally sustainable material because it is reused, which is environmentally much better than recycling it since reusing doesn't involves energy, water power, etc.

It has insulating properties (sound and thermal properties) when being filled with aggregates, soil or just air. It has a prism shape that provides it stability and has standard measures that allow their use in a modular system.

It has tubular voids that allow the incorporation of reinforcements as well as the passage of pipes and ducts. It has a cavity in its base that enables collating modular containers. It also has spacers or protrusions to prevent bricks/modules from entering into contact with each other, while providing a homogeneous thickness of mortar in bed joints.

In the field of bottling, at present the problem of recycling has been addressed with the use of both returnable and discarded containers. The current results of recycling in the world are low, in the USA the recycling percentage is less than 7% (Diana Cohen Plastic Pollution Coallition) and in Chile is less than 5%. The challenges encountered are in first place the collection costs and secondly the costs of cleaning, sorting out and re-processing the material in a context where is more profitable to get rid of said material at a landfill since producing more plastic is cheaper than recycling it.

Some reference data are:

• Plastic was invented in the 60s as a reusable and recyclable material but nowadays is cheaper to produce it than to recycle it. Either way, costs are involved.

• It takes between 400 and 1000 years for a bottle to decompose in a landfill

• Each year, over 45,000 tons of plastic are dumped into the oceans, killing about 1 million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals.

• 95% of all the plastic ever created still exists at present.

• Over 90% of the garbage returned by the sea to the beaches constitutes plastic waste.

• Each year, 66,000,000,000 water bottles are consumed only in the US.

• In the US, less than 7% of plastic is recycled.

• More than 1,000,000,000 plastic containers are annually produced only in Chile

• The field of construction is responsible for 30% of all the greenhouse gas emissions. Each year, 1.23 trillion clay bricks are manufactured, thereby generating 800 million tons of carbon emissions due to the fossil fuels requirements used in the process. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

Figure 1 shows a view of the arrangement of the device of the present application in side elevation, front elevation, bottom view and top view.

Figure 2 represents the view of two devices in isometric view.

Figure 3: shows a view in elevation of assembled elements. Figure 4 represents an isometric view of elements assembled

Figure 5: Represents an example for implementing the system under construction. DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The invention relates to a liquid container/packaging (soft drinks, water or liquids in general), made of plastic material, which can be recycled by using it in the construction field. Its concept is allowing its reuse based on an alternative use without the need of other recycling industrial processes (grinding, heating, molding and the like) to finally be reused in construction, thus preventing pollution with this material from reaching landfills or oceans.

There are two main innovative concepts:

- The packaging/container maintains its container function by keeping the traditional bottle dimensions, which is essential for its feasibility (handling, shelf storage and refrigerator storage, etc). It just changes its shape and destination in a way the associated cost is low and in the medium term becomes minimal or even insignificant without greatly affecting the costs of bottling business; but it can result in a huge contribution to the recycling line, construction market, and sustainability when reducing the environmental pollution while enhancing the welfare of the planet at a global scale.

- Its components make possible to build with a standard element designed to be used as building material, though maintaining the container requirements and function to remove the condition of being a waste.

The container of the invention has a hollow rectangular prism shape with dimensions between 18cm and 45cm long, and between 10cm and 15cm of square section, having an open end terminating in the neck and a thread for housing a plastic cap (1) (same cap used in its original function as a container) (Fig-1).

Its shape has two voids/openings (2) of tubular form that cross it from side to side. These allow for an upright void that allows the incorporation of metal reinforcements such as the piping passage (similar to industrial bricks). (Fig-5)

On its base, it has a cavity (5) equivalent in size to and slightly greater than its collar and cap so that when placed longitudinally, the containers receive the neck and cap of the adjacent container, partially hiding it (Fig-3), and with enough space to enable the creation of curved walls.

On two of its opposite sides and around the inlet and outlet of the tubular voids, it has a set of four protrusions (3) of about 0.2 and 3.0 cms., ending in a flat end. These enable the fitting of modules as well as the creation of a distance between them in a way of preventing bricks/modules from entering into contact with each other and allowing a homogeneous layer of mortar bed joints among the courses of modules (Fig-3).

On its other two opposite sides, has longitudinal grooves (4) of about 2 and 8 mm depth, which constitute the sides of the wall, which will be subsequently coated to hide the plastic material. The grooves promote the adherence of the mortar and the formation of a cross-linked structure around the modules (Fig-5).

It also has a central transverse groove with the same features, and equidistant from both tubular voids (7), that helps structuring the module by defining its center, and anticipating which could be in the future, a half module means of this system (Fig-2).

In order for the container, once consumed, to be effectively used as a building material, it has the dimensions to be included inside a wall (without the modules to be exposed to the outside) and with a rectangular prism shape of appropriate dimensions. The system prevents the bricks/modules from being connected to each other so as they do not work structurally and yet promote the formation of a lightened and reinforced concrete structure.

As part of the process, the modules must be first collected this can be made due to the value of the module as a building material. The container is filled with soil from the site, which provides the container with the thermal and acoustic insulation conditions as well as an economy in terms of saving in the transport of land, resulting from the digging in foundations.

Once the content of aggregates or fill soil is dry these containers are closed with a cap, and they are placed on a concrete slab, having first placed a layer of mortar of at least 2.0 cm. Longitudinally placed as a layer of bricks fitting the neck and cap of each one within the cavity located on the base of the next to hide the necks and caps, exposing only the module. Be aware that the protrusions are located on the upper and lower face in a way they fulfill their role of generating the vertical distance (6) between courses with little compression with respect to the bed joints. A second layer of mortar is then placed over the base course and the spaces between the containers are filled, which helps building a interconnected mortar frame similar to the one made with bricks (Fig-5).

Then a second row of containers is placed over the latter but in a displaced way so as to fit the protrusions while allowing the continuity of the tubular vertical voids. This condition allows the incorporation of reinforcements and water and electric pipes or cables (phone, data, TV cable, doorbells, etc.). An operation similar to a masonry is repeated until the required height is reached. Finally, both sides of the resulting wall are covered with stucco or mortar in at least a 2.0 cm thickness. Thus, it is possible to prevent containers from being exposed to the exterior while facilitating adherence with the longitudinal grooves (Fig-5) with regard to the latter procedure. This not only makes possible to avoid the exposure of the plastic brick/module, but also consolidates a tough cross-linked structure formed around the bricks/modules, which act as inner molds, thus eliminating the excess of material and forming the negative or empty space, very similar to a wall of concrete blocks, but also a resulting wall having their voids isolated in a thermal, acoustic and hydric way.

A 3-meter long wall by 2.5 meters height, without openings, consumes approx. 250 containers. A 50 square meter social housing can consume about 3.500 containers.

In Chile, about 1,000,000,000 plastic containers are produced in a year. If all of them were used in construction, they could eventually build 285,714 houses, about half the current housing shortage in the country.