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Tactical Upcycling in Urban Informality: A Socio-Technical Analysis of Recycled Plastic Envelopes in Bhopal’s Transitional Settlements
Summary
This study examines how informal urban communities engage in tactical upcycling of waste materials — including plastics — through socio-technical networks that operate outside formal recycling systems. Drawing on case studies, it documents the knowledge, tools, and social structures that enable material recovery at small scales. The findings argue for recognizing and integrating informal upcycling practices into broader urban sustainability strategies.
Abstract - This research investigates “Tactical Upcycling” of the locally abundant, organic, recycled plastic waste, including but not limited to HDPE sheets, LDPE films, and discarded vinyl banners, employed at primary building envelope components within transitional urban housing. Shifting from lab-based experimental research, this study takes on a socio-technical perspective to record how the global poor in Bhopal leverage the material properties of the waste stream to adapt shelter to climatic extremes. The research methodology used is qualitative in nature, comprising of Photographical surveys, On-site mapping, Semi-structured Interview with residents of selected informal clusters in the study area. The qualitative research approach allows to study “Vernacular Performance” of plastic skins, which meant to measure the thermal lag, protect for moisture during monsoon and measure the passive cooling through the spontaneous layering. This research records “Architecture without Architects” responses as possible alternatives to conventional expectations of material performance, eventually proposing a frugal bottom-up sustainable cladding framework. These results imply that such informal practices could be very scalable low-cost climate-responsive design strategies and advocate for the formal integration of upcycled polymers in low-income housing policies in future prospective central India. Key Words: tactical upcycling, upcycled polymers, building envelope, recycled plastic waste, vernacular performance, passive cooling.