A Plastic Free Calicut is a Liveable Calicut

Calicut is one of the fastest growing urban areas in the world. The many opportunities that this growth brings are currently vastly overshadowed by the vast number of issues it is causing. Pollution, water security, loss of social connection, inefficient infrastructure and transport are causing the city to become unliveable. Calicut’s waste system is currently overloaded, inefficient, and ineffective. The general culture and attitudes surrounding waste lean towards apathy rather than sensitivity, and the architectural form of the city does nothing to promote healthy consumption patterns and disposal behaviours.

Along the Keralan coast, it is imperative to stop plastic from washing down the Western Ghats mountains and into the sea, when it becomes much more difficult to remove and causes more extensive damage. In this way Calicut holds a key position to reduce global plastic pollution. The urban strategy proposes: densifying the city core, increasing the efficiency of infrastructure and reducing urban sprawl; decentralising the waste collection and processing system; changing future behaviours around waste and consumption with segregated bins and education; and filtering and purifying waterways before reaching the ocean.

The Recycling Facility launches a new paradigm for waste processing in Kerala, one where high quality buildings and landscaping encourages public interaction and engagement. Community members are able to up-cycle their waste, producing valuable and marketable products. All types of plastic are collected, sorted and processed correctly. Un-recyclable plastics are made into eco-bricks used for important community assets such as up-cycling spaces, doctors offices or schools. Members of the public can directly see the benefits of recycling, and it becomes a communal activity, encouraging proper waste management to provide more future assets. The site is organised to retain the important water retention properties of the land, with hard surfaces away from the canal and permeable planting and water purification tanks in the flood zone. The structure of the recycling buildings is a concrete U shape base with a light steel structure and timber cladding on top. The simplicity of the structure makes it legible and engaging to the public, and provides hard wearing industrial surfaces with a tall ceiling.

The urban strategy aims to make Calicut a plastic free city in 50 years, rendering the facility redundant. It is therefore designed to be adaptable, with a new floor placed atop the concrete U base, raising the floor above the rising water levels.