Photo: Mandy Henry | Unsplash
The People’s Pantry, a community garden that doubles as a fresh food pantry in Blackpool, England, is sporting some eco-groovy concrete that is partially made of crushed seashells. The innovation is the solution to a problem that used to plague the gardens: flooding. They arrived at this solution with help from the University of Central Lancashire. The permeable concrete mix is made with cement, aggregate - materials like gravel and rock that are part of typical concrete mixes – and discarded shellfish waste collected from nearby fish processors. Now, underneath all of the garden beds is a smooth sheet of this concrete, which protects the space against stormwater runoff or heavy rains. The material is the brainchild of Karl Williams, who directs the Center of Waste Management at the university. His passion is for turning items people normally perceive to be waste into useful resources. The People’s Pantry is one of the first successful applications for the material outside of a lab.
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