In 2001, Indian chemistry professor Rajagopalan Vasudevan recognized plastic’s binding qualities and invented (then patented) a plastic-bitumen road-laying method, which was used to pave roads across India, developing the world’s first plastic road by 2002. Since then, technologies have improved, and plastic roads can meet higher road standards, causing the concept to spread globally.
Now, Los Angeles is joining in on the action. Mayor Eric Garcetti is working with the road tech company TechniSoil Industrial to replace the city’s bus lanes and deteriorating asphalt with plastic roads that can be recycled at the end of their life.
How TechniSoil Is Replacing The Roads
Plastic waste that would end up in our oceans or a landfill is used as a replacement for bitumen, also known as asphalt (the oil-derived black sludge that binds standard roads together.)
Instead of removing the old asphalt, the new surface uses the asphalt that has already been laid, saving a considerable amount of carbon resources needed to bring in new and take away old asphalt.
More Durable, Longer Life
According to TechniSoil, lab tests verify that its roads are between 8 to 13 times more durable than regular roads, and expects its roads to have at least double the typical road’s lifecycle.
For every 1.5km two-way road, TechniSoil uses around 2,300kg of recycled PET plastic, equivalent to roughly 395K plastic bottles.
Sean Weaver, the CEO of TechniSoil, said:
We’re turning something meaningless into the single most valuable piece of infrastructure. We can consume all of the world’s waste plastic into our system, and we can do that within the next eight years. There is no other technology that can do that.
Several companies are using waste plastics to enhance their roads. Besides TechniSoil, these companies include:
- Scottish company MacRebur, which produces road products that replace part of the bitumen with waste plastic bits.
- Dow Chemical, which has worked alongside local governments across Thailand, India, and Indonesia, since 2017.
- Dutch company PlasticRoad makes roads entirely from plastic waste and has already had two successful trials in Giethoorn and Zwolle’s cities.
Environmental Concerns
Some environmentalists are concerned about whether these roads release microplastics and are encouraging caution. “Even if the roads are more resilient, you would assume that, especially if they are made completely from waste plastic, they will erode to some extent and that would contribute to a problem they’re supposed to be solving,” argued Libby Peake, Green Alliance’s head of resource policy.
However, MacRebur and TechniSoil quickly dismissed this argument on the basis that they’re transforming the plastic into its original oil-based state.
