Firm that turns plastic trash into building blocks to set up operations in Tucson

In this file photo, a resident places a block onto the pile in Tucson's San Gabriel neighborhood. The 22-pound blocks are made of plastics considered unrecyclable by standard recycling plants, such as plastic grocery bags, bubble wrap or products contaminated by food waste.

Heidi Kujawa, left, founder and CEO of ByFusion, and Nathan Kappler, president of Kappcon General Contracting, place 28 blocks into a median in the San Gabriel neighborhood on June 23, 2022. The 22-pound blocks are made of plastics considered unrecyclable by standard recycling plants, such as plastic grocery bags, bubble wrap or products contaminated by food waste. They are the foundation for a bench.

A recycling program that turns discarded plastic into construction-grade building blocks will become a sustained fixture in Tucson after City Council approved a 4-year contract Tuesday that makes Tucson the first in the world to scale up the program to a city-wide service.

The council unanimously approved an agreement with ByFusion to bring the company's waste diversion operations to Tucson. ByFusion's machines take plastic waste and use steam and compression to churn out 22-pound blocks, called ByBlocks, that fit together with interlocking pegs. Since the material is all superheated, ByFusion can take the discarded food packaging, plastic grocery bags and bubble wrap that standard recycling plants often can't process.

The city will pay ByFusion $1 million over four years to turn residents’ plastic into ByBlocks. Tucson's also agreed to construct a production facility at the Los Reales Sustainability Campus at an estimated cost of $2.4 million, where ByFusion will install the block-making machine and later add on capacity for office space and storage.

Council Member Steve Kozachik initiated a collaboration with ByFusion to test-run the plastic reuse program in August last year. The pilot program has collected more than 88 tons of plastic waste, according to Kozachik, and the program will now become an expanded city-wide effort.

"It's just an incredible demonstration of what can happen when communities work with government to solve some of today's toughest environmental challenges," ByFusion founder and CEO Heidi Kujawa said.

The city has been working to turn the Los Reales Sustainability Campus, formerly known as the Los Reales Landfill, into a climate resiliency-focused center to divert waste from the dump. Placing ByFusion's office there not only adds to the city's reimagining of the landfill but furthers Tucson's goal to divert 50% of waste by 2030 and reach zero waste by 2050 through recycling and reuse programs.

Los Reales will soon become home to the second Micro Diversion Platform machine that turns plastic waste into construction blocks, according to Kujawa. She said the timeline for manufacturing the machine and setting up operations in Tucson is uncertain, but the city will keep collecting plastic in the meantime.

Kozachik said he hopes "we’re creating Christmas presents this year out of blocks."

While Kozachik's Ward 6 office at 3202 E. First St., has collected most of the plastic in a roll-off container behind the council member's office under the pilot version of the program, residents can now drop off their plastic at two other locations at the Ward 4 office, 8123 E. Poinciana Drive, and Fire Station 15, 2002 S. Mission Road, Los Reales will also open a plastic collection center closer to the ByFusion centers’ opening.

The plastic Tucson drops off at the collection sites is sent to local sustainable landscape company Tank's Green Stuff for baling. The yield so far, Kozachik said, can be processed into 6,000 blocks out of about 88 tons of unprocessed plastic.

The city produced about 1,200 blocks from one trip to California carrying 20 tons of Tucson's plastic waste. Those blocks have been used to construct four new benches at Himmel Park, while pre-ordered blocks were used for a trash enclosure at the Old Pueblo Community Center and to construct two benches in the San Gabriel neighborhood — the first ever ByFusion project in Arizona.

Under the contract, ByFusion will now supply 10% of the blocks it makes at Los Reales to Tucson while avoiding the carbon-emitting trip to California.

Plans are in the works to use ByBlocks to expand the women's shelter at Sister Jose, create mural walls at Mission Gardens and build a tack room for Therapeutic Riding of Tucson.

As he waits for ByFusion to establish its operations in Tucson, Kozachik hopes other municipalities across the nation will also buy into the novel plastic diversion program.

"We’re the only city in the world that is scaling up a plastic reuse project like this. We know that there are domestic cities that are watching what we’re doing, and so we need to get it right," he said. "The reality is that every major city in the country can and should be doing this because everybody's got the same problem."

The San Gabriel neighborhood received a new bench in a median. Councilmember Steve Kozachik is pushing the city to use blocks made from plastic in future construction projects. The 22-pound blocks are made of plastics considered unrecyclable by standard recycling plants, such as plastic grocery bags, bubble wrap or products contaminated by food waste. The blocks are made by a L.A. based startup, ByFusion. This is their first project in Tucson. Video by: Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star

Contact reporter Nicole Ludden at [email protected]

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Nicole Ludden covers local government issues for the Arizona Daily Star.

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