Plastic roads

[A.J. Holst]

Pretty cool recycling application.

Video worth watching.

https://futurism.com/an-engineer-has-found-a-way-to-create-plastic-roads/

I  support recycling and do participate, including packaging at point of sale.

I support cheaper and longer lasting roads.

I support the fact the asphalt providers do not need new equipment or processes.

They went off the rails with the evil oil link. My B-i-L just retired after 36 years at Royal Dutch Shell, where if you ain't Dutch, you ain't much, so I caught the poke at Shell.

He may have a little conspiracy theory going, the cost of bitumen to the local asphalt plants mysteriously drops? Who knows?

If they had done a little Google search as I did...

Bitumen is a BY-PRODUCT of petrol distillation and that ain't stopping anytime soon.

If we remove a lot of  bitumen from roads, which consumes 70% of this by-product, what do you do with it?

Other than roads and roofing/waterproofing, no one is thinking up new and amazing ways to use this nasty, oozing black gunk.

[xsubsailor]

 This engineer is a day late and dollar short. This article is from 2009.

 

Plastic Roads Offer Greener Way to Travel in India

 

NEW DELHI, INDIA — In the 1990s, Ahmed Khan’s company in Bangalore, India, churned out hundreds of thousands of plastic bags and other packaging material each month that eventually ended up as garbage. Now, he is in the business of scouring the city’s landfills and trash cans to reclaim some of that waste and pave the way to a more environmentally friendly enterprise.

Mr. Khan, 60, is trying to solve two of the biggest problems in India: battered roads and overflowing landfills. His solution: streets made with recycled plastic.

Mr. Khan’s company, K.K. Plastic Waste Management, which he founded with his brother, Rasool Khan, has built more than 1,200 kilometers, or 745 miles, of roads using 3,500 tons of plastic waste, primarily in Bangalore, India’s technology and outsourcing hub.

Mixing plastic with asphalt, Mr. Khan forms a compound called polymerized bitumen. When used in roads, it withstands monsoons and everyday wear and tear better than traditional pavement.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/business/global/14plastic.html

[gregintenn]

Two things:

1) plastics are also made from oil

2) a plastic road would be one slick mutha when wet!

[nightrunner]

Think of the smell when doing burnouts on it!