MIT researchers developing process to make houses from recycled plastic

Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers have made recycled plastic into floor trusses for housing, arguing the waste stream could provide an abundant and sustainable structural building material.

The US-based researchers 3D printed a functional, construction-grade element using a composite material they developed from recycled polyethylene terephthalate (rPET) plastic – mostly derived from discarded drinks bottles – mixed with glass fibres.

In the future, they say the system...