Nine Stations Built of Plastic Wood will Facilitate the Work of Lifeguards in Playa Tamarindo

An alliance between The Clean Wave Foundation and the IPS company, which manufactures furniture and other types of articles with plastic wood, will allow Playa Tamarindo to have a lifeguard station built with this type of environmentally friendly materials.

The announcement of the placement of the lifeguard station based on Tamarindo plastic wood was made during the events of the sixth anniversary of the Foundation that took place on July 29 in that visited tourist center in the canton of Santa Cruz, Guanacaste.

Also a cleaning and solid waste collection

In addition to this new project to facilitate the work of the lifeguards during that date, the foundation carried out a cleaning and solid waste collection day with a program that ended at the TríoTamarindo restaurant with a belly dance show and a concert with the group Psychotropical and Congatronic Sleepwalker that brought together some 500 people.

Along with Playa Tamarindo, the plan to place lifeguard stations based on IPS plastic wood covers Caldera, Esterillos, Manuel Antonio, Chamán and Ventanas beaches in the province of Puntarenas, as well as Playa Negra, Cocles and Manzanillo, in Limón.

According to Andrés Bermúdez, President of The Clean Wave Foundation, the project of sustainable structures in these tourist places is a “clear example of a circular economy because a product, such as plastic, which is a polluting agent, is used in a way profitable”.

“In our case, the days that we carry out to collect waste such as caps, bottles and other plastics are delivered to IPS so that they can use that waste to make the structures where the lifeguards will be located. This allows us to achieve a double purpose, on the one hand to remove a contaminant from the beach and; at the same time, put it to a profitable use”, said Bermúdez.

Innovative model

Otto André, partner of the IPS company, located in San Juan de San Ramón de Alajuela, stressed that the lifeguard structures meet all the technical specifications necessary for the work of these rescuers.

“Our process allows a real use of the thousands of tons of plastic waste that is generated in the country and that invades streets, fields, seas and rivers with disastrous consequences for the country”, added André.

This type of wood is the result of transforming recycled plastic into profiles, posts and tables that can also be recycled. With the pieces obtained, products focused on replacing the use of wood and other materials are built.

Its composition, with a large percentage of high and low density polyethylene, and polypropylene, makes the final product present a great structural resistance. The final products can be used in the same way as natural wood, mainly for outdoor use and saline environments, with numerous strengths.

One of the greatest advantages of plastic wood is its high resistance to weathering. Mainly in outdoor environments, there are factors such as insects, rain, humidity, excessive heat from the sun and the incidence of its UV rays and other climatic agents, which will expose the structures to strong temperature changes and extreme conditions that accelerate the deterioration of construction materials.