Marc Mirella-Sanchez kept playing with Lego after others stopped. In middle school, he was part of a Lego robotics team. But he never thought that something like Lego would be part of his life’s work.
When Marc came to UWaterloo as an environment and business student, he was shocked to learn that Canada uses less than 20% of the plastic that Canadians recycle, with the rest of it being shipped to other countries as trash. This also made him think of someone he met when he was volunteering with an NGO in Peru that built houses. This man had developed a business that turned any plastic into bricks that looked like oversized Lego pieces. The challenge the man faced was finding an adequate source of plastic.
In an instant, Marc realized that this brought many of his interests and experiences together. The next challenge was figuring out how to bring it all together. He began exploring various incubators at UWaterloo, but when he heard Director Tania Del Matto talk about GreenHouse, he realized this would be the ideal place to grow his environmental business.
With the help of GreenHouse mentors and fellow students, Marc realized he needed to really look at the problem, rather than immediately jumping to the solution. “My idea has changed in a positive way and has become much more specific,” Marc says, while acknowledging that sometimes he can’t sleep at night for thinking about all the possibilities for his business, Green Bricks.
“I hope that this will change our whole view on plastics so that we don’t have to be afraid of plastics in landfill or in oceans, that we will fully be able to recycle plastics and make a profit doing so. As corny as it sounds, running this business is my life goal.”