Plastic bottles by the side of a road are a common sight, an unseemly reminder of how often consumer products are discarded carelessly.A California company has devised a process that integrates recycled plastic into road repaving, an innovation that could revolutionize the industry while yielding environmental benefits.
There’s no heat involved in the operation, which essentially replaces the traditional binder – bitumen, a leftover from refining oil – with a sturdier plastic composite. The other elements of asphalt, such as crushed rock, gravel, sand and filler, remain in place. The city intended to try it under field conditions in March, introducing a newly repaved street in front of the iconic Disney Concert Hall with a ceremony featuring Mayor Eric Garcetti, but those plans were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.
They can also be used to make fleece jackets and carpets, which provide higher value than blending them into roads, said Ted Siegler, a principal in the Vermont consulting firm DSM Environmental Services.
Sure hope this actually works. Less that 10% of plastics created from inception have been recycled. But it's almost impossible to be a consumer and not routinely buy products in plastic containers.
It will be interesting to see if they hold up better than regular black top.
Could that be why it’s falling apart?
Nothing new
GOOD
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