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  [23]Future Planet | [24]Future Planet
  Could plastic roads make for a smoother ride?
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  (Image credit: Getty Images)
  India generates more than 3.3 million tonnes of waste plastic a year
  (Credit: Getty Images)
  By Chermaine Lee3rd March 2021
  From lower carbon emissions to fewer potholes, there are a number of
  benefits to building a layer of plastic into roads.
  O

  On a road into New Delhi, countless cars a day speed over tonnes of
  plastic bags, bottle tops and discarded polystyrene cups. In a single
  kilometre, a driver covers one tonne of plastic waste. But far from
  being an unpleasant journey through a sea of litter, this road is
  smooth and well-maintained – in fact the plastic that each driver
  passes over isn't visible to the naked eye. It is simply a part of the
  road.

  This road, stretching from New Delhi to nearby Meerut, was laid using a
  system developed by Rajagopalan Vasudevan, a professor of chemistry at
  the Thiagarajar College of Engineering in India, which replaces 10% of
  a road's bitumen with repurposed plastic waste.

  India has been leading the world in experimenting with plastic-tar
  roads since the early 2000s. But a growing number of countries are
  beginning to follow suit. From [27]Ghana to the Netherlands, building
  plastic into roads and pathways is helping to save carbon emissions,
  keep plastic from the oceans and landfill, and improve the
  life-expectancy of the average road.

  By 2040, there is set to be [28]1.3 billion tonnes of plastic in the
  environment globally. India alone already generates [29]more than 3.3
  million tonnes of plastic a year – which was one of the motivators
  behind [30]Vasudevan's system for incorporating waste into roads.

  It has the benefit of being a very simple process, requiring little
  high-tech machinery. First, the shredded plastic waste is scattered
  onto an aggregate of crushed stones and sand before being heated to
  about 170C – hot enough to melt the waste. The melted plastics then
  coat the aggregate in a thin layer. Then heated bitumen is added on
  top, which helps to solidify the aggregate, and the mixture is
  complete.

  Many different types of plastics can be added to the mix: carrier bags,
  disposable cups, hard-to-recycle multi-layer films and polyethylene and
  polypropylene foams have all found their way into India's roads, and
  they don't have to be sorted or cleaned before shredding.

  As well as ensuring these plastics don't go to landfill, incinerator or
  the ocean, there is some evidence that the plastic also helps the road
  function better. [31]Adding plastic to roads appears to slow their
  deterioration and minimise potholes. The plastic content improves the
  surface's flexibility, and after 10 years Vasudevan's earliest plastic
  roads showed no signs of potholes. Though as many of these roads are
  still relatively young, their long-term durability remains to be
  tested.

  By [32]Vasudevan's calculations, incorporating the waste plastic
  instead of incinerating it also saves three tonnes of carbon dioxide
  for every kilometre of road. And [33]there are economic benefits too,
  with the incorporation of plastic resulting in savings of roughly $670
  (£480) per kilometre of road.
  New roads in India built near large urban centres are mandated to use
  waste plastic in their construction (Credit: Getty Images)

  New roads in India built near large urban centres are mandated to use
  waste plastic in their construction (Credit: Getty Images)

  In 2015, the [34]Indian government made it mandatory for plastic waste
  to be used in constructing roads near large cities of more than 500,000
  people, after Vasudevan gave his patent for the system to the
  government for free. A single lane of ordinary road requires 10 tonnes
  of bitumen per kilometre, and with India laying [35]thousands of
  kilometres of roads a year, the potential to put plastic waste to use
  quickly adds up. [36]So far, 2,500km (1,560 miles) of these plastic-tar
  roads have been laid in the country.

  "Plastic-tar road can withstand both heavy load and heavy traffic,"
  says Vasudevan. "[It is] not affected by rain or stagnated water."

  Similar projects have emerged around the world. The chemicals firm Dow
  has been implementing projects using polyethylene-rich recycled
  plastics in the US and Asia Pacific. [37]The first in the UK was built
  in Scotland in 2019 by the plastic road builder MacRebur, which has
  laid plastic roads [38]from Slovakia to South Africa.

  MacRebur has also found that incorporating plastic improves roads'
  flexibility, helping them cope better with expansion and contraction
  due to temperature changes, leading to fewer potholes – and where
  potholes do happen, [39]filling them in with waste plastic otherwise
  destined for landfill is a quick fix. The [40]UK government recently
  announced £1.6m for research on plastic roads to help fix and prevent
  potholes.
  The plastic that goes into roads would otherwise go to landfill or the
  incinerator (Credit: MacRebur)

  The plastic that goes into roads would otherwise go to landfill or the
  incinerator (Credit: MacRebur)

  In the Netherlands, [41]PlasticRoad built the world's first
  recycled-plastic cycle path in 2018, and recorded its millionth
  crossing in late May 2020. The company shredded, sorted and cleaned
  plastic waste collected locally, before extracting polypropylene from
  the mix – the kind of plastic typically found in festival mugs,
  cosmetics packaging, bottle caps and plastic straws.

  Unlike the plastic-tar roads laid in India, the UK and elsewhere,
  PlasticRoad doesn't use any bitumen at all. "[PlasticRoad] consists
  almost entirely of recycled plastic, with only a very thin layer of
  mineral aggregate on the top deck," says Anna Koudstaal, the company's
  co-founder.

  Each square metre of the plastic cycle path incorporates more than 25kg
  of recycled plastic waste, which cuts carbon emission by up to 52%
  compared to manufacturing a conventional tile-paved bike path,
  Koudstaal says.

  But once the plastic is inside a path or road – how do you make sure it
  stays there? Might the plastic content be worn down into
  [42]microplastics that pollute soil, water and air?

  [43]Ordinary roads, tyres and car brakes are already known to be a
  major source of microplastic pollution. Koudstaal says that
  plastic-containing paths do not produce more microplastics than a
  traditional road, as users don't come into direct contact with the
  plastic.
  Plastic bags can be hard to recycle, but they are an ideal ingredient
  for plastic in roads (Credit: Alamy)

  Plastic bags can be hard to recycle, but they are an ideal ingredient
  for plastic in roads (Credit: Alamy)

  The other potential point where microplastics could be released from
  the paths is from below: [44]the paths are designed to allow rainwater
  to filter through them, trickling down through a drainage system
  beneath the path's surface. But Koudstaal says microplastics are
  unlikely to leave this way either: "The bike paths include a filter
  that cleans out microplastics, and ensure rainwater infiltrates into
  the ground cleanly."

  Gurmel Ghataora, senior lecturer at the department of civil engineering
  at the University of Birmingham, agrees that using plastics in the
  lower surfaces of the road minimises the risk of generating additional
  microplastics. "It is inevitable that such particles may be generated
  [at surface level] due to traffic wear," he says.

  With India home to one of the world's largest road networks, growing at
  a rate of nearly 10,000km of roads a year, the potential to put plastic
  waste to use is considerable. Though this technology is relatively new
  for India, and indeed the rest of the world, Vasudevan is confident
  that plastic roads will continue to gain popularity, not only for
  environmental reasons, but for their potential to make longer-lasting,
  more resilient roads.

  --

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